The Sims 2 Nightlife Exclusive Hands-On - The Sims Come Out At Night
We get our hands on the Nightlife expansion and unleash our sims on the new downtown area to discover vampires, cars, and how to turn a sim on.
The Sims 2 Nightlife is the second expansion pack for EA and Maxis' monster franchise, The Sims 2, and it's likely going to be a very popular one with the fans. While the first expansion, University, focused on college life and young adult sims, Nightlife is all about letting your sims go out on the town for a good time. We've gotten our hands on a nearly complete version of Nightlife and unleashed our sims on the new downtown areas to see what the deal is with this expansion. And while there are certainly a lot of similarities to the popular Hot Date expansion to the original The Sims, Nightlife also has plenty of new features to call its own.
Right off the bat, there is a lot of content packed into Nightlife, and it simply feels bigger than the University expansion, or maybe that's because instead of dividing all the new locales into three distinctly different areas, like University did, Nightlife comes with an uber-downtown with 31 different premade community lots that you can explore. You can use this downtown with each of the three preexisting towns that ship with The Sims 2, or with your own custom neighborhood. (The towns won't share the same downtown, but they'll create their own downtown using the same template.) And, of course, you can also create your own downtown, if you wish.
The downtown that ships with the expansion features plenty of variety, and there should be something that will appeal to all sorts of sims. There are clubs, such as the Crypt O' Night Club and the N3rD Pad, restaurants like Oresha Family Dining and Red's Famous '50s Diner, spas, parks, an art museum, a high-end grocery, bars, shops, and more. And, yes, these places are also open during the day, as well, so you're not limited to going to them only at night. In addition to the new building options, there are also a slew of new items to play with, including a spin machine (called the Electro Dance Sphere) that your sim can strap into and ride, as well as fancy new dance lights, a poker table, a photo booth, and more.
To populate these locales, there are also a bunch of new and interesting characters, including a couple of vampires, as well as a whole host of party guys and girls. And yes, the vampires are for real. Though we still haven't figured out yet how to turn our sim into a creature of the night, we have befriended two of the vampires in the game, and they need to hustle back to their caskets come daybreak or else they're in trouble. There's even a gypsy matchmaker who can set up your sim with a new dream date, but for a hefty 5,000 simoleans. She can also sell your sim a love potion that can make your sim irresistible, or a "cure" for any potential vampirism your sims are infected with, in case you discover that not being able to do anything for 12 hours every day isn't for you.
There are a slew of new social interactions as well, most of which are geared toward facilitating group interaction. Your sim can now "ask" other sims a slew of questions, including their turn-ons and turnoffs (more on this later), if they want to form a casual group, what their jobs are, how much money they make, and more. If you can get a sim to go on a date, then the date meter appears, which indicates how much time is left on the date, as well as how the date is going. Basically, if you tried to get your sim into private school in the original game, then you're a bit familiar with how this works. You've got to keep your companion sim interested and engaged, as well as make sure that his or her needs are met. If the date goes well, it will stretch out longer and longer, allowing you to make your move. If it doesn't, well…things can get sour pretty quickly in that situation.
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- GameSpot Score8.0great
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The Sims 2 Nightlife Review
Nightlife offers plenty of new areas to build outdoor lots and some interesting new features that give The Sims 2 a fresh coat of paint for its many fans.
- Sep 13, 2005
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