Heh Heh Dimlaw!!!!!! (The Sims - Hot Date (Expansion Pack) (PC))

Member Name: Feefo

Product:	The Sims - Hot Date (Expansion Pack) (PC)
Date:	17/03/02 (555 review reads)
Rating:

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I would have bought this regardless of the price, through curiosity and love of the Sims. It is an expansion pack and extension to the original Sims game and is not a stand-alone game. People must have bought and installed “The Sims” to play this added extension to the game.


SO WHAT’S NEW?

Well, quite a bit actually. There are 10 exchange lots in the Downtown section from the local chippie café to posh restaurants to gambling anonymous havens. There is a beach, shops where you can buy quite a few items including clothes and jewelry and more.

This pack also provides The Sims gamer with 8 expanding neighbourhoods in total, 80 lots to build on/demolish/ignore.
You have further and more complex social interactions and an escape from the boredom and claustrophobia of suburbia cleaning and working all the time in going downtown.

Now there are more people to meet and socialise with. You have to call a cab to go Downtown, there is no pleasant walking involved sadly. But when you get Downtown, you choose which lot you want to visit of which there are ten and find that there is, often quite a lot going on in your chosen lot. There are lots of people milling about the place for you to greet and you can bring a friend Downtown with you.

Not only do you have 9 Downtown lots (per each neighbourhood)ready made and active, you also have one vacant lot ready for use. You can build on it and create your own fantasy shopping mall, demolish one of the ready made ones and build your own, or modify an existing one.

FUNCTIONS

Social

The additional feature to the Sims expands on the game’s social capacities. The Sims can now change topics of conversation, their name is highlighted when you navigate over a character. This latter function makes it easier to recognise quickly who you are dealing with and is just a whole lot neater and punchier. It also aids you in deciding
who to talk to next.
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There are loads of characters Downtown to interact with and make friends with to add to your friends back in the neighbourhood. Thus, this function can help you advance career wise, as the more friends you have for your family helps you get them promoted.

The characters Downtown are, (somewhat surprisingly!) called Townies and they appear once met, in relationship lists and “telephone bubble lists” which appear when you want to make a call.

It is rather pleasant that it is possible with Hot Date to get your Sim to just phone a friend for a chat which, as long as they don’t wake them at one am, will increase your friendship “points” with that friend, albeit not by much.

There are new types of characters to be found Downtown: blonde bombshell, jock, femme fatale, dream-boat and lounge lizard. There is an old woman who goes around town cleaning up after everyone. This is useful when your Sim wets themselves when they are in the restaurant and his date leaves in embarrassment. (But doesn’t stop the date from leaving!).

It’s all about dating. New functions are: various types of kissing, from peck to fiery!, entertaining by puppet (I ask you!!) and buying gifts from the shops. The Sims can try on and buy clothes in the shops which sell clothes – swimsuits and formal wear.
This can be particularly useful when you make your Sim run out to the cab still in his PJs, having forgotten to get him changed first!!!!.

The Sims can buy items as gifts to be added to their inventory, and see one paradoxical item which is clearly a private joke by the makers of the Sims. (You’ll know when you see it.) Magazines can be bought and taken home which can add to the Sims’ interests and ease conversation, leading to more friendships.

WHAT ELSE?

If your Sim gets on very well with their new Townie friend/Neighbour whil
e Downtown, you can try to get them to eat with your Sim. Buy from several types of meal, get waiter service and request your favourite song from the resident musician while they eat.

There are extra capacities while eating – e.g cuddle, make-out, kiss. These and other options are available to you depending on how well things are going!.

Your Sim must say goodbye to a companion brought along from the neighbourhood or a companion met Downtown before meeting the next. Sims can invite neighbours or townies over the phone or face-to-face to come Downtown, (including their own household members).

You don’t control the Sim’s companion while Downtown but your Sim can talk to them.

GOOD STUFF

You can bet Downtown. Once I found that excellent because my Sim won lots of money but realistically, it doesn’t always follow.

Boating on the ponds and fish food for the fish – all via the man in the booth in one of the lots.

Wells to wish in, fountains and lots of different ways of fulfilling a appetite Downtown.

I found furnishing the empty lot one day really fun. Spent a good couple of hours installing all the necessaries – wall to wall music, kitchen areas, tills, café, shop and restaurant stuff. It is quite satisfying when you’ve worked hard and then see all the staff and people “magically” appear at the end.

While the Sims are Downtown, time stays still back home in the Neighbourhood, giving you the chance to create some needed friendships and then getting the Sims back home to go to work and get promoted!. Although, obviously their moods and energy may only allow for them to just go to work and later get promoted.

BAD STUFF

Problems:

The game tends to get frustrating: or rather going Downtown specifically can. This is when your Sim gets nowhere and they have no energy and or bad moods when they get home and
while Downtown. It also uses up a lot of your own energy to build up Sim moods to go Downtown in the first place!!!.

Time doesn’t stay still if you leave for town too near to the relevant carpool arrival so you have to watch that!

There is no shower to wash in while Downtown which makes bad hygiene a big hindrance to getting more acquainted with others!!. I am not sure if it’s possible to put one in because I keep forgetting but it is awkward initially!!!.

There is a picnic function which looks lovely and I haven’t got my Sims to enjoy a proper one yet as I bought a picnic and the companion failed to join my Sim!!!. This isn’t really a bad thing, I just wanted to tell you!!!.

I think the extra lot took up a lot more memory. My computer does have a lot of memory but that is one of the snags of computer gaming these days whether with playstations or Pcs, you need a lot of technical equipment and assistance and memory.

When I built on the vacant lot, although I had lots of fun doing it, as I said, it caused rather a large hindrance to game play. I got a lot of choppy ness and jumping around of the cursor, the game sticking. The game became much slower as a result. The wall to wall music in the empty lot which I created was very choppy and so I turned off music and turned down sound effects and voice.

The game is operating on the least taxing game options now and I know you’ll say I must upgrade, I will soon!!!. Having two expansion packs alongside the Sims was a big burden for this computer so I would recommend that people check out and ensure that they have the recommended capacities on their computers rather than just above minimum!. The bad memory problem also worsens when I add a new item/family, but I am sure it could be sorted out by an up-grade, if I am still playing by then!!!!.

The amazing array of new skins (faces/characters) were not quite as extensive as
I had thought. It was a bit disappointing actually. So I installed “Gold Face Lift” from the Sims website. This was fun and I created lots of new characters which have enhanced game-play. The down-side was that sometimes skin on the face didn’t quite match the body in colour or size.

I did end up with a troop of unsightly grotesques – not what I had in mind, not wishing to be “un-pc”.

When I created my own lot –the tills didn’t work initially, I had the wrong type in apparently and one Sim got stuck in the wrong sex toilet!!!!. But these are just teething troubles.

I haven’t been able to get my Sims interests increased by reading the Downtown magazines yet. I am hoping that I will sort that one out at some stage. However, it hasn’t prevented my enjoyment of the game and despite a few pitfalls, is a very entertaining game with quite a vast capacity for creativity.

Summary: