The Sims 1 & 2: Legacy Collection Review – Still Sul Sul Good
Summary: The Sims 1 & 2: Legacy Collection - A walk down Sims "memory" Lane
3.5
Nostalgic
The Sims 1 & 2: Legacy Collection are a much needed and long awaited reminder that the classic Sims PC games are still as unique, genre-defining, and addictive as ever.
Courtesy of EA, ImpulseGamer got Early Access to both The Sims: Legacy Collection and The Sims 2: Legacy Collection re-releases ahead of their surprise launch, and have had plenty of time to dive into both games in their immediate post-release. Both collections include the base game (The Sims 1 and The Sims 2) and all officially released expansion and stuff packs for their respective titles, which is a huge boon for both fans and newbies who never managed to experience all the high-quality content that was released for both games over several years. Both collections can even be bought together via The Sims 25th Birthday Bundle.
As a Millennial raised on hours of creating dysfunctional Sim families, this is my homecoming. But are the Legacy Collections worth buying for new and returning Sims fans? It’s complicated.
To those completely unfamiliar with why these games are such a big deal, the high demand for modern versions of The Sims and The Sims 2 is for good reason beyond just nostalgia. The Sims 1 never received a re-release on digital storefronts until now, which forced fans to hunt down original physical CD copies to play it, while The Sims 2 did receive an Ultimate Collection on Origin (now the EA App) but was delisted soon after. This meant both games and their expansion packs have been fairly inaccessible for most people for several years – until now.
So, are these drastic remasters, or faithful re-releases?
Booting up both games, it’s clear that EA’s focus was on preserving the original experience and optimizing the games with under-the-hood updates to work better on modern PCs and operating systems. There is no new content, systems or revised user interface to be found here, at least from what I’ve seen; these are the original experiences of The Sims and The Sims 2 and their expansions in (most) of their glory, for better or worse. That means the core gameplay and visuals are exactly the same, and the bugs and quirks also remain. If you only care about being able to purchase and play the original games in their original state, then this is ideal. But new and returning fans that expect more drastic updates may need to temper their expectations.
For instance, The Sims: Legacy Collection still loads the neighbourhood map in its original 4:3 aspect ratio (black bars, no widescreen) and only offers standard toggles (Low, Medium, High) for shadow, lighting, texture and effects quality. However, the game now loads super fast, its frame-rate is consistent (Sims animations are still at 30fps, though), and abnormal crashes and graphical glitches which occurred when playing the original The Sims on anything past Windows XP seem to be a thing of the past. When you enter Live Mode and Build Mode (the actual gameplay), The Sims now scales the game’s 3D elements (the Sims themselves and certain objects) and the pre-rendered sprites and in-game user interface (status bars, etc) to your computer’s resolution, which is something the original versions needed mods to make possible on modern hardware. Perhaps the biggest technical change is the introduction of official support for Vulkan API for the first game, which is explained (along with all the other technical tweaks) in very in-depth terms by Riperiperi over on GitHub. This shift means better forward compatibility for running the game on future OSs and hardware, though it’s also the reason why the minimum system requirements for The Sims: Legacy Collection are higher than what one would expect.
Playing The Sims: Legacy Collection at 1440p, the result was nice, but not revolutionary. The high resolution support means character models and sprites look extremely sharp when zoomed in, while the rest of the game looks fairly identical to the original experience, and the UI bar doesn’t scale as well as I had hoped. However, it didn’t take me long to appreciate the simpler nature of the original’s graphics, with its distinct turn-of-the-century meets retro fusion art-style, pre-rendered backgrounds, and isometric camera viewing perspective looking as good as ever.
The Sims 2: Legacy Collection is the bigger victory in terms of technical improvements. Even if you owned the The Ultimate Collection or all of the retail CD packs back in the day, getting The Sims 2 running to a satisfactory degree was a chore, with both official and unofficial patches required for expansion pack compatibility, general bug fixing, 4GB large address aware support (the original game only allowed for 2GB of RAM to be used), modern CPU compatibility and high resolution/widescreen support. It’s not hard to imagine my joy when I was able to boot straight into the game with all official expansions installed and no tinkering required to start playing, though the load times are still a bit naff. The graphics and performance options are largely the same, with refresh rates up to 100hz and toggles for object and texture detail, lighting, effects, reflections and shadows. Playing the game at max settings at 1440p without FPS stuttering or compromise is a bit of a dream come true after only ever experiencing The Sims 2 on crappy integrated graphics cards of the 2000s, and I’m sure that will ring true for many returning fans.
