The Sims turns 25 in just a few days, and EA is out to make sure I feel old as hell about it. As part of its ongoing celebrations, which started earlier this month with a rather lackluster Behind the Sims presentation but has slowly been ramping up the goodies, the developer just dropped an atrociously accurate Y2K-style website dedicated to the first two games. Comic Sans and all.
I mean hell, even the URL is giving me major throwback vibes: www.the-sims-y2k.com. The dashes between every word is practically screaming early 2000s at me, but the thing I love the most is the fact that you quite literally have to type the "www." for the URL to actually work. You know, like the… old days? Try and type the address sans-World Wide Web and you'll be met with an error. It's such a small detail that I'm not even sure was intentional, but I really hope it is.
The website itself is an absolute visual nightmare which, again, how perfect is that? There's a loading bar when you first punch in the address, each asset on the page slowly transitions in from the sides—remember when old-ass websites would cram every animation and soundbite into them like a 10-year-old's PowerPoint presentation?—and every icon makes a wee noise as you hover over it.
As for the features contained within the site, they're fine. There's the "Sim Urself" page which, as it turns out, is not taking a photo of yourself to be turned into a Sim like I originally thought. Instead it's a painstaking throwback to the days of taking pictures with different filters using your crusty old webcam, something which I spent far too much time doing as a child. Yes, of course I used the filter of Don Lothario in the hot tub, thinking about me through the lens of my work laptop camera.
Slightly more atrocious is the "Meme Jacuzzi," which feeds a random selection of pretty appalling memes. They're more modern than the top text/bottom text of old, and for the most part I regret to say they're pretty naff. Except the one about my sims making out with other people's wives. That one is pretty accurate.
Finally, no old-school website would be complete without downloadable wallpapers, and The Sims Y2K has two of them—one for the original game, and one for The Sims 2. There's an option for both desktop and mobile wallpapers, depending on how you like your nostalgia fed to you these days.
It's rather… interesting how much of a focus is being put on the first two games in particular here, considering the current rumours about Sims 1 and 2 re-releases swirling around. Whatever the connection is, I'll be over here enjoying my ridiculous Comic Sans text and funky little easter egg that appears if you spend a little too long idling on any one page. I won't spoil it, go and find out for yourself.
