User Reviews (1 - 11 of 68)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Great fun except for some major bugs

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 253 / 272
Date: March 05, 2006
Author: Amazon User

There are some things I just love about this new expansion pack. It's great to be able to easily choose the formal wear when our sims get married, I was getting really bored with that default wedding dress. As a result I've downloaded many beautiful wedding dresses from the fansites. And finally we're able to change appearance for the toddlers without needing a hacked mirror. Yay! Thanks Maxis. Also with this expansion we now get a twins cheat AND a food to increase the chance of twins. Maybe now there will be a slow down to the influx of all the twins threads on the BBS. Maybe not, but a girl can hope can't she?

The businesses are really neat in some ways but I'm not so much into the tycoon thing. It's very challenging and sometimes it seems frustrating to let your sim have a social life outside of their business. It is fun though.

It's a shame about the bugs emerging. They're so bad that they could potentially toast neighborhoods that gamers have worked so hard on. Here's just a few I've seen around-

-Sims getting "stuck" while at their community business. When the taxi arrives to take the sim home the sim won't get in the taxi. Instead the sim waves his or her arms in the air and yells like there's a problem. You have to wait for the first taxi to leave, then call for a taxi to take the sim to another community lot and then home. Supposedly this happens when you save on the business lot. I didn't save, just did some remodeling of the lot and this happened anyway. Thankfully I had not taken the sim to the business in his car, otherwise he could have been lost in some sort of limbo until we get a patch.

-Bakeries are really messed up. Dessert items disappear from the owner's inventory, making it difficult to restock. You can only make desserts during certain hours. In real life bakers start before sunrise so sim bakers should be able to also. And like the other review mentioned the sims who buy the desserts cannot eat them. What's the point of a bakery then?

-The new Mission furniture is beautiful but seems to have some problems. The loveseat shows as black and doesn't have any of the color or wood options like it's supposed to.

-Some business lots completely disappear like they never existed. Gone, poof. I'm not sure what's doing it but it could be related to problems with assigning uniforms. It hasn't happened to me yet (knock on wood) but I'm definitely not assigning any uniforms until more information's out. Hopefully this will be addressed in the future patch too.

I know there's a couple other bugs I'm forgetting at the moment. At least it appears that Maxis is right on top of this and will hopefully have a patch in just a short amount of time. I'd recommend if you love the sims like me go ahead and buy the game but watch out for the problems. Read the BBS over on the official site to stay updated on the bugs and the workarounds. Others may want to wait (hopefully just a week or two) until the patch comes out.

Fun new addition to the growing Sims 2 library

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 169 / 170
Date: April 26, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Before the Sims 2: Open for Business, Sims owners could be in control of every aspect of their sim's life, save for one: work. They would make relationships, gain skill points, go to college, even become vampires, but for a few hours every day they would dissappear from view, leaving a hole in the day for the game's players. Well, that's not the case anymore. With Open for Business, you can now govern their economic ambitions, too. What it becomes is a fun, if more challening than expected, mini-game that tests the micromanagement skills of Sims players.

You can open up any number of business types: from bakeries to furniture stores to salons. You can even charge sims to just come over and hang out at your place if you want to. The flexibility is there for you to sell almost anything (because that's essentially what it all comes down to); I personally found it easiest and most profitable to sell televisions and artwork (somtimes in the same store), but you can do whatever you want. You can hire managers to do the work for you, you can buy real estate and sell it, you can sell cars; there truly is a lot to do in the game.

Now there are some game imbalances to take notice of. First of all, you need a truckload of cash to start a business. Without cheating it's usually quite difficult to pull the money together to start even the most basic of businesses. It would have been nice to have some sort of investing process, where you could invite others as investors or even stock owners, but as is, it's a pretty basic business simulation. The second imbalance comes when you do eventually create a successful business: it's so successful that you have more money than you know what to do with. Granted this isn't really a gripe, but it's certainly in stark contrast to the beginnings of your business.