Even after all of these years, the core gameplay loop of both The Sims and The Sims 2 is just as compelling and time-consuming as they were on release, and the amount of content that each expansion pack, now all included in one convenient purchase, brings to the table is staggering.
The first game is far simpler by today’s standards, it’s true, but its quirky Y2K tone (the mysterious phone calls and whimsical soundtrack are so damn good) and emphasis on tending to your individual Sims’ everyday needs honestly feel refreshing when compared to modern titles or the micromanagement and open-world approach of the third entry. Having access to official expansions like Makin’ Magic and Hot Date for the first time also feels like a revelation to the first game’s breadth of content compared to my memories of its original launch, and I bet there will be plenty of returning fans and curious new ones who will experience the same thing here. It’s also just damn good to have official, legal, easy access to the game which started it all.
However, it’s The Sims 2: Legacy Collection that is the bigger gift from this 25th anniversary surprise launch, in my opinion. The Sims 2 was revolutionary for just how far it pushed the simulation genre and extensively built upon the foundational gameplay mechanics from the first game, and it easily still shows today in this much needed re-release. The sheer level of detail, from the Sims’ animations to their facial expressions to the number of interactions Sims can have with the world and each other, is still so impressive that it’s not insane to say that it definitely gives The Sims 4 a run for its money when compared side-by-side (if you don’t believe me, watch the comparison video embedded below).
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That’s not even yet including the endless amount of added content from its eight official expansions, many of which I got to dive into for the first time. Seasons, Apartment Life and Open for Business add-ons in particular bring substantial new gameplay mechanics that have made my head spin in terms of the range of fun new options (dynamic weather, whole new living scenarios for neighborhoods and public lots, playable careers) and the time it would take to actually experience it all (challenge accepted).
Where these new re-releases have stumbled is the number of unexpected new bugs (in addition to the many old bugs that have seemingly never been officially fixed by EA) that have emerged and occurred post-release, some of which I have unfortunately experienced or attempted to replicate upon hearing of them. The Sims 1’s move to Vulkan API for rendering has led to a number of system crashes and memory issues for many players on older hardware, though I did not have that problem playing on a Ryzen 3600 CPU and RTX 3060 TI GPU. I unfortunately ran into many issues when playing The Sims 2, ranging from annoying to outright game-breaking, such as unusually long loading times when moving between neighbourhoods, horribly compressed audio quality for Sims voices, and getting stuck in the custom CC menu.
EA have officially recognized and attended to several of these bugs in two post-launch patches, with more serious bugs such as Sims getting deleted, events not playing out and save-file corruption continuing to plague many players in the Sims community. It’s hard not to feel like the surprise re-releases could have waited a few more months for EA to identify these unexpected problems, even if it meant having to miss the 25th Anniversary date, because most of these issues are unacceptable and having to use mods to fix them, even temporarily, shouldn’t be a thing for buyers.
The other major fumble for the new Legacy Collections is the missing content, presumably due to the expiration of licensing partnerships. While not integral to the gameplay experience, new and returning fans miss out on the full original package. The Sims 2: Legacy Collection lacks the Ikea Home Stuff add-on pack, eight music tracks and a few missing Holiday items, while The Sims: Legacy Collection oddly keeps many of its celebrity-themed add-ons but lacks a few promotional in-game object items released by Maxis in the 2000s. Modders have already written GitHub guides on how to restore the missing content unofficially, but the point of buying these collections is to get the full package without needing to tinker. This defeats their main selling point, and does lower the overall value of the re-releases for returning fans that can’t be ignored.
The Final Verdict
All in all, both Legacy collections are an eye-opening reminder that we once got far more bang for our buck with older Sims titles. While the two re-releases aren’t perfect in terms of bugs, missing content and a few technical quirks, both games remain as fun as they ever were and the benefit of having new, legal ways to purchase them on modern digital game store-fronts cannot be understated. I really hope EA pays attention to fan feedback to these re-releases and learns some lessons from the past to improve the value of future patches, content and technical enhancements.
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About the Author
Nathan Misa A senior writer for ImpulseGamer.com and former writer for MMGN and Ninemsn, Nathan has been reviewing video games and interviewing talented developers since 2012. As a nostalgia tragic eternally tied to the glorious 1990s, he's always playing retro gaming classics whenever he's not entrenched in the latest RPG, or talking your ear off about why The First Law book series is better than Game of Thrones - to anyone who dares listen.
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