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The Sims 2 – Open for Business

The third expansion released for The Sims 2, that added the ability to create and run business from their own home, or from a community lot. This expansion also included the concept of badges, business perks. OFB gives sims more options on how to make money, instead of having to have a career.

Business can vary from selling goods purchased from buy mode to their own produce like cakes/robots/flowers/etc that the sim has produced. Items from other expansion packs can be sold or monetized into a service. By default, the shipped Shopping district (Bluewater Village) comes with a few premade business like a florist, a cake shop and a Toy shop, A few ideas are:

Fish: With the Seasons expansion, You can have your sim catch fish from a nearby lake and then sell it other sims, since the types of fish is dependent on their talent badge and access to a lake, this could be a useful way for sims to buy and cook fish if they have no access to a lake on their own lot. Also remember that sims cannot increase their skills and badges on a community lot, so it’s impossible to catch more expensive fish without cheats unless they have a lake on their own lot

Cakes/Food: Sims with a high cooking skill can produce food that can be sold for other sims. Things like pizza and Chinese food still cannot be produced which I think was a missed opportunity with this expansion, you could have had sims create their own fast food place.

Beauty Salon: Freetime introduced a hair salon chair which allows sims to give makeovers to other sims, also serves as a nice opportunity to change the appearance of NPC’s and townies

Boxing Gym: The punching bag normally cannot be purchased as its an career reward for the military, however a sim that has unlocked this can use it to set up their own gym. It’s a bit tricky to set up as sims wont autonomously use it, instead you have to have your sim offer lessons to them.

Art Studio: Sims can produce their own paintings and sell them to other sims. Having them to do portraits for other sims can be tricky as they will reject this if the relationship is low. Also the painting’s the sims produce are done at random.

Farm: Sims that can grow crops can also sell their produce, useful for sims that do not have enough land to grow their own. This best way to do this is to grow their own produce at home, then sell it off at a community lot they own.

Robot/Electronics: With the Robot station, sims can product electronic items like drones and full on Servo’s than can be brought and activated. Dones can be for security or food (The munchies bot brings either Pizza or Chinese Food). These tend to malfunction often and are more trouble than they are worth.

Textiles: With the Freetime expansion, sims can craft and sell their own fabrics. With a high enough talent badge, you can create your own clothing.

Pottery Shop: Also included with the Freetime expansion, Sims can sell a range of pottery.

Car Showroom: You can purchase the craftable car, have your sim fix and complete it and sell it. This one is best suited for a home lot, as I ran into a few issues trying to attempt this on a community lot. First is vehicles cannot be purchased in Buy mode whilst on a community lot, and storing them in the inventory caused issues when placing them on the driveway.

Fighting in a pottery shop, You break it you pay it

There is a bit of micromanagement needed when running a business, as you are expected to manually assign your employees roles to ensure the business remains functional. Over time, they will need to be assigned on break, otherwise they will quit.

Craftables are a new concept introduced in the game, and are made by purchasing the correct workbench. This is where the skill badges comes in, as the type of items the sim can make Is dependent on how good their badge is for that talent.

Robots are one of the new objects that can be crafted. You start of by making simple toy’s, then onto sentry drones (which are quite useful, like the Munchie bot that will deliver food every so often) to eventually a Servo. Some of the robots have a tendency to break down often, like the hoover bot. When this happens it will just spew trash all over the lot, and it will happen quite frequently regardless of the sims talent or mechanical skill. Personally I would avoid these and just stick with the gardener or maid, or install a mod to reduce the chance of breakage.

The Servos, when powered up become their own sims. They can be controlled, get a job and do most tasks a sim would normally do. They have and have a different set of motives comparted to a human sim, relying on sunlight for power. Servos will always have a desire to clean up, and will often do chores automatically. This is in contrast to the Servo that was introduced in Livin Large, where they had to be manually activated by the sim,

Shopping districts are introduced in the game, these are subhood’s that had can be added to an existing neighborhood. They can also be used if you run out of space on your current neighborhood. There is no hard limit on the amount of sub hoods that can be added, and sims can travel between different subhoods.

Bluewater village ships with the game and adds a few families to the game, these serve as examples of the different buisness that can be used with Open For buisness.

Tinker: Stephen, Wanda and their daughter Melody, they are currently in the toy making business and are operating it from home.
Delarosa: Florence operates a flower shop from her lot
Jacquet: Denise, with her son Gilbert who are owners of a local bakery.
Landgrabb: Malcom Landgrabb lives here, who is no stranger to The Sims having previously appeard in the console games (Bustin Out). Dudley and Mimi do not appear and there is no mention of them in the family tree.
Ramirez: Checo, Lisa and their daughter Tessa, live on a fairly typical household lot. There is a lemonade stand outside which Tessa can use to sell lemonade. Both parents are unemployed, so Tessa must be shitfing some Lemonade to pay the bills
Gieke: Family bin sim, can be moved onto any lot he can afford.
Larson: Twins Jason and Jodie, who currently do not have a business (or a lot) of their own.

Conclusion

Open For Business adds a lot of new features to the game, but the implementation is not without flaws. NPC/Townie sims will constantly try to interact with your employees which can cause then to be unassigned from their tasks, leaning into the micromanagement element of the game. NPC sims also tend to hang around on lots even after they have finished shopping, often getting into fights with other sims which can affect the business ranking (which is unfair). Often you will have to manually dismiss these sims off the lot to prevent your rating from tanking, or so the game will actually spawn sims that will buy items. A quirk of The Sims 2 is that the game will only spawn so many sims on a lot according to your systems capabilities and after a while, will stop spawning sims because the existing sims are wandering around the lot or are playing outside.

The employee system could have been implemented better as its not always easy to tell when they need to go on a break, and they often quit for no reason even whilst on break. Thankfully there are mods that can fix this.

SimCity 4

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The SimCity series was one of the first simulation games to gain widespread popularity, despite a lack of concrete goals or action-packed gameplay. SimCity 4 maintains this kind of sandbox play, letting players build and develop cities as they see fit. Aside from staying within the constraints of a budget and carefully avoiding a rioting populace, players are free to build whatever environment strikes their fancy. The cardinal rule in SC4 is, keep the citizens happy. As the mayor, it’s up to you to set the taxes and zone the land in such a way that your residents happily build the city you want. There’s even a terrain-building mode with all the tools to create your own topology before founding a city.

Veterans of the series will have no trouble assuming the role of mayor and will immediately begin laying down the roads, railways, economic zones, and other infrastructure. One notable feature is the addition of interlinked regions of cities even lets players create and manage economies of scale. By building transportation links in a region, cities can share resources, exchange labor pools, trade goods, and benefit from each other in dozens of other ways that weren’t possible in SimCity 3000. This also lets you be more flexible with designing your city, since you have have an industrial focused city, while another can be commercial or agricultural focused. As long as you have strong transport like between the two, you can have a very efficient network of cities. Resources like electricity and water can also be shared, at a monthly cost.

SC4 comes with seven precreated regions, some of which contain existing cities that can be played if you don’t feel like starting from scratch. Some of the remade serve as tutorials which help the player gradually learn the advanced mechanics of SC4.

Growth in SC4 is obtained by carefully placing commercial, residential, and industrial districts to encourage new development. There’s a comprehensive system for managing transportation, including roads, highways, rail, sea, and air routes. Traffic management can be challenging but rewarding when optimized, giving a sense of accomplishment when your city runs smoothly. As your city grows, important municipal services such as water, public schooling, and hospitals must be placed strategically to keep your city happy and healthy, as each building can only serve a limited area. Transport will be the first issue you may encounter, such traffic jams can make sims unhappy if your roads aren’t high enough to accommodate, solving this cane done by implementing bus stations, tram, train or monorail lines.