The actual running of the business can be one of two things to different players: a fun, challenging break from normal sims gameplay or a boring, tedious excercise in micromanagement. I personally felt the former, but I could see why it could be tedious. Not only do you have to worry about your own needs, you need to worry about giving your employees breaks, and making sure your customers are happy. Also, they are in constant need of reminders why they are in the store in the first place; the sheer number of times I used the "sell" command on various customers is staggering. However, this is all exectued quite well, and it is really rewarding to see repeat customers coming in everyday to buy your cakes and pastries (although it gets a little suspect when they buy a new television every day). I enjoy the challenge and feel that most people will. It's a departure from the guarranteed-to-win dating mini-game from Nightlife, also.

I also have to mention the awesome robots that have been re-introduced to the series. You get to build your own robots from the ground up, from cleaning robots to fully functional Servos that work as people without needs (with the exception of the occasional recharging).

Other people are having trouble with bugs in their games, but I have yet to run into any (other than standard Sims 2 bugs). I did find it particularly difficult to run some businesses, though - i never could get that trendy new nightclub/salon off the ground. Oh well.

Pros:
Great new mini-game for Sim owners
Adds a lot of new content and options
Fun
Rewarding businesses
Robots!

Cons:
Lots of micro-management
Some might find the challenge a turn-off
Buggy for some people
Slight game imbalances

More Fun and Variety with some more Frustration.

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 50 / 56
Date: May 08, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I'm still not tired of playing Sims 2 and it's in large part due to the immense replayability that the original game had plus the additions of these expansion packs. Open for Business adds a number of new things to a game that already has loads of replayability and variety.

Pros:

-New Items
-Ability to run a home business (despite the negatives below, I do have to give the sims team kudos for adding this ability).
-Ability to buy real estate and own community businesses.
-Ability to hire townies
-robots

Cons:

-Bugs! What does it take to get some clean, well tested software these days?!
-Running a Sims business is quite challenging. I play pc games as a way of resting and relaxing from a hard day's work. Running a sim business in Sims 2 at times feels more like work than play especially once the business starts having loads of customers coming in.
-The number of townies available to hire doesn't keep up with the business' needs.
-As with the other expansion packs, I felt the price was a bit high for what was added.
-The "own 5 successful businesses" lifetime aspiration. Running one is such more work than play, but 5? Any Sim of mine that comes up with that aspiration, gets their head stuck in the ReNu gadget for the purpose of getting a new one.
-As pointed out by others, sending someone to work a full day at a community business and then having them come home at the same time that they left is kind of wierd (of course we already had that with the original game and Nightlife with Sims going to community lots. University at least kept the Semester clock running).

Despite the fact that the Cons got more space than the Pros, above, I think this is, overall, a good addition to the Sims 2 lineup. If you want to fully enjoy the business operation side of this expansion, I would suggest creating a new neighborhood, associate it with custom University, Downtown and Business neighborhoods (that way you don't have to deal with all of those pre-made sims) and then run only one family. Keep the initial family members employed at the standard jobs that came with the original game, getting promotions and rewards and then build up a large income and pool of friends. Once that is accomplished, then you might get a younger member of the family to start a business with a good supply of capital and Townie friends to hire. That takes away the two most challenging/frustrating parts of running a sim business and allows you to concentrate on the fun aspects of the game. That's my two cents anyway. 4 stars for fun (the "work" as opposed to "play" frustration that running a business gives at times in the game led me to take a star away), 3 stars overall (Lost two stars due to bugs and price).

A control freak's dream game

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: April 13, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I love this game - and I'm 54 years old! The pace of running a business (successfully) is a bit frantic, but hey, it is in real life too! Be sure and read the instruction booklet thoroughly - there are a lot of little in's and out's new to this game, and you'll want to know what they are if you want your Sim's business to operate smoothly.

My ONE complaint is the different in time from Sim's home to Sim's store. For example, wife stays home and husband goes off to work at his business at 7am. Husband works all day and comes home - and it's still 7am! Makes it difficult to get sleep/awake sequence to tie in with running a business.

Otherwise, it's great. I'm here to buy one for my son (since I won't share mine!)

Joan

If you like this maybe you should start a real business

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 23 / 25
Date: February 01, 2007
Author: Amazon User

The great thing about the Sims series has always been the way it lets you take on challenges you could never imagine pulling off in real life. Open for business continues this tradition by allowing you to create almost any business you can imagine. Ever wondered how a composite nightclub/gym would work out? Give it a go!

