I know there are some people who play/ed Sims so I thought I'd just post this just in case anyone might be interested in it.
For one week, EA is giving Sims 2 Ultimate collection away to anyone who wants it. This contains all the EPs and SPs for Sims 2 as one collection. It is digital download only through Origin and only supported for the PC, I believe.
For more information you can go here. (http://simsvip.com/2014/07/23/one-week-only-the-sims-2-ultimate-collection-free/)
Do you have to log into Origin every time you play the game?
I do not believe so. Though you may have to the first time so it can authenticate. Though since you need to install through Origin, even that seems unlikely. I was able to completely close Origin last night and then play, anyway. I personally do not like Origin so I try to play without it if I can.
The main difficulty seems to be tweaking the settings to work properly with Win7/8.
I also took advantage of the free Sims 2 offer. Have not installed yet, though. I don't particularly like Origin - it's a poor man's version of Steam - but it just runs in the background so it's not a big deal to me. I play FIFA 13 and SimCity (2013) via Origin fairly regularly.