Although you can anticipate their needs, you can save a little money by improving services as complaints arise. Just don’t wait too long to add that water treatment plant or fire station, or your mayor rating will drop drastically and can lead to a population decrease, which means less taxes. All new mayors start with what seems like plenty of cash, but aggressive spending can lead to monthly deficits. Really, your city budget and expensive are the mainbattle here, and it’s difficult to keep themin balance witht he overall income. Slow growth is best, though the game can be too slow at times. It’s difficult to have more than a few hundred dollars cash-positive every month, and with that amount of money little expansion is possible even on the easy difficulty.

Among the tools at your disposal are graphs , colour-coded maps, and advisors who may or may not provide useful suggestions, these help provide data like which areas have the most serious crime, or which area is well educated or polluted. Residents of the city will also share their desires and frustrations in a number of ways. SC4 lets you place characters from The Sims into your city for more individualised feedback about life in your town. You can place these around the different residential locations of your city, and keep an observation of how rich or poor the different areas are and the success of your sims. They can also get ill and die, providing a reflection of the state of health in that area (pollution and access to hospitals). You might want to place several sims in different areas of economic value, to gauge the overall performance of that area.

Natural and unnatural disasters, including extraterrestrial incursion, present the most dramatic threat to any city. Although rare, meteor showers, lightning storms, and the like can level entire blocks and start fires throughout the city. Despite the damage they cause, these events are an enjoyable showcase of the improvements to the graphics in SC4, The detail available at the closest zoom level is quite striking. Individual Sims can be seen driving to the train station or enjoying a community garden.

SimCity 4 includes a day to night cycle that’s reflected on-screen, complete with vehicle headlights, streetlights, and midnight basketball games on outdoor courts. If the nighttime view is too dim for your liking, you can elect to forgo the visuals, although your city will still operate according to the cycle. For your listening pleasure, Maxis included a diverse selection of music to accompany your play. Custom MP3 files can be added if you wish to add your own music.

Versions

Windows: The original port of the game, designed for DirectX 7. This version runs fuine on modern Windows 10, but the retail disc releases will require SecuROM which Windows no longer supports. The Steam release of the game removes this requirement in favour of Steam’s own DRM. Also, this game is notorious for crashing, especially on systems that have dual core or multi-core processors (pretty much any CPU from 2006 onwards). Setting the CPU affinity to 1 in Windows Task manager has been known to help, but I still do experience crashes. Always save your cities often, preferable every 5 minutes.

This version does not natively support widescreen resolutions, or higher resolutions but can be customised to run in a specific resolution.

Mac OS X: Simcity was ported to OS X shortly after the release of the Windows version, and was only for PowerPC initially. The port is similar to the Windows version.

This version later received a Universal Binary patch that allowed the game to run natively on the Intel platform without the use of Rosetta, however this required the Rush Hour expansion to be installed.

Aspyr would later rerelease the game on the Mac App Store, and would update it to allow it to run on future versions of MacOS, enabling support for the Metal graphics API that enabled native support for higher resolutions, and 64bit support (though the game does not benefit much from this, even with a lot of mods installed). Music from iTunes can be played by using playlists, although this has issues on alter OS released (tested on Monterey) likely since Apple replaced iTunes with the Apple Music app. Still, This new version is the preferred way to play the game if you have access to a Mac.

And yes, like the Windows version the game can crashes frequently.

Conclusion

SimCity 4 isn’t a perfect game. It has a difficult learning curve, so the poor documentation and limited tutorials might frustrate players. And the gameplay suffers from some pacing and balance flaws. The time commitment to build a megalopolis from scratch is extensive, which might encourage players to just cheat instead. Still this version of SimCity is very highly regarded, and is preferred over SimCity Societies and the 2013 release of SimCity. It might be years before we will see another good SimCity game like SC4.

Sid Meier’s SimGolf

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A golf simulation game with a bit of Simcity/Sims formula, here players act as both a golf course designer and a golf resort manager. The game allows you to design your own golf courses, managing aspects like terrain, hazards, and amenities. Basically to create an interesting golf course and to keep your golfers happy. You’ve just inherited 100,000 simoleons! The only catch is, you’ve got to spend it building a golf resort empire. Thankfully you’ll love every minute of it, even if you don’t know the difference between a bunker and a ball washer.

