The Sims Books

The Sims 2: University (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Greg Kramer

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 49 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Total Time Saver 5 out of 5 stars.
5 of 6 people found this review helpful.

As other reviewers have noted, this guide does contain a complete reprint of the original game guide. However, having owned the original guide, there is one MAJOR difference. The University Guide has an INDEX. So if you share my frustration of constantly flipping through guides searching for a topic, this is definitely worth the money. The game is time-consuming enough without having to spend time searching through the guides. So even if you don't own the University Expansion Pack, I recommend purchasing this item if only to make the original guide easier to use and the information more accessible.

Editorial Review:

Full-color pages detailing how to:
·Crash parties, get initiated into a secret society, hack your grades, and graduate with honors
·Keep your Sims' grades on track in all 11 majors
·Secure your final degree and open up four new career paths
·Details on the all-new young adult age, influence, and lifetime wants
·Charts and tables covering objects and socials
·Tours of all colleges and their student bodies
·Covers the original Sims 2 plus the expansion!

The Sims Bustin' Out (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Greg Kramer

List Price: $14.99 By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 25 new & used starting at $0.78

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Must have for those who aren't TopNotch Players 5 out of 5 stars.
22 of 24 people found this review helpful.

If you are anything like me and aren't an ace with Video games but adore the Sims. Then you'll want this guide. This game has a lot of different goals you must attain to gain items/clothes/actions. Sometimes those things determine your progress in the game. As in certain goals allow you to go to different places Club/Gym/Etc.

This guide tells you a lot of the information about the game itself even with information on how other Sims react to your actions. I play this game in stages and it's nice to have this guide to help me discover hidden items that you are supposed to search for or who to talk to accomplish certain things.

This book had enough information to help me learn the best way for me to play the game.

Now for the only thing I found lacking was a bit more description or hints for what is best to have or sell once you've completed skills, etc.

There are certain things that once you acquire them you'll want to have in all of the houses such as the Miss Gyrotic, the Gourmet stove and Hellagraphix (all items that have to be unlocked). Once you have these items it makes pleasing your Sims much easier.

Luckily this guide tells you were those items are and how to gain them.

For a game guide I find this one very thorough and I'm glad I have it to go with my game.

I highly recommend it if you own or are planning on buying the Sims Bustin out game. Also even if you just rent it it's worth the $12 for the book

Editorial Review:

Go to Town!
·Details on all 12 new career paths
·Tips for unlocking every home, object, mission, and more!
·Strategy for completing every objective and keeping your Sim's motives high
·New object cost and depreciation tables
·Profiles of every Non-Player Character
·Details on all the new locations, including the dance club and art gallery
·Covers every version, including Game Boy® Advance!

The Sims (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Rick Barba

List Price: $14.99 By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 37 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 17 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Okay help, but not the best... 3 out of 5 stars.
13 of 14 people found this review helpful.

We became addicted to the SIMS game as soon as we got it, and eventually knew we needed to learn to understand our little people a lot better.

This book helped, but it isn't fantastic. Much of what you'll find in here you can find at the SIMS home page, and some you'll figure out by yourself, through trial-and-error. Some is common sense (before making any major change, SAVE your work so you can always go back).

It offers some things, but omits others. For example, it gives a handy chart for skill levels needed to get promotions - what is missing is how to do what is hardest, develop and maintain friends, since having a lot of friends is both required for a lot of the SIMS to 'get ahead' AND is extremely difficult to do!

Some of the cheats are OK, but the best ones you'll find through other sources.

For SIMS beginners (perhaps as a gift for someone who just got the game), or those who can't get on-line, this would be helpful. For those who have been playing for awhile, or are on-line, this book would probably be a disappointment.

Editorial Review:

Get a (virtual) life!

• Mood-managing hints and tips
• Learn to create an instant family
• Covers all 10 possible career tracks
• Tactics for dealing with disasters
• Cheats and Easter Eggs revealed
• Details on moving your Sims to the online community
• Build a home from the ground up
• Includes a foreword from game creator Will Wright

The Sims Makin' Magic (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Mark Cohen

Amazon Price: $17.99 List Price: $19.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 44 new & used starting at $0.74

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

They Still Don't Get It... 2 out of 5 stars.
36 of 41 people found this review helpful.

