With nearly 6.5 million units sold worldwide, The Sims has surpassed Myst to become the best-selling PC game franchise of all time. Maxis and Will Wright's highly addictive people simulator struck a chord with gamers from all walks of life when it was first released almost three years ago, and with subsequent expansion packs like Hot Date, Vacation, and the recently released Unleashed keeping interest in The Sims alive, there's no sign of slowing down for this unique series. Up until now, though, The Sims has been relegated to the realm of the PC, and an entire population of console game players has yet to find out what all the fuss is about. Next January, all that will change. Maxis and codeveloper Edge of Reality are currently putting the finishing touches on a PlayStation 2 version of The Sims, and as we pleasantly found out a few weeks ago, this game will be much more than just a straightforward port. In fact, The Sims for the PS2 isn't really a port of the PC product at all. In addition to being the first 3D Sims product ever, The Sims for the PS2 will also have mission-based gameplay and a multiplayer component.

You'll be able to customize your sims' physical appearance on the fly.

The designers at Maxis have always wanted to bring The Sims franchise to consoles, but they were faced with a practical dillema. How do you adapt the best-selling PC game of all time onto a different platform without losing that classic Sims magic? The answer to that question, apparently, lies in the PlayStation 2's Dual Shock 2 controller. Before writing a single line of code, Will Wright and a few of the Maxis designers spent weeks studying the control schemes of a variety of different games, before finally deciding on a set of variables that they felt were completely intuitive for a console version of The Sims--variables such as button pressure, zoom speed, and the sensitivity of the analog sticks. In that sense, the team really took its inspiration from Shigeru Miyamoto's design philosophy of perfecting a game's controls before actively starting work on its development. Ironically, you probably won't give a second thought to the control scheme of The Sims for the PS2, since its intuitive nature means that you won't have to fumble with the controller to get your sim to move and interact with the gameworld.

The PS2 version of The Sims features a brand-new 3D engine.

You'll be able to do everything you could do with the mouse and keyboard in the PC version of The Sims using the PlayStation 2's controller. The two analog sticks let you rotate the camera and move the cursor, while the circle button collapses any walls or solid objects that you have highlighted to allow you to see as much of your surroundings as possible. The square button centers the camera on your selected sim, and the X button makes that sim interact with his or her surroundings. You can fast-forward time in The Sims for the PS2 using the R1 shoulder button, while R2 switches your control to nearby sims. Likewise, your motives, friendships, personality, and job requirements can all be accessed with the D pad, and by pressing pause, you can get to your buy, build, budget, and options menus. Longtime players of The Sims won't have any problems adjusting to this new control scheme, and those who've never played a single game in the series will find it quite intuitive.

But the controls aren't the only aspect of The Sims that's changed during the jump from the PC to the PlayStation 2. The most obvious enhancement is the game's new 3D engine. The Sims games have always had a stylized look to them, but their sprite-based technology was admittedly clunky and didn't exactly make the best use of PC hardware. Not so with this PlayStation 2 version. All the objects in the game--your sims, the furniture, the house, and even the neighborhood itself--are all rendered in the three dimensions, which makes for more fluid character animation. What's more, this 3D engine is capable of generating an unlimited number of light sources, which means that light fixtures and lamps will throw shadows across rooms, objects, and even your sims.

It's easily the best looking of all the Sims games, but The Sims for the PS2 is more than just a pretty face.