The Sims 2 Nightlife review

On a list named ‘Things people can visualize with minimal information” a Sims 2 expansion would rank pretty high. First off everyone knows the franchise and everyone knows that each expansion, well, expands the game a little more by adding a few new items, places, animations and gameplay elements. All you need to know is the title and you have a pretty good idea what this expansion focuses on. However I am expected to write a full review so that’s what I’ll do, so take my hand and we will venture into the magical realm of a new Sims expansion called Sims 2 Nightlife.

Brave new world

The world outside Joe Sim’s house just got a lot bigger. There are now tons of new places to visit in the Downtown area and despite what the title indicates they are not all nightclubs. You can visit museums, big bowling halls, beautiful parks, poker halls and fancy restaurants.

However new places mean more travelling and that’s why the Sims can own cars now. The benefit of having a car is a shortened travelling time (and a new place to do WooHoo). You can buy for example the ultimate babe magnet sports car, the family mini-van or the piece-of-crap car. It’s not really as groundbreaking as you’d think but it’s a nice feature.

In terms of content there is definitely enough in here to please fans. For example as soon as I started Nightlife up one of my characters walked towards the bath but instead of using it he proceeded to stand in the bathtub fully clothed making pirate noises. I got a good laugh out of that. There’s also a new dance routine that’s just plain funny to look at.

I have to mention the vampires. These creatures of the night roam around at night and if you ever get the chance of being bitten by one, well let’s just say the whole game changes. Everyday things like eating, sleeping and working will become something new entirely.

Relationships

Relationships between the Sims have taken a step up. There is a new trait called chemistry which shows up as a lightning icon. I suspect that some variation of this was present in game before Nightlife since my gigolo did not have the same success rate with every woman he pursued. Another similar feature are turn-ons and turn-offs which you get to decide.

A turn-on might include cologne (the sims can now store things like a cologne or a magazine in an inventory) or simply beards. If you don’t feel like going through the hassle of finding out these things you can always buy a love potion from the matchmaking gypsy woman. She can also set you up on blind dates and the more you pay her, the better the catch.

Race against time

The Sims 2 just became a little more goal-orientated with Nightlife. Before you could throw a party and you had a certain amount of time to make it a successful one which resulted in some aspiration points. In Nightlife this applies to dates and outings but with better rewards. The outings are done by taking out a group by friends (which you can now conveniently organize through the telephone into named groups). A typical scenario would be getting seated at a table and ordering food. Afterwards you’d go bowling or whatever strikes your fancy and helps make the outing a success.

For dates you get a few minutes in order to raise the date up to the next level and get some extra time ultimately leading up to a dream date if things go right. Who knows; as a reward your date may show up the next morning with a brand new guitar or an aquarium as a way of saying thank you.

Sim-Tunes

The music is still brilliant; it has evolved from being the theme music everyone knows to being a multitude of parodies or tributes to popular music. Of course the lyrics are all in sim-ish but sometimes you can swear you hear the singer of for example Green Day crooning, another time something reminds you of an old song with Blondie and there is a nice take of some old Metallica songs. Then there are of course the techno beats which are also very well done. All in all the music is enjoyable and adds to the game.

Final Thoughts

There are still some technical problems and it seems that Nightlife didn’t do much in way of gameplay fixes. Since reviewing the Sims 2 and the Sims 2 University I’ve upgraded my computer system to 3.2 GHz, 1 GB ram and whatnot but still the game slows down and is jerky at times. The loading times are still somewhat long. The sims are still sometimes as unresponsive as ever; some actions are just discarded so you have to repeatedly select them. There even seems to be a new bug introduced here because sometimes the sims just freeze in place; not responding to anything until you make them walk or run to a different place.

However if you can get past the technical glitches, or somehow manage to avoid them, then Sims 2 Nightlife is a fine addition to the growing Sims 2 franchise.