The Sims Makin Magic, the FINAL expansion pack for the original Sims has just been released. As with every pack, a prima game has released a strategy guide. There is something you have to understand before you purchase this item. Yes, it is helpful in figuring out what to do for the first few days, but almost all the information included you could look up on the internet. Also for the SEVENTH time now, over half of the book is devoted to the original Sims, while only the last part is set aside for the new expansion pack. It says in the book this is for all the people who have only the expansion that the book is talking about, but by this point almost everyone who is buying Makin Magic has at least one other expansion. This book is 240 pages long, and the Makin Magic section doesn't start until page 129. Every time a new expansion comes out, I buy it and the strategy guide, to see if they have changed their ways. I have been disappointed. This is a HUGE waste of trees and resources, not to mention money. The information was very helpful, and they have a FEW pages that I think I might refer to often, but if you really want the info that is in this book, go to thesims.com and read the transcripts or find a good fan site. You do not need this book to play the game, and the more guides I see in this format, the lower I will rate them because Prima just doesn't get it.

Editorial Review:

Beware. Your Sims have Magic.
·Strategies for earning MagiCoins and creating spells
·How to raise a well-adjusted Dragon
·Tips for earning exotic spell ingredients
·Expert tips for dueling in the Magic Arena
·Details on spicing up your spells with ingredients from your garden
·How to build a Funhouse
·Complete list of Spell backfires

The Sims Revised & Expanded: Prima's Official Strategy Guide

Mark Cohen

Amazon Price: $11.99 List Price: $14.99 Usually ships in 24 hours By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 31 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.5 of 5

Nothing but worthless or wrong information 1 out of 5 stars.
23 of 24 people found this review helpful.

I ordered this book expecting something comparable to Prima's strategy guide for SimCity 3KU (which is huge, rich, and utterly indispensible). Not even remotely. I knew I was in trouble when the table of contents did not match the pagination of the book (and it was way off -- not just by a page or two).

Most of this too-slim-for-the-price volume is pure filler: a grainy B&W photo catalog of all the objects Sims can buy (information which is readily accessible within the game, and of little strategic value anyhow), and way, way too many tedious B&W screenshots of the author's own gameplay, supposedly for illustration.

It contains a few bits of useful information -- such as detailed tables of the Careers (jobs, hours, salary, promotion criteria) -- all of which and more is available on the Web.

It also contains enough glaring falsehoods (e.g., that Sim kids can't use dishwashers) to suggest that the author played the game just long enough to crank out this piece of softbound kindling .

If you're really interested in getting the most out of the game, do yourself a favor: give this book a miss and head for one of the thousands of fan sites and BBSs instead.

Editorial Review:

All new section on downloadable skins, objects, houses, and families
Step-by-step info on creating families and homes, and dealing with disasters
Advanced methods for keeping your Sims healthy and happy
Cheat codes exposed
Complete tables for every Sims career
All new Political career diary: tells you how to shake the right hands on your way to the Mayor's mansion

The Sims Box Set 1 thru 5 (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Prima Games

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 9 Average rating: 3.0 of 5

Some good, some bad 3 out of 5 stars.
19 of 21 people found this review helpful.

Ok, the bad stuff first - which has been mentioned a lot here. The books are shrunk down to a much smaller size than your average strategy guide, so the pictures and illustrations are really difficult to see. Second, the first half of each book is the same in all five - just basic info about the Sims. So there is a lot of wasted space and material you have to skip over to get the new information on whatever expansion pack the book is for.

The books small size makes them easier to store though, they can even sit on a bookshelf in front of all the other strategy guide since they are so much smaller. They also come in a sleeve so that they all stay together nicely. While most of the information is repeated in each book, there is a good amount of new information that is really useful - even for long-time Sims players. Every time I open up the books I learn something new, and I've been playing the Sims for several years now.

Overall, for the price I can't complain too much. The good stuff is better than the bad, by far. Definitely would recommend to any Sims addict looking to learn some new tips and tricks.

The Sims: Hot Date: Prima's Official Strategy Guide

List Price: $14.99 By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 89 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 13 Average rating: 4.5 of 5

Great read! 5 out of 5 stars.
4 of 4 people found this review helpful.

This is a excellent book to help your dating skills in "The Sims Hot-Date". It provides very useful information about how to act downtown, what to do, how to act on a date, what to say, and basically anything you need to know inorder to succeed.

It contains a section about the Hot-Date EP as well as an Introduction to the Sims. Some people might find the intro a little repetitive but again, it also gives very helpful tips on how to succeed in the regular house as well.

Overall it is a great book for reference for the game. You won't be disappointed. Pick it up, and if you do, youll be dating and marrying the whole town!

