Nightlife is a wonderful add-on to the simmish universe. It adds a lot of new things, both in gameplay and content. A new neighborhood (containing both commercial and residential lots) sets the stage for Nightlife (NL). There are many activities for your sims to enjoy: bowling, fine dining, night clubs, poker games, picnics, the list goes on. This becomes important when considering where to go on a date, which brings me to the biggest gameplay addition. Many people thought the "dating" in NL would be like that in Hot Date. Not so. Dating has now become a timed mini-game, similar to getting your children into private school or throwing a party. Dates can run the range between being a total flop or a "Dream Date". There are a couple of considerations that will help when going for the dream date. As always, just as in real life, a good mood is important for getting the most out of your date. Next, it helps to start out with someone you're attracted to. Yes, sims now are attracted to other sims. Attraction is determined by the game comparing a lot of factors: shared interests, aspirations, turns ons and turn offs, etc. There are some interactions you can do to see if there are any likely candidates in the room for your romantic machinations. The next order of business is to have fun. And it's timed. Fortunately, every time your date bumps up a notch, you'll get more time. So while you only start with about 3 minutes, you'll get an extra 3 minutes when you raise your date score from "okay" to "good", and so on. Your score is measured in a handy thermometer/timer on the right of the screen. Now, I know the quick ones out there noticed that I listed turn ons and turn offs when giving the rules of attraction. That's right - when you create a sim, you now set two turn ons and one turn off when you're tweaking their personality. Existing sims will have a one-time use potion in their inventory that will allow them to set their preferences in partners. Yep - sims now have inventories. No more losing thier reward objects when they move. Additionally, there's also a new aspiration (well, two...) - the Pleasure aspiration. These sims are all about doing what's fun. They love to go out on dates, outings, out to dinner, dancing, etc. The other new aspiration comes from using a new reward object. I won't spoil it, but it's pretty funny. There's a smattering of other new stuff in NL: cars, vampires (I'm working on getting my sim bitten :-) ), objects, social interactions, etc. The game just feels very rounded out as far as content goes. They've also added some new music, which is very good. This is really a very large expansion - Maxis has been doing a good job on giving you bang for your buck on expansion packs. University was very feature-packed, as well. If you're a simmer, you will want this game. It's a lot of fun and expands the world of the sims in leaps and bounds. Do yourself a favor and make a date to pick it up!
Instead of keep on calling a taxi ever time you go out you can just ride in your new pimping new sports car. To go to all your shopping needs all over the new downtown feature. Go pick up dates in all new night clubs. Ne... Read Full Review
I have been waiting so impatiently for this expansion, that I couldn't believe my eyes when it arrived. Hot Date was by far my favorite add-on for The Sims, and Nightlife was supposed to be the Sims 2 version of it, so I... Read Full Review