The user interface is pretty similar to what was seen in The Sims, where you can select different modes that relate to the gameplay. Course design has its own selection, as do building and then the golfers themselves. At the start of the game you choose one of six pieces of real estate. (There are 16 total. Six choices are chosen at random with each new game.) Each piece has its own unique climate, features, and terrain.

Next you have to start building your resort. That means budgeting your money to build holes, add paths, bridges, and decorations, hire workers, and buy buildings and amenities. You’re managing a golf resort and the golf itself is only part of the equation. From the moment you open your first hole, little people, sims, will visit, play, and begin commenting on your handiwork. Open a few holes and soon you’ll be inundated with critique and with praise, especially if you’ve designed things well.

The main mechanic with the game is the course design, you have to create and design your own golf course using the tools that have been provided, whilst making up challenging yet enjoyable. You will need to keep the difficulty fair, as golfers will start to rage and quit if the hole is too difficult to complete. This can be a bit of a challenge, as golfers will dislike it when they get stuck in tough terrain, or if the ball rolls down the hill that they have to climb up. When designing a hole, you first place the tee and then the green (the place with the flag and the hole). Between them you can place bunkers, rough, sand, rocks, trees, and even water. Somewhere you’re going to want to lay the fairway (closely cropped grass that’s easy to hit from). There are two types of fairway with slightly different characteristics, and their locations determine how golfers approach each shot.

For example, you can place the tee low among the trees and the hole up on the other side of a hill (you control the terrain elevation as well), and lay a sand trap to the right and fairway to the left (this is called a dog leg left, by the way). Golfers can choose to power hit over the hill and onto the green, or they can play more conservatively and aim for the fairway to get there in two shots. Golfers are rated for accuracy, power, luck, skill at various shots, and imagination. Golfers better at certain skills will appreciate holes that cater to those skills, so, to keep everyone happy, you need a wide range of holes on your course.

Also golfers will try to take the most direct path to the end, which will mean they might end up shooting the ball within the tress if they are in the way which makes course design difficult since you cannot account for where the sims will shoot the ball. The game will try to help you by bringing up a while line to help guess where the sims will be tempted to shoot the ball, but this isn’t always accurate.

Staff can also be hired to help keep your golfers happy. These consist of a groundskeeper to help maintain your golf courses, Greeters who help keep golfers happy and engaged, drink vendors who will provide drinks to satisfy the thirst need and Marshals who will speed up play. There are two tiers of staff, which the more expensive tier having larger range that can cover more of a surface area.

In this way SimGolf captures the great and intangible design challenge inherent in golf: Nobody likes a hole that’s too easy, and nobody likes one that’s too hard. The easiest way to make sullen golfers happy is to let them succeed by making sure the next hole is a cakewalk. That way, when they nail a birdie on hole 6, their day is made. But on the next hole, if they hit the water trap three times in a row, their clubs will soon follow the ball into the drink and you’ll lose a customer. The challenge here is making courses that’ll make both Tiger Woods and the guy next door happy. You can mitigate this by improving on the scenery around the hole to bring up their happiness.

Golfers can also apply to become members, which help to increase your greens fees. They can upgrade their membership to silver and gold, which will allow them to purchase property and gives you an alternative revenue stream. Golfers can resign their membership if they are unhappy with the golf course as a whole.

There are various locations available to play within the game, many of these are set around the world and provide alternative terrain and building options that are suited to that location. Different locations can be purchased as you progress the game.

Building’s can also be brought and placed, some of which can help increase your golfers’ skills to help with the more difficult courses. The putting Green, Driving range and pro Shop will help your golfers improve their skills to play some of the longer or complex courses. A cart garage will help speed up movement between different holes.
There is also a café where golfers can purchase refreshments to keep them happy. Like The Sims, golfers will have motives that will deplete as they play the game, these will have to be replenished in order to keep them happy, otherwise they will get angry and leave. Hunger and thirst can be replenished with the café’s mentioned previously, whilst tiredness can be kept at bay by placing benches along the path to the next golf hole.