Editorial Review:

Love is in the Air

• Vital statistics for each new character–from the Blonde Bombshell to the Old Prude
• Inside coverage of the all-new social system, plus all of the new interactions
• Building strategies for the downtown dating scene, direct from the programming team
• Comprehensive stats for all new objects
• Dating 101–everything you need to score a hot date

The Sims Livin' Large Expansion Pack: Prima's Official Strategy Guide

Rick Barba

By: Random House Amazon Marketplace: 16 new & used starting at $0.23

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Editorial Review:

Convenient Pocket Size! Covers the original The Sims plus the Livin' Large expansion pack. Secrets of Sim personality, mood and motives revealed. Useful Sim cheats and lots of quick start tips. Foreword by Sims creator Will Wright. Extensive tables for all new architecture, careers, Sim catalog objects, and more. Strategies for overcoming new disasters - from roach infestations to alien abductions. Tips on customizing faces, skins, and textures.

The Sims: Unleashed (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Mark Cohen

List Price: $14.99 By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 43 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 10 Average rating: 2.5 of 5

Latest in a Series 4 out of 5 stars.
28 of 30 people found this review helpful.

This is the latest in the Prima's series of Official Strategy Guides for the Sims and it's expansion packs. As with the previous books for the expansion packs, the first half of the book deals with the basic strategies of playing The Sims regardless what expansion packs you have. If you've bought a previous book in the Prima series, you'll want to go right to the second half of the book.

There's not a lot of earth-shaking information here. A Sims junkie with any Internet skills can probably find all the information that's in this book. But if you depend only on what you find online, you'll find lots of incorrect garbage as well. What you find in this book you can take to the bank as being correct. You also won't find all this information in one place online, and it won't be organized as well.

If you're looking for some previously unknown secret to be revealed, you won't find it in this book. If you want a little more insight into The Sims, and the Unleased expansion pack, you'll find it here. The insight I gained from this book has helped me enjoy the game a little more. I have no regrets about buying the book.

Editorial Review:

Welcome to the Animal House
·Strategies for housebreaking and obedience training your dog
·How to put your best paw forward in the pet show
·Details on what's new in the neighborhood
·Complete pet interaction tables
·Learn the secret to growing monster vegetables
·How to keep bunnies and gophers from devouring your garden
·New career track tables

The Sims Superstar (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

Prima Games

List Price: $19.99 By: Prima Games Amazon Marketplace: 34 new & used starting at $0.01

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Customer Reviews:
Total reviews: 6 Average rating: 4.0 of 5

Great game 5 out of 5 stars.
14 of 34 people found this review helpful.

If you like the other sims games you will love this one! I read some of the others and they say it runs slow and etc. It may be cuz you don't have enough room on your computer. It runs fast and just right on my computer. Yes it is a lot of work to get the people to become a star but it is worth it. Even if you don't want to be a star there is so much new things. Like you can swim with fish, new doors, floors, walls,even roofs and much more. Its so cool to see people singing. It's also fun just to go down there and talk to people and even see stars from today! So if your into the sims this is a much have

Superstar Info Good; Sims Info Dated 3 out of 5 stars.
9 of 10 people found this review helpful.

I found the second half of this book very useful in trying to learn and navigate the Superstar world. It had well-written instructions, tips, and general information on how to progress from a nobody to a superstar. This certainly isn't an easy career path, but if the game was easy, why would we play?

The first half had some good information as well. This information is geared towards a beginner, which may be too basic for some. But my main complaint with this section, is that it hasn't been updated! Relationships are much harder (yet in a way easier) in these newer Sims games. It has been changed from a single relationship bar, to a double system. The top bar, for daily interactions, and an average bar, for a 'lifetime' score. I was wanting a more in-depth analysis of this new rating system, but this book doesn't even mention the change. It seems that the first part was written with the original Sims game, and has simply been tacked onto each and every variation of the Strategy Guide. Which is lazy writing, in my opinion.

My other quibble, is that pages upon pages have been taken up showing (in black and white no less) each and every object you can buy. I really don't see the point to this, but others may find it useful.

Editorial Review:

Your Sims are Famous!
·Tips for launching your career, including networking, name-dropping, and schmoozing
·Covers becoming a legend in movies, music, and fashion
·How to handle obsessed fans, and paparazzi
·How to win the coveted Simmy Award
·Strategies for overcoming nervous breakdowns
·Details the new objects for your Superstar Sim