Opening a business is a little more challenging than many of the activities the Sims series has offered thus far. I wouldn't exactly call the process straightforward. One of the first items you're going to need to open your business is an open/closed sign. Without this there is no way for customers to know that you're open, or employees to know to come to work. The funny thing is that this oh so important piece of inventory is hidden away in the catalog, where you might just have to stumble across it by accident. There are more such glitches such as you have to call up employees to hire them, yet they magically know when you flip that open/closed sign that it's time to start their working day.

Once you start your business though, and work through the hitches in logic, the game really does get intense. You're going to have to have some support to start almost every business, simply because of the cost of the cash register and merchandise. It's not all plain sailing once you have those things either.



Not only do you have to work hard for the money, you may even have to take on employees. From the scrupulous to the scurrilous, it is your job to supervise them and make sure that they're on task and making you money, rather than costing you it. Bad employees can make a marked impact on your business, as their mood effects the customers and therefore your rating. If you manage to get a good team going, and keep them happy with their hourly pay, which you must pay them hourly, then you have come a long way towards getting that business off the ground.

The better your business is known and regarded, the better the rewards. You can get lower prices on wholesale items, which is oh so life like. It's always the ones who don't need the money who get the discounts. You can also gain social skills which makes meeting new Sims more rewarding and easier. The star rating system ensures that you will always know how satisfied you are keeping your customers, something many businesses would kill for in reality.

The expansion hasn't stopped just at game play however, there are 125 new items, and Robots have been added to the mix. Robots are great fun, and oh so eager to please. Like a 70's sci fi dream, they cook, clean, and try to anticipate your every need. Then, like every 70's sci fi distopia if they get mad they trash the house and run off with another robot.

The new items add an extra level of customization to the game, which means it looks better than ever. The sound ranges from some great music to the funniest effects ever, and is, as one expects, an integral part of the game experience. If you don't speak Simlish yet, perhaps this expansion will give you a few more clues, as you listen to the radio burble away, or perhaps an angry customer raging at you because of a lazy employee.

I almost didn't even buy it

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 22
Date: October 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I am a huge Sims freak. For months I just looked at OFB sitting on the shelf thinking that I wasn't really all that interested....maybe I wouldn't get this one....but then Pets came out and I got hit by the desire not to have missed one of the expansions and not wanting to have to start from scratch if I ever got OFB later and would have to reinstall the whole Sims block on my hard drive. So I bought it, and ohh man, I wish I had gotten it sooner. Now I've got dozens of ideas of cool new businesses and I don't know where to start. The actual game play of running the businesses is totally different than I had envisioned it. It's Sims in a whole new way, it adds a new dimension in how we as players, and our play style, effect the outcome and success of our Sims. For once, our timing and choices in dictating Sim behaviors/interactions actually become a key part in the success of the business. It also add an aspect of real business management, deciding pay wages, trade skills, employee duties. It's still Sims, with all the same wonderfully addictive feel and game play, but it's in a whole new arena and more challenging. Same great car, new street to drive on. I recommend it to any Sim-ers. Even if you decide against actually running a business in game, your Sims will still love all the new shops, actions, items, and so forth.

Adds to the Sims experience while fixing pesky Night Life bugs

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 31 / 39
Date: March 02, 2006
Author: Amazon User

One of my biggest concerns regarding Open for Business was that it would drag down loading times and exacerbate the bugs I've been seeing since Night Life came out--no more work uniforms, Sims arriving home from work (sometimes even getting promoted) and not getting money for it, townies getting stuck on my property and unable to move...

I've had the game one day so far, and I'm happy to say that those particular problems have been done away with. Not only that, but the installation process and loading times are surprisingly quick and painless for such a vast expansion pack.

Game performance on the large business lots, I've found, is a tad bit less jumpy than it is on the large Night Life lots: Fewer hangups when you rotate the camera, fewer split-second paused screens. The smaller business lots run almost like a normal house-lot.

The expansion pack itself is every bit as fun and addictive than the others, if not more so. Your Sims now have the option of buying an already-established business, starting one from home, or purchasing an all-purpose starter lot to make the business of their choice. Running a business itself is challenging enough to be fun, but not so hard that you feel overwhelmed by all the duties you have and 'little things' that you, as manager, have to keep a constant eye on.

