(http://i.imgur.com/uBgxC1f.jpg?1)
- You'll need Origin. Blah, I know. But activate the product code I-LOVE-THE-SIMS and it should be added to your library. This is totally legit, and will be redeemable until July 31 (http://help.ea.com/en/article/how-to-get-the-sims-2-ultimate-collection/). The really great part is that this is the "Ultimate Collection" version. It's got all the mods except for some holiday-themed one that sucks anyway.
- What's that? Your monitor runs at something much higher than 800x600? You're in luck! SimsVIP has an easy tutorial to run the game at the resolution of your choosing (http://simsvip.com/2014/07/20/the-sims-2-ultimate-collection-increase-resolution-guide/).
- If you're really picky about FOV, about widescreen games showing more horizontally rather than cropping a 4:3 image vertically, WSGF has a tutorial and a download to configure the game's camera settings (http://www.wsgf.org/dr/sims-2). It's super easy, and will make that last bit of different to bringing this experience reasonably up-to-date.
Personally, I also really like the Realistic Ages 1 Month (http://s2idownloads.blogspot.com/2014/02/new-project-realistic-ages-1-month.html) mod, which slows down in-game aging so that one Sim day is equivalent to about a month in real life (total lifespan, around 780-1140 days). This obviously isn't for everyone; heck, there's probably gonna be people who think time moves too fast by default, but I thought it was worth linking to anyway. It seems the most balanced of all the lifespan mods I could find.
edit: this mod looks pretty cool too. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG2EQEsGFCc)