Strategy Informer  

The Sims 2 Cheats & Codes

Press CTRL + SHIFT + C to access the cheat window, then enter the following:
Some cheats require you enter the Postprocessing cheat. (it is indicated)

The Sims 2 Hints, Tips

Add these to the shortcut's parameters for other helpful things. Some have code counterparts.

-f = Fullscreen Mode
-r[width]x[height] = Start with desired resolution (in pixels).
-nosound = Disables sound
-w = Windowed Mode

Debug Mode

Open the cheat menu by pressing Ctrl + Shift + C, then entering the following:
boolProp testingCheatsEnabled true
While in Create-a-Sim, press Shift + N before creating your first sim to enable skintones, clothes, and hairstles that would normally be used only by NPCs. Press Shift + M to disable it.

While in Live mode, Shift + Click on a sim to bring up the debug menu.

Disgusting Faces

There is a glitch in character creation mode where you can make absolutely disgusting faces. The trick is that if you go to the face designing area and you select a face part such as the eyes and max out all the sliders one way or the other, then go to a different face part and select one of the PREDESIGNED parts, and then come back to the eyes, the sliders will have reset in the middle, but the eyes will still look the same. This works for all of the face adjusting tabs. Exploiting this, you can make eyes the size of dinner plates, cheekbones 4 feet long, and a HUMUNGOUS nose, to name a few.

The Sims 2 Secrets

Use your own videos for the TV
It's possible to watch your own videos on the Sim-TV. You must put the video you want into My Documents\EA Games\The Sims 2\Movies\Broadcast (the TV sender you want). If you then turn on the TV in the game you can watch it! The video must be .avi-clips and the clips shouldn't be larger then 128x128 pixel also it shouldn't have more then 15 frames per second.

Custom Painting

To decorate your house with custom artwork, first your sim must have a creativity level of 5 and be able to paint a still life.
Have your sim paint and a frame will appear that you can center on whatever you want to paint. If you want to paint a picture of something outside the Sims 2 game, just press C anywhere at this time. This will pause the game.

Use Alt + Tab to exit the game, then open a picture program such as Paint and open the snapshot you just took, it will usually be in the folder: C:\My Documents\EA\Sims2\Storytelling\Snapshot.bmp

Then, you also have to open the picture you want to have in your game. If your picture is too large resize it so it will fit in the original snapshot from the game.

Copy your custom picture on to your snapshot from the game, then save the picture. Use Alt + Tab to get back to your game and your sim will start painting your own custom picture.

Using this trick you can put pictures of your friends or family, web pictures, or anything else in your Sims 2 game.

Listen To Mp3's On Sim Radio

First get whatever Mp3's you want to put on the game, then open up MyDocuments/EAGames/TheSims2/Music/(whatever RadioStation you want your song on). Then, Drag your MP3 into the folder. Now, start Sims 2 then go to options menu, then music settings, then the Radio Station, then pick witch songs you want the radio to play. You can now listen to your favorite songs in your Sims game.

Listen to music included with game

First, open your The Sims 2/TSData/Res/Sound directory. The names of radio stations, plus a few more including Build mode and Neighborhood music should be here in *.package files. Copy and paste the file corresponding to whatever you want to listen to into another folder. Rename it from [File].package to [File].mp3. You can now listen to the sound/songs included in the file.