These games are both very good, and they beat Sims one by a LOT. Its hard to pick just one. I do think I like TS3 a LITTLE better, only for the more advanced CAS, open world aspect, and story progression. But TS2 has its classic neighborhoods and I like the CAS. Also I feel like TS2 has a lot more clothing content and hairstyles. Even with just the base, you get good content. And TS2 runs a lot smoother on older computers. I also like the interactions. But its not like TS3 doesn't have good interactions. They're both very good. If you're trying to decide, think about what your computer can handle. If you have a Windows XP (I do) TS3 is kind of laggy. I don't have TS2 yet, but I've played it, and It will probably run smoother.

I honestly prefer sims 2, though I play them both a lot. Sims 2 feels more natural and smooth and well, sturdy. There are so many things borked up about sims 3 that sometimes I forget that it's not an alpha/beta version of the game. I tend to call it the "one some people don't wanna talk about.", lol.

There are things I like about both games, but the sims 2 is my favorite. I just feel like the sims 2 has personality, when I play it I feel like anything can happen at anytime. Where as with the sims 3 I feel like the only way something out of the ordinary happens is if I really push to make it happen. I enjoyed the sims 3 with it's open neighborhood, but it came at the expense of not having many sims on the lot that you went to. Whenever you go to any lot on the sims 2 plenty of sims show up and it makes you feel like this is an active community. My one biggest gripe about the sims 3 was how the traits you chose for your sim never really seemed to matter. It was supposed to add personality and make every sim unique, but at the end of the day everyone almost felt the same to me. It didn't matter if another sim had all the opposite traits of my sim, if I wanted to date that sim I could just keep on flirting until the bar was high enough and then make my move. Where as the sims 2 had compatibility (with the night life expansion) and there were some sims that it just wasn't going to work with. I think the groundwork for the sims 3 was there but it wasn't quite executed. Delay the sims 3 by a year and I think all their hard work would've paid off, no bugs and better open neighborhood. It's why I'm both happy and upset the sims 4 is in a sense taking a step back to the sims 2. The sims 2 provided a good blue print for a great sequel, however the sims 3 added some great features that just weren't done properly. It's a shame to see EA just kind of leave behind what they did with the sims 3 instead of improving it with the sims 4. Time will tell though, we are still awhile away from release. Just realized I said "sims" way too much

The sims 3 seemed really great, but after I played it, it just fell apart. I couldn't sroll, it was slow, and my sims never really did anything. Sims 2 is, and always will be, my favorite sims game to play.

Before I made my decision I wanted to wait till I played both games in full so that I could get a general feel of both, aaaand... I prefer The Sims 2, Sure Sims 3 graphics may be better, ( I still love Ts2 graphics anyway) but the gameplay is the ultimate decision for me. Sims 3 has oh so many amazing features but that's it, after you played with all the new shiny features the game feels shallow. Sims 2 may not have all these cool new features but the game play depth is there, the little things. I feel the same about the original game as well, even though I don't play it as much. It's still installed on my computer because every once in awhile I get the need.

I do like Sims 3, but it doesn't keep me interested long enough. I don't get attached to my Sims because I feel like I don't have total control over them or over the whole game. I like to micromanage. There's small things like the rabbit holes, the fact that there's no car animations, no fears etc. That just add up and bug me. So I won't be spending much time on TS3 as I have the previous series and will be sticking to TS2 and stalking TS4 updates.

Sims 2 natch. I just can't get attached to my Sims 3 sims. I kept going back to three to give it a chance but I would hate it. I only liked the traits system and CAS feature. That was awesome. Other than that, it bored me. The fact that 3 had no fears made the game way too easy.

I have both sims 2 and Sims 3 and I can honestly say I much prefer Sims 2.
Although it takes me about 1 whole real day to do 1 sim-day in my rotation neighborhood of 70 houses - and in the same amount of time I can do like 2 or 3 generations in sims 3, I just prefer it. I get more time to give my sims real characters and personalities and all their little storylines. Whereas in Sims 3, by the time I have a little story planned out for them *poof* they're adults and off having 4 'love interests' that are the most ugliest sims ever. I wanted Mortimer and Bella to go out - but by the time I got round to playing them, They both already had children... with themselves...

Secondly, I don't like the faces. None of the faces really appeal to me and when I try to make my own with the sliders, all my sims just end up looking weird. The Sims in my rotation neighborhood in Sims 2 all sims look completely different; Lyric Potter with his larger eyes, fat nose, thin lips and thin jawline looks completely different to another one of my sims, say, Heather Doo - with her small thin nose, low eyebrows, her mother (Brandi LeTourneau)'s eye shape and large lips. Quite frankly if they had children together, it'd probably be one of the prettiest sims in my whole game... or the spawn of satan. And I like that. I had all kinds of random sims have children in sims 3, and they all just looked too normal. They all had pretty faces - that all looked so much like playdoh. Not very defined at all. I just don't like it.

Also, random spawning babies and disappearing sims - Seriously, why? I had my simself's family, and my little sister had just become an adult a bit ago, and I left the household to play my simself's house, and I come back: Boom random baby. Not even with her boyfriend (Christopher Steel)... she in fact had a random baby with herself (and to add on - I presume my little sister is going to become a punk when she gets older so I dyed her simself's hair purple when she reached her teens - and her child had purple hair too! That shouldn't be genetic!) and then I left to play my brother's simself for a little bit, went back to the house containing my mother, youngest brother and youngest sister (and her randomly spawned son, Chian) and they were gone! They had just disappeared! It was terrible. I got so irritated I stopped playing for a while, that was honestly the last straw for me up until recently when my old laptop broke and my boyfriend let me play his and told me I could install Sims 3 but not Sims 2.

Furthermore, When all these children grow up, most of the time they don't even move out. I have so many generations of Goth family in one house that the youngests Sanid Goth and Casandra Goth (I didn't name either of them) didn't even recognize each other as family members and seemed quite flirty with eachother. I would've thought they'd move out by the 4th generation (from Mortimer) of spawning clones of themselves... (and sometimes I have families completely die off (Alto) and then completely random sims move into their big house and that's just as annoying!)

I mean, I can see why people like it. Theres quite a lot to do, and since playing 10 generations of a family I named the 'Williams' - doing all kinds with them including making a farm, getting ghosts, having children with the ghost of a repairman, turning the ghosts into humans, etc etc, I have actually searched ebay for expansion packs (kinda interested in university, seeing as my laptop can't play sims 2 uni - and maybe supernatural) but all in all, the only reason I actually play it is because I don't have all my expansion packs since moving out, and even if I did, my laptop just does. not. like. Sims 2.

Oh and another point - Why do random old people appear from nowhere / randomly move in with my sims? WHY does this happen!? I hate old people couples, I find them super boring and useless.

I've played all three interations and Sims 2 is definitely the best for me. Like others have said, micromanaging is much easier with 2 than 3. Faces, clothing and such are better I find in Sims 2 as well.

3 tends to chug too much and the entire game feels too retailed. The microtransactions (which I've just figured yo can hide from the buy panels) bother me too much and I can't figure out how to make a new neighbourhood

The Sims 3 feels like it's trying to be intuitive but half the time it feels like it's holding my hand and the other half feels like I can't do what I want to do (new neighbourhoods etc.)

You need a separate tool called Create-a-World (CAW for short) to create new worlds in Sims 3. From what I've read its a major pain in the ass so I've never tried to download it or use it to create new worlds. You can't just create a new world in the game itself.

I loaded up Sims 3 yesterday after playing Sims 2 for months. I had forgotten that when I click on a building, I can't really go in it because it's only a rabbit hole. It just made me sad.

What? I mean, what? That's ridiculous.

Sorry Sims 3, you've gone down another notch Sims 2 master game!!

I actually really enjoyed using CAW for awhile... BUT my machine got way too hot. Rflong, on the main site, mentioned burning out 3, count 'em, Three - graphics cards, and she's a master world builder. So, nope, no more world building with CAW for me. It's so too bad about the whole thing. Too many things that just go unfixed or ignored give me little hope for Sims 4.

Ugh, that really sucks. I'm building a new rig right now for gaming (really for Sims 2 (and the future story for my Sims in 2) and hopefully Sims 4 if it's good). I'm really really really hoping Sims 4 is somewhat good. If it's better than 3 then I'll be happy.

