My Childhood Trauma From The Sims 2 DS
It’s a horror game, and you can’t convince me otherwise.
It was Christmas 2008, and nine-year-old me had received one of the best handheld systems of all time: the Nintendo DS Lite. I had the usual games you could expect a nine-year-old to have. From Bratz to Pokémon and Nintendogs, I was having a blast with my new system. One day, whilst browsing for games, I came across The Sims 2 DS.
Like many people, The Sims was my childhood. I spent a ridiculous amount of hours on the family PC, playing the game. As I bought the game home and loaded it up, I didn’t think much of it. This wasn’t my first rodeo, I knew how to play the game. But nothing could prepare me for what was in store…
When you first start the game, you are met with a cutscene. It depicts a car swerving out of control, as you finally crash into Strangetown (a well-known neighbourhood in The Sims universe). I thought it was slightly weird, but my doubts were quickly lost as the next screen popped up, the character creator.
Sure, it was a lot less customisable than the PC version, but it was back to normality as I created my sim. Now, this is where the game starts, and you find out it was actually you who crashed the car. You’re told by the mechanic that it’s going to take a long time to fix, so you might as well check into the local hotel.
As you enter the hotel, within the space of five minutes, everyone has decided that you are the new manager (don’t question it.) It was by then that I realised, this isn’t a usual Sims game. It’s a hotel simulator, your goal being the upkeep and management of the hotel and its guests.
As I kept on playing, I actually began to enjoy the game. It wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was nonsensical fun. It was only when I got into the main chunk of the story that it went from weird to horrifying. What could be so scary about a DS game with an age rating of 7+? To tell the tale, here are three cases of the terror I had to endure.
Case 1: The aliens & their terrifying soundtrack
The game runs on a real-time engine (meaning it aligns with the time in real life.) If you happen to change the time in the DS settings, you were left with the message below, and a cutscene of aliens invading the town.
If that wasn’t scary enough, it played a HORRIFYING song in the background. I would be lying if I said this still doesn’t freak me out, and you can listen to it down below (at your own risk).
Case 2: Criminal activities with a mob boss
As I recovered from my alien trauma, a new person checks into the hotel by the name ‘Frankie Fusilli’. He seems a bit weird, but nice enough (ignoring the fact he threatens to break your kneecaps). Seemingly out of nowhere, he asks you to give the town mayor a present rigged with an explosive. That’s right, in a game that’s rated 7+, you are asked to BLOW UP THE MAYOR. If that isn’t creepy enough, he then asks you to bury a wiggling chest (which suspiciously looks like someone is inside.)
Case 3: Creepy atmosphere
Finally, just the general aura of the game is unsettling. You’re in an extremely small town (if you can even call it that), and although you are surrounded by people and buildings, you always feel alone. There are even sections of the game where you have to go to the desert, isolating you completely.
It’s even got to the point where players of the game think it’s haunted. A great article on Kotaku written by Leah Williams details a Reddit thread in which users recount their chilling experiences with the game. User ‘Vio-lex’ wrote ‘I’m pretty interested in weird and creepy stuff, but Sims 2 on DS was too out there for me as a kid… it had a really derelict, abandoned atmosphere’.
Bonus case: Bigfoot’s icon
There is so much more creepiness I could have written about (including a cult and killer robots), the list goes on. Despite all of the terror I endured as a child, I actually consider this one of my favourite games. You can tell the developers put in a great amount of effort, and had a lot of fun creating it. If you’re brave enough, I highly recommend playing it.