SimGolf is a pretty quirky game, and there’s a lot of little facets of charm from the golfers dialog, to the tine that plays when building the terrain. The only major downside to the game s the lack of speed control, unlike other Sims or SimCity games you cannot control the speed of the simulation, so you will need to wait until your sims complete. There’s a wide range of difficulty modes, and the game never really ends. You can always play a tournament on your finished courses, and once finished you can buy another plot and start a new course. Or you can take money out of the equation and use the Sandbox mode to create the course of your dreams or re-create the one next door.

The game was never released digitally, so its not available on Steam GoG, or EA’s Origin Play.

The Sims 2 – University Life Collection

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A compilation of an expansion pack and two stuff packs.

University

One of the first expansion packs released for The Sims 2, Here sims can move up in the world by entering into the world of higher education. They can move into a dorm, enroll in a class and graduate (or flunk). Sims who have graduated have access to additional careers when they return to their home hood.

It’s worth mentioning the game tries to portray American college life, which will differ if you are not from the US. If your familiar with college-era TV shows like Undergradz, Blue Mountain State, etc, then you should be aware with what the expansion pack is trying to portray.

A new life stage is introduced, Young Adult. This is only available to sims that have enrolled in University, normal sims aging from teens to age to an adult if they choose not to go to university.

Dorms are shared housing that sims can live on. These are cheaper to live in as they do not require rent (though bills must be paid). Each dorm can have a caterer who will serve food in the canteen area. When moving in, sims will need to allocate a dorm room which is where they will sleep in. Other sims will move into any of the vacant form bedrooms.

Regular houses can also be bought, though this is harder since sims are only given 500 to start with for university. This can be increased by applying to scholarships whilst they are a teenager, which depends on the levels of skills, school grade and circumstances (like having a dead parent or an alien sim)

NPC teenagers can be aged to a young adult and made playable in University, the ‘Send sims to Uni’ button in the neighborhood screen can be used for sending sims in bulk.

Sims’ academic performance is tracked through a GPA (Grade Point Average) system. Attending classes, completing assignments, and studying all contribute to a Sim’s academic success. Not having a good enough grade can cause the sim to enter academic prohibition where they will have to repeat the semester.

University comes with its own NPCs. There are a lot of professors who serve as lecturers, which the game allocates two to each subject. Sims will automatically meet these when they attend class, and will sometimes come over to visit as a regular NPC. They can be interacted with and romances, which can be used to get a higher grade. Be careful with the drama professors, they are very romantic and are sure to cause trouble.

Other NPCs include school mascots which will visit the lot and will constantly perform the school dance. Gym teachers who will instruct sims to work out, and Streakers who are students who run around in the buff.

Lastly there is also a Cow mascot which will appear to wreak havoc with other sims, since it’s implied to be from a rival school. I’m guessing campus security isn’t that great.

The Universities

There are three pre-made university sub-hoods, any of which can be attached to each neighbourhood, They are not shared across the different hoods, so each one will have their own copy of lots, dorms and sims.

La Fiesta Tech – Set on a desert, similar to Strangetown. IDK why they named it after the Ford Fiesta car?

Fraternity: Guy, Mickey and Matthew live in a household named after a Skyrim spell
Sorority: DJ, Monica, Sarah and Jessie are one of the geek house lots
Shifting Paradymes – Gunnar, Jasmine and Zoe live in a house and are supposed to be part of a band, hence the household name. They can perm on community lots that have music instruments on them (drum kit, guitar and bass)
Worthington: Francis lives here on his own
Davis – Aldric and Almeric are twin brothers who live on the same lot
Student Housing – William, Blossom and Klara are vacant students who can be moved into any lot or dorm
Terrano – Stella is the lone sim here, and the only alien sim students

Academe le Tour – Supposed to be a typical European university, hence no greek houses are included by default.

