Yesterday Aspyr announced that it will be publishing the Macintosh version of The Sims 2, the sequel to the best-selling game of all time. Inside Mac Games caught up with Aspyr's Glenda Adams to talk about the upcoming sequel, the possible release date, and more...
IMG: Well, it seems you guys were taken a little off guard with the announcement. What happened?
Glenda: Just a little mis-timing of when our press release went out and when EA UK was posting their release. We've been excited about announcing it for a while, but just had to get all the details worked out.
IMG: Ok, so tell us a bit about the Mac version. How long have you been working on it and when can we expect it?
Glenda: We're very excited about the game, it takes all of the best parts of the original Sims and expands on them, without breaking the gameplay elements that made the first so popular. We've been working on it for about a month, and we're hoping to ship it in May 2005. It's a HUGE game, development-wise. There are so many new parts of the game, and a completely new graphics engine. Plus we want to make sure we take all the time necessary to make it the highest quality game Aspyr has ever shipped. This is a game we want to get every aspect 100% right, right out the door.
IMG: Have you had a chance to play the sequel? If so, what are some of the cool things you found in it?
Glenda: Yes, I've been playing it on the PC some to get familiar and its a blast. Just the sheer amount of graphical detail and animations is the coolest thing I've seen. You can zoom the view in for a closeup and the sims looks amazing. One of the other cool things is the flexibility you have with creating the appearance of your new sims- there are so many options for facial features, hair color/style, etc, you can pretty much create a replica of anyone you can think of. I also like the built-in ability to record short movies of what your sims are doing, and we're hoping to be able to expand that feature a little on the Mac since the Mac is so adept at handling/editing video streams.
IMG: Let's talk about system requirements. The game is pretty taxing on the PC side. What about the Mac version?
Glenda: Right now we're just looking at preliminary requirements, but we're thinking a 1GHz G4/G5, Mac OS X 10.3 or later (it'll certainly run great on Tiger but shouldn't require it), 256MB of RAM, 32MB video card, and a DVD drive. I actually ran the game on my PC at home (a 933Mhz with 32mb video card), and while it had to turn all the details down pretty low, it was surprisingly snappy. I hope we'll be able to get similar performance on the Mac.
IMG: I know this is just a guess on your part, but do you think The Sims 2 will outsell The Sims to become the new best-selling game of all time?
Glenda: I think it has a good chance of beating the Sims in sales, EA just did a masterful job of adding a lot of great features while leaving the core game alone. They really listened to the end users and paid attention to how they liked to play the game.
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