#1 Expansion Pack

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 21 / 24
Date: March 09, 2006
Author: Amazon User

When I first heard about this expansion pack after reading about in the little ad inside of my Nightlife expansion pack, I wasn't particulary excited about it. However, I purchased it anyway and this game is absolutely fantastic. I've sucessfully had my Sims create a bakery, a hair salon, and a car dealership. I also love some of the changes that Maxis has made to some of the things that were already in the game (i.e. the twins cheat and also letting the player decide what the Sims will wear at their wedding). If you're going to get any of the Sims 2 expansion packs, then I suggest that you get this one. It's so great.

Another piece of the pie...

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 17 / 18
Date: September 29, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It's interesting how the Maxis empire has evolved over the years. The very first expansion pack way back when was pretty revolutionary - it seemed like not very many companies were doing such a thing as releasing expansions. And back then it gave what the users were demanding - new objects. Today our demands are much higher as consumers, yet Maxis still doesn't *entirely* listen. It seems like with the Sims 2 their strategy is to release one new aspect of the game that fans have been wanting for ages - while still leaving out a big chunk of things people desire.

In this case Maxis decided to 'answer' to something people have been asking for - the ability to follow their sims to work. No you can't follow Bella Goth to her job as Mayor of Sim City or whatever, but you can now create businesses - either in the home or by owning a community lot - and manage virtually all aspects of them, from the pricing to the staff to the merchandise.

Virtually anything can be made into a store, or if you want, a recreational facility. Having other expansions, particularly Nightlife, is helpful in this respect. In terms of stores my first shop was a lamp store (super random) but you can do anything from clothing to groceries to furniture to art to a bakery. As a result many of the new objects in the game are designed for displaying these items.

There is also the opportunity to build toys, flower bouquets, or robots if you want to design a store around one, or all of these items, thanks to new tool benches. Which leads me to one of the features of the game - talent badges. Your sims can now work at one of seven skills - including toy making, sales, and operating a cash register - to earn bronze, silver, and gold talent badges that will make their businesses that much easier to manage.

As well, as your business flourishes you earn rewards that can do anything from boost your reputation to give you wholesale discounts on items in the store. Aside from building a basic "buy and sell" type store you can also open restaurants, clubs, lounges, gyms...with these you have the option to place a small machine that charges visiting sims by the hour if they want to stay on your lot.

Ultimately, The Sims 2: Open for Business is great if you want to add a new dimension of GAMEPLAY to your Sims' world. The challenge of mastering a store, never mind a million different types of stores, can be frustrating, but it's also fun and exciting to see what can happen. I've learnt something new with every business I've owned, and you can own multiple businesses, as well as keep a regular job if you so please.

In terms of CONTENT I wouldn't say buy this pack if that's what you're looking for - there are about 3 or 4 new hairstyles for men and women, and a handful of outfits which are tailored to the "set uniform" option for store owners that lets you theme your employees in everything from uniform ninja looks to gorilla heads to chef hats to matching tops and tees. Furniture-wise it's the same, not too many new things although the floors and walls have been updated with a lot of practical new styles, unlike the crazy ones found in past expansions.

Overall I'd say this is my favourite expansion in terms of gameplay (University is monotonous and dates are too easy to 'master') but it wouldn't be nearly as fun without the content added in the previous expansions. I think it'd be nice if Maxis offered fans a 'full package' of new services in each expansion - new content & gameplay that's satisfying for a 6 month period at least, but it looks like you'll just have to limit your gameplay so you don't get sick of it for now.

New and Exciting Possibilities

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 16 / 17
Date: March 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

While this game is sort of light on the new objects, it comes through big-time in game-play. There are great new interactions you learn through rising through the entrepreneurial ranks in your business, valuable new options to perk people up, give motivational speeches and network. And it blows the community lot aspect of the game wide-open, really making it interactive and fun... the world of business is wide open: they didn't just limit us to 3 types of businesses. Now you can sell a bunch of stuff you make, pretty much anything in the catalog, run clothing shops, hair salons, and markets, and then build admission based businesses where sims pay an hourly fee to be on your lot and partake in the opportunites for fun and social interaction.

They also added a couple of excellent architectural features: half floors and elevators. I wouldn't mind if they made an entire pack of architectural stuff.

Overall, I think an excellent expansion pack.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Next 

Actions