Self-employment highly flexible; new business skills provide new way to improve your sims; listening to licensed music in simlish is a total trip.

“Running a restaurant, building a trendy nightclub, creating a megastore, opening a cozy little coffee shop — these kinds of challenges will keep you entertained for months to come.” -GameSpy

For the past couple of years, the Sims has providing a brand new type of gameplay, that brought strategy games to a new level. Last year, the second part of the Sims has been introduced to the world. It still brought the same addicting gameplay, as the original, and has brought a lot of new features such as picking what you cook. So, for the past couple of years, the sims had sexual intercourse, and got promotions to have the best house ever. Now, they are able to open up a store of their own. This expansion pack was able to make the game more successful and addicting.
The most important question that comes to mind when someone is thinking about buying an expansion pack is, “Does the expansion pack improve the gameplay of the game?” This game does improve the gameplay. It, like I said, gives you the feature to create a business, but that’s not all. There’s 125 new items avaliable. Unfortunately, they’re only useful when you have your own business. This only creates a better gameplay for your store. Since you’re still going to take care of the Sims at their home, the items are barely useful for your home.

Now, is when you start creating your store. Unfortunately, it makes the game way more complicated, even when it comes to opening a store. To hire employees, you use a telephone, to open the store, you need an open and close sign. Luckily, even though you must see the status of all your employees, you are able to see their status with just a click or two. One of the features I hate is that you buy the merchandise right when you open the store.

Since the first part, an important and fun feature of the game, is the skills. There are new skills in this game, they are called sim talents. Basically, a sim talent is a major skill that you and your employee has. It ranges from giving makeovers, to being a cashier. Just like the skills, you must practice on a certain item to increase that skill. I personally like this feature, but it makes the game a bit more complicated.

Unfortunately, the sound, and graphics of this game basically remains the same. I didn’t see any improvments onto the sound, and the graphics. Since the original of the sims 2 came out quite a while ago, it makes the graphics and the sound of the game a bit outdated. Too bad for you sound and graphic fans.

For the last word, this expansion pack gives a huge feature, that could still become a successful game even if it was separate, and not an expansion. The graphics and the sound is a bit outdated, but the gameplay has improved a lot, and made the Sims game more addicting. I would recommend this game to all the sim and business fans, and basically, anyone who’s looking for a game that’s different, and stands out from the other games.

About this game

Set your Sims up in their own businesses. Build trendy boutiques, bustling bakeries, hip salons, thriving cafes and countless other businesses. Hire a staff to stock the shop and sell goods to a variety of customers. Will they build the favorite neighborhood shop or the next entrepreneurial empire? The Sims 2: Open For Business is loaded with over 125 new objects to help your Sims get down to business