Well, at least it will run your Sims 2 awesomely, Ari.

I totally agree with this. In the sims 3, you don't really see variety in the sims faces until they become teenagers or young adults.

Here is my two cents about the sims 2 vs sims 3

To me, the sims 2 is more fun than the sims 3 for many different reasons.

1. The sims in the sims 2 were more expressive.

The biggest problem with the sims 3 is that the sims are robots. In the sims 2, the sims would react to both your commands and to other sims around them. when you told them to clean, they may cheer or or groan depending on their personality. Children would cry when their parents fought, or would be embarrassed/worried if one of their parents passed out (due to lack of energy).

2. Personality meant more in the sims 2.

I love all the various traits in the sims 3, but most of the traits were very shallow. Personality in the sims 2 was more limited (less choices), but at the same time more deep. If you were sloppy in the sims 2, not only would you burp and fart more, but you would make more messes, groan when told to clean, mix food and eat differently (different animations), have the option to salvage (or eat) out of trashcans, gain cleaning skill slower, and lots of other various things.

3. Animations were more interesting

It is no questions that the animations in the sims 2 are better. First off every interaction in the sims 2 has a unique animation associated with it. In the sims 3, several interactions (mostly talking ones) use the same animation. Secondly, certain interactions had variety in the animation. When sims did the "make out" interactions, sims would kiss, but also occasionally rub against each other or grab each other. When sims chatted, they would vary the animation depending on what they were talking about.

4. The game was more difficult "in a good way"

One thing that bugs me about the sims 3 is how easy the game is. It is almost impossible for your sims to die of hunger or pass out due to lack of energy, and this gets rid of some of the challenge. In the sims 2 when your energy bar was depleted, you had to act quickly or your sim would pass out. Furthermore you had to fulfill your sims wishes or they would slowly start to go into aspirations failure and act crazy.

5. Younger life stages were more fun.

The younger life stages in the sims 3 don't have much going for them. Luckily this was fixed in generations, seasons, and other various expansion packs. Still, the younger life stages in the sims 2 are more fun. Sims 2 toddlers are like sims 3 toddlers, except they have the added bonus of getting into more mischief (playing in toilets, splashing in puddles, eating sand or dog food, occasionally puking on sims when being tossed into the air.) Sims 2 children have a lot less restrictions than sims 3 children. They are able to learn every skill (except for some talent badges), and can use most interactive objects [they can even play piano]. At the same time however, they still can act like children playing games with other children and adults. Teens are actually done better in the sims 3 (if you have the sims 3 generations). The mood swings, pranks, and teen parties make them more fun in that game.

6. Sims can interact with each other more.

The best part of the sims 2 is the interactions between sims. Not only do sims have a whole extra set of play interactions with each other, but many of the interactive objects in the sims 2 can be used in groups. Furthermore, it is really easy to get sims to do things together. When you are using almost any group interactive objects, you have the option to tell other sims to join you (which is great to get sims you don't control to interact with you sim.).

7. Miscellaneous other stuff.

There is also other various things (of which there are too many to list).
Here are a few of them
> Sims don't teleport into cars.
> When sims do any kind of dance (that isn't the regular dance), the sims will synch with each other.
> sims more likely to automatically hang out with each other, rather than run off and do their own thing.

I totally understand how people could enjoy the sims 3 though. I have the sims 3 and all expansion packs, and at time it can be vary enjoyable. You just need to have a different mindset when playing the game, and enjoy the game for the things it does right (open neighborhood, professions, more control at work, etc.

I have both games and I really enjoy them. However, if I -had- to choose, I'd go with TS2. The only thing I'd really miss from TS3 is the coloring/create-a-style tool..

TS2 is my baby. I have TS3 in other platforms but I'm struggling as to if I want to get it for PC. This thread helps a lot and I'm glad TS2 still gets some love and isn't just tossed to the trash heap cuz it's "old"

I love both the Sims 2 and the Sims 3 honestly. However,

The Skill Set is Manageable Vs. OMG YOUR KIDDING
The former describes the Sims 2. Seven skills to learn, get your Sims in a good mood, and skill! Or, take advantage of the move-in good mood and get the cooking skill first (my opinion, or have the family skill on a wide scale), and then go from there. In the Sims 3, there is 28. Yeah. If you wanted a point in each skill, there are classes but what if your Sim has a certain profession? They could be the smartest Sim of all Sim kind and yet they can burn down their house because they didn't have time to learn to cook.

