There are two stories to play: Riley's and Vincent's. I started with Riley's story beacuse it unlocks Vincent's and I didn't feel like free gameplay. I played Riley's story through in little less than four hours. There were a few nice twists and turns, but for a person who's played the Sims since it was first launched in Europe (and Sims 2 after that), it was too easy and too short. Someone less familiar with the Sims legacy might find some more challenge there. Vincents' story took me about three hours, a bit less - maybe. Not to spoil the surprise, but I really liked the sort of funny ending in Vincent's story!
The thing that annoyed me most was the definite storyline. I had no influence on what was going on and that - to be honest - sucks. You knew what was about the happen.
The items were mostly ripped from the Sims 2 too. The good thing - however - is the fact that they went through the trouble of making new wallpapers and stuff. The objects that are received as gifts were nice and being rewarded all through the story was good.
I also find it weird-ish that Sims Life Stories seems to run on Sims 2 "lite" engine. They only have removed some stuff (like the gardener and decaying flowers) and left most of the bugs there. The idiotisms still excist: the things-to-do queue got flushed away when something happened (needs a hack, someone!), the guests went straight to the refrigerator even though the buffet table was stocked and many, many others .
They should have added a couple more stories to play to keep the "I-got-ripped-again" - boogeyman out of our minds..
...Or was this just another scheme to fool us poor addicts to spend our last dollars to buy yet another buggy EA-money-making game..
The test-settings:
CPU: P4 3,4GHz HT +Zalman CNPS9500 LED
PSU: 400W Be Quiet Straightpower
Memory: PC3200 1,5GB
Motherboard: ASUS P4V800D-X
Hard Drive(s): 1x300GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200rps
Video Card: MSI RX1950PRO, 256MB
Display: 1152x864 100Hz
My PC isn't the worst of them all, but still: the same issues caused terrible lags. All the settings full it took a lot of memory (over 250000kb), but I noticed a slight decrease in the CPU usage compared to Sims 2 (and all the expansions and stuff sets I have). But one must remember this game is MEANT to run on mobility CPU's, so their game experience might be a bit better than mine..
So, Sims Life Stories offers you a good way to spend a few hours but that's about it.
Do not buy it if you already own the Sims 2 and you own a computer that can handle the very "heavy" game. Sims Life Stories is NOT worth the price, so you better save the money from SLS and buy the new upcoming expansion, Seasons.. However, If you own a laptop and you're not as addicted as myself, go and buy SLS. Please take a note that the minimun requirements are a joke, it needs at least 1gig memory, 2,8 mobility CPU and a laptop with no internet connection, firewall and antivirus.
NOTE: I found out that The Sims 2 compatible objects (non-expansion - that is) can be imported to the game the same way as with the Sims 2 objects are imported. These objects need to be unique meshes with their own unique ID's and their recolors. Maxian recolors don't seem to work. I haven't tested the objects in the storymode yet. The cheats are not accessible in the storymode, but the freeplay mode is okay with the old ctrl-shit-c help -all -thingy.