I went out and bought Sims Life Stories today. It's really just a simpler, more directed version of the game. At first I wasn't all that interested in it because I'm really into the normal game, but I haven't really played that in so long because it is really involved. Once I start playing Sims 2 I have to build a house because I usually hate the ones I already built, I can usually pull off a decent floor plan in under an hour now, even with some complicated building cheats, but then I have to decorate it. I often spend most of my time trying to find user designed objects for the decorations, this also takes time because you have to search around for things you like, this is both fun and time consuming. Of course I still have yet to create people to go in the house, and determine some sort of personality to go with these people. If it's an in depth story then you also have to build more houses and generate more people and personalities.
You can see how I do not have time for this anymore. Although I do sort of miss playing the game, so that's why I gave the Stories a shot. The game has two self contained stories, you can play one for a little while to unlock the other. You can play each character according to their goals, but I guess you can also play in free mode, which allows you to build houses too. I'm not so interested in free mode, I have the original game and a good number of expansion packs (some of which may still be in shrink wrap, sadly), but it's actually a nice way to get my Sims 2 fix without actually investing a year's worth of time doing it.
What's also nice is this seems to be a version of Sims 2 that I might even be able to "beat". I'm not used to the game having an ending.