University
In the Sims 2, if you had the good skills, grades, hidden skills, etc. You got a scholarship. Even if you didn't, you could still head off to Uni, but just Dorm it up for a while. Meanwhile, in The Sims 3 University Life, you have to take the aptitude test and if you fail, it's just depressing. But even if you do manage to get a little bit of credit, it still feels bad. Where as in The Sims 2, it was fine and peachy (or at least I think).

Lag
In The Sims 2, I have decent lag. CC, Mods, the usual suspects. In The Sims 3 . Now hear me out on this one. If you have ellacharmed's World Fixes, then your lag is cut drastically. CAS will still lag (so many outfits...) and the game will still have some lag, but get the world fixes. Besides Twallan's mods, the World Fixes actually make the game playable and myself, along with the Sims 3 community, are glad for that.

Overall I'm a Sims 2 fan at heart. If it came down to just vanilla (no mods and/or CC) gaming, I'd choose 2 over 3 any day. Even with Mods/CC- 2 wins again. But The Sims 3 is my guilty pleasure .

Honestly, Sims 2. it may be because Sims 3 doesn't seem to work on any of my 5 laptops...but I did enjoy Sims 3 but not as much as I did with Sims 2, I still play 2 daily.
Though i'm looking forward to Sims 4.

Same with me. I have the Sims 3 on console. I got the game as a present in 2011. Two and a half years later, and I've barely played it. This is totally unlike the time I played Sims 1 on Game Cube. I played the game for weeks straight. It greatly whetted my appetite for Sims 2, to the point that when it was time for a new PC, whether it could easily play 2 was a dealbreaker. So I know it's not because the console version of Sims games bore me.

The only thing I miss from Sims 3 is blowing up my neighbor's cars with the detonator.

Personally, after playing both for years, I still love sims 2. I used to love sims 3 when I only had the base game, and would play for hours, but now that I played again with exp packs, I think it looked better on my memories. It's just so laggy, mermaids, ghosts and horses are the only reason I played, but, you know, it lacks something that sims 2 has, such as creating stories. I think I stay with sims 2.

A few advantages that the Sims 3 has over TS2:

- An actual workable inventory. You don't need a build/buy mod to use laptops on community lots. You can rearrange things!
- Actual storage options, instead of just sticking everything on shelves.
- The worlds are really pretty to look at.
- Different skills (instruments, writing, painting) are actually separate from each other rather than being lumped under a generic 'creativity.'
- Customizable lifespans without dealing with mods.
- Create-a-Style is fun (although a bit too easy to get carried away).
- There's a lot of different things to do.
- Horses!

Things I don't like, though:
- The lag. The LAG. After telling my Sims to use the toilet, they stand around for five minutes to contemplate that request, before starting off to the bathroom. The game freezes twice along the way. Then they stand in front of the toilet for another five minutes staring at it before deciding to sit down. Makes all my Sims seem slightly mentally deficient. I guess this is from trying to simulate an entire neighbourhood at once.
- The removal of the personality points. Having just traits alone makes Sims all feel like caricatures. My ideal system would be a combination of the two, with different traits becoming available as you adjust the personality points. (For instance, a lazy Sim wouldn't have the 'athletic' trait available).
- Noncontrollable Sims standing in the middle of the park sobbing because they're hungry. You can't temporarily control them to make them go home - you can only add them to the household. It's frustrating.
- The lag!
- Everyone looks like the inbred (inbread?) descendant of the Pillsbury Doughboy. Some people can make nice looking Sims in 3. I am not one of them.
- You can get new clothes without having to purchase them. Seems a bit too easy.
- University felt like constantly trying to catch up. Every second of the day you weren't actively studying, your grade kept dropping. It was not fun.
- Did I mention the lag?

