The Sims and related games have been around since the dawn of the 21st century. The game that lets you build houses, populate them, and control the lives of the pixelated people who live in them is a fun and fascinating addiction for some (myself included), while others see it as a most unnatural act of control freakishness. For example, I have a friend who found himself creating his ex-partner in the Sims, locking the simulated ex in a room, and starving him to death. This act disturbed him so much when it was over that he hasn't touched the game since.
My advice: don't create your exes in the game. Don't necessarily create yourself and people you like, either, at least not at first. It took me a year before I created myself, and even when I did I never played my own life and household very often. I believe the people who get the most out of the game are the players who focus on the families that come built in. Perfect strangers who are waiting for you to be their god. And they grow on you. While some players do delight in torture, most of us are good gods who love our little people and want the best for them. Including nice big houses with the best interior design and furnishings, even if the careers we assign them to don't allow them to afford such luxuries. Thank goodness for game cheats.
Of course, creating people who are purely sprung from the mind of the creator, real life celebrities, or real life fictional characters, is common as well. There's nothing quite like forcing Britney to take better care of her kids, bringing dead celebrities back to life, or having the Harry Potter characters live out their lives the way you want them to.
For good or bad, The Sims 2, like its predecessor, is one of the top selling video games in history. With the release of The Sims 3 coming in the next year, the gods and goddesses of the Sim world do not seem to be headed for the same destiny as their Greek and Roman counterparts anytime soon.
