They felt less and less sandboxed to me after a while. Like I don't remember Sims 2, but in The Sims 1 you could find a Genie lamp and become a millionaire instantly, and hire a robot butler to take care of the house tasks, simple stuff. Otherwise The Sims feels like a game that takes way more effort than life itself as you balance umpteenth things about your sims life. A lot of the fun was in making ridiculous homes.
Of course, other people play The Sims to live out saddistic gags like my cousins did, they would make "kill homes" as I call them, they would remove doors, windows, and food sources, and make them as miserable as inhumanely possible.
I used to do the murder houses! So much fun, especially in Sims 1, where a lot of that stuff was based on the hacks people found on the internet. My favorite was to invite a ton of people over to party and see how many of them I could kill in the pool (after removing the ladder) or by forcing them to use a cheap oven.
I would leave them in a room usually and remove all amenities. One crazy one was a friend who said his sim had a baby he didn't want to deal with, so he put walls around the baby, then when child services came to take the neglected baby, they kept walking around the walled structure.
Of course, other people play The Sims to live out saddistic gags like my cousins did, they would make "kill homes" as I call them, they would remove doors, windows, and food sources, and make them as miserable as inhumanely possible.