I find that TS2 and TS3 require different playing styles for me. During the rare times I play TS3, I usually only play one household and cause mayhem around town, so it suits Homeless Challenges and the like a bit more. I tend to be more of a deviant with TS3 since it has features that make it easier such as detonation and Inappropriate trait.

TS3 has some great ideas:

• CASt - Finally, I can create the most hideous park known to Simland with sims in matching uniforms!
• The worlds are aesthetically pleasing. I don't usually play cities, but Bridgeport looks nice, for example.
• additional and separate skills - Mozart doesn't automatically equate to being Picasso anymore.
• toggles for features, life states, and whatnot (although some added later, such as after your lawn has already been raided by zombies)
• organized inventory that's accessible everywhere
• greater variety of animals out and about, especially arsonist unicorns
• random disasters like meteor strikes for the deviant in me
• more activities (teaching teens to drive, changing your name at the city hall, etc.)
• wider variety of aspirations

If anything, I'd say that it was overambitious in certain respects (remembering your 167th trip to the bookstore). However...

• I'm not a fan of traits. It turns sims into wacky oversimplifications and less like simulations of people, whose traits are more like sliders than anything. I can understand perhaps Vegetarian and the like, though not Brave and Cowardly, which are better represented by a scale. If they must have traits, I'd rather not dispense with sliders for personality points.
• As mentioned by some other posters, I find it difficult to create grown-up burritos visually distinct sims to my liking and sometimes find CASt overwhelming due to the sheer number of chaotic options I can create. This isn't always a bad thing and I think it's actually a good feature for a sandbox game.
• I like challenges, but I find that TS3 is less testing than TS2 at least when it comes to needs, money, and overall sim happiness, given the lack of fears.
• The animations aren't as meaningful to me, perhaps because some of them were recycled from TS2 and didn't have much in the way of variety.
• The notification bar typically tells me the apparent tone of the conversation instead of showing it through body language and/or facial expressions.
• The routing could use some work; it's given me some laughs like when sims ran across lakes to get to the other side, but at the same time, please don't do so when you're about to be scolded for being late to school while on your way to school or when you're about to give birth.
• I find it a bit difficult to control several sims at once, especially if some of them have active careers and others are off who knows where in town just to eat the ice cream they bought by their house. And then if you click on their icon, it will lag to their location.
• I'm not particularly fond of the moodlet system.
• The rabbit holes are disappointing. I guess it was done to make the open world function more smoothly, yet it somewhat takes away from the immersion. I guess they'll date here in the park and eat the leftovers from their inventory if I don't want to leave them inside the restaurant. To be fair, it's convenient when you have other sims to look after.
• There's the lagging, at least for me. It can be hilarious when you're on fire and need the shower yet proceed to stare at it first, but not so when you have to change your clothes, which is at least fixable by pausing the game to allow it to process.

Things I prefer about TS2:

• I like TS2 apartments despite the occasional bugginess. At least I can have 4 households instead of just one and they can go in and out of each other's rooms.
• better retail system
• the genetics system - one of the main reasons I don't play multiple generations in TS3
• I don't play the premades often and you don't have to follow the prompts and can edit them to your liking, but the effort put into into their scripted events, wants, fears, histories, and relationships is commendable (at least for the BG hoods).
• Fears add a layer of dimension to your sims.
• One thing I noticed that's distinct from the later iterations of the game was that teleporting sims into a location had to be done with a degree of attention, because the AI is so swift that TS2 sims will almost automatically find something to do before you can control them, whether it be going after the TV or poking an enemy. Even if they just sit on the couch, at least they initiated an action instead of staring off into space for a while. They also have better routing.
• TS2 doesn't have as many mechanics, but what it does have are great, such as the dating mini-game.

Don't get me wrong - there's probably no such thing as a perfect game, TS2 has its fair share of hiccups (Thunderstorm? Time to hit the hot tub outside!) and there are mods to fix mistakes in both games that should've been corrected by EA. Mostly, it's the AI and the sims themselves that make the biggest difference to me. If I can sum it up, it's more that I play TS3 for the world and TS2 for the sims, if that makes any sense. There's something special about the TS2 sims that I can't explain that has kept me around all these years.

Pretty much how I see it too.