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In my ongoing mission to keep the masses entertained during the writers' strike, I've been seeking logical replacements for the shows you can't live without during these dark days. Tonight's very special episode:

Desperate Housewives
Genre: Comedy/Drama
Premise: A bunch of well-off women who don't have to work (unless they want to work, because women can be middle management suck-ups and pizza restaurant owners just as well as men even while being mothers thank you very much) grow bored and decide to destroy their friendships by being stupid and manipulative at the same time, with some hints of real life drama thrown in (such as cancer and gay guys moving in across the street) to help viewers connect with the show.

Good Lord, do I even have to be the one to suggest this? It's not that Desperate Housewives can easily be replaced by Aspyr's The Sims 2, it is The Sims 2. The creators of this show simply removed the diamonds from above the actors' head, allowed them to speak proper English (some of the time), and pulled the focus away from buying furniture and placed it squarely on the sex. Honestly, I'm completely shocked that Electronic Arts hasn't released a Sims 2: Wisteria Lane expansion pack. Actually, I'm not shocked. There is a Desperate Housewives game available for the PC, but it's made by Disney's Buena Vista Games, and it's rated T. Now, I haven't seen a lot of Desperate Housewives, but I do know you can't accurately recreate the deaths, sex, drugs and sex on that show under a T rating. No, if you want to replace the TV show with a game, you're going to have to do it yourself with The Sims 2.

Don't worry about making the houses look faithful to those in the TV shows. No one cares about the houses. All you have to do to set up your Desperate gaming experience is design the characters to look like Gabby and Lois Lane and that crazy redhead inappropriately named after cheese. Ain't nothing crazy about cheese—cheese is a wonderful thing—so I think I'm somewhat offended that the one who's really off her rocker is the one named after what may be the most pleasant of all the cheeses.

Anyway, once you've got your characters created and living in their homes, let the crazy hijinks begin! The Sims 2 as Desperate Housewives will actually be more fun than the real show not only because you get to control the characters, but because of what they can do. Yes, the real show sees the heroines battling love, creepy neighbors, fashion choices, affairs, rotten kids, bad backs, blah, blah, and blah. I liked the show better when it was called every other show to ever air before Desperate Housewives. In The Sims 2 as Desperate Housewives, you get all of this, yes, but you also get to battle oven fires, tickle your guests, and urinate. Name me one show that has tackled those relevant topics with any degree of honesty and sophistication...other than Alice. You can't, because only The Sims 2 has the guts to bring those to the table...a table that must be cleared before the dishes attract flies and lower Edie's happiness rating.

In a head-to-head battle, The Sims 2 is the clear winner over Desperate Housewives. Yes, getting started with all of that house construction, neighborhood population, job finding, showering and nude patch downloading can be quite daunting, but once you've got things going, The Sims 2 offers more of what makes people watch Desperate Housewives to begin with. The cruelty the characters endure is limited only by your conscience, not by ratings committees and advertiser dollars. Be as mean as you want without worrying about real-life troubles removing the joy from your cruelty. And if you still manage to get bored, don't worry. From what I understand Electronic Arts is thinking about developing an expansion pack...or fifty.

So, there you go. One show down. Next up, for everyone who's still bothering to watch Heroes this season, I've got the perfect game for you...at least I did. I can't seem to remember what it was...and hey, did I always have these two small holes in my neck?

Learn more about The Sims 2.

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