O’Feefe – Delilah live on her own here, and has an obsession with the colour yellow
Friends – Mitch and Max live here in very tiny houses. Appears there are two different house on the lot, predating the apartment concept
Sharpe: Roxie and Jonah live here, along with Roxie’s brother Edwin. Jonah looks like Carrot Top
Biggs – Marla also lives on her own here
First Year – Phineaus, Ellen and Chaz all live here in their own household and appear to be a diverse group of different personalities
Students – Emily and Tom live here and are ready to be moved into any dorm.

Sim State University

Bright: Three outcast students. Martin, Jane and Allegra, who remind me of Janice of Mean Girls
Frat Brothers: Your typical college fraternity, with Ashley (who reminds me of Dennis from Always Sunny), Castor, Joshua (the jock) and Kevin (the stoner/slacker)
Tri-Var Sorority: Tiffany, Brittany and Heather
Freshman: Similar to the first-year students from Academe Le Tour, Sam, Jared and Ty are all new to campus
Phoenix: Jimmy is implied to be a foreign exchange student, or an immigrant looking for better opportunities
Swain: Erik is on his own and is also a freshman

Students will return to the main hood once they graduate, and can be moved into any lot or move into an existing household.

Each hood has its own set of community lots, like a library where sims can upskill. Student unions where sims can interact with other sims and dedicated shops.

Greek houses are lots that have sims who are part of the fraternity. They have access to additional interactions, more of which are unlocked when you level up the house, This can be done by making more friends on campus. To become part of a Greek house, your sim will need to befriend 3-5 sims who are part of the Greek house (done by pledging through the phone.

IKEA Home Stuff

Included a bunch of furniture from IKEA. Typically included chairs, tables, beds and decorative objects. The furniture added here is quite cheap making it ideal for low-income or starter families, and for students who have just moved into college. This is also a good addition if you have the Apartment Life expansion pack.

Teen Style Stuff

Adds a lot of clothes and hairstyles for teenage sims. Mainly consists of bedroom sets like the ones seen in Family Fun stuff. these include beds, wardrobes, wallpaper, carpet and end tables that conform to a specific style. These are used to give some style of a teenage bedroom, but can also be used for regular adult sims.

The Sims 2

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The sequel to one of the best-selling games of all time.

Sims themselves were a lot more complex compared to the previous installment, with sims now being rendered entirely in 3D graphics. In the original game only the head and body could be customized with only three body types and skin colour. Sims 2 made this more diverse with four skin colours being introduced, face sliders to customize the sims appearance and more customizable cloths, (Although you couldn’t change the colour of them, which was something the console versions could do).

Body sizes remained the same with the normal, thin and fat body types, which wasn’t very diverse since the fat sims only look slightly chubby, they are nowhere near the My-600lbs-life level. Then again Maxis would have had clipping issues when the sims had close contact with another sim or object, and would have had to have various different animations for the body types.
The concept of genetics was also introduced where sims can pass on their appearance and personality through their offspring, unlike the later game this got pretty complicated with the concept of recessive and dominant genes, later games just kept it simple and combined elements of both sims.

Memories and aspirations are new concepts introduced into the game, with memories serving as achievements that are saved. Aspirations serve as an indicator to a sims mental health, by achieveing ‘Wants’ their aspiraion bar will begin to fill. Fulfilling ‘Fears’ will cause this to go down and when it enters a failure state, sims will break down and will get a visit from a therapist. Points earned from Wants are used to redeem aspiration rewards, which can be used to make skilling or social itneractions easier or to increase the sims lifespan. These cannot be bought for case, only for points.

The concept of genetics and family trees are introduced in this game, where sims can pass on their personality and appearance onto their offspring. The comcept of family relations is also present here, which special socialinteractions being made avaliable to family members.

The Hoods

The original sims game only supported one hood, with multiple hoods being a feature of several of the expansion packs, however these hoods are all set in the same location with very little diversity in the environment. Sims 2 expands on the neighborhoods by allowing the ability to have custom hoods from the base game, and even come with three neighborhoods.

Pleasentview: This is supposed to be the original neighborhood from the first Sims game, but set 25 years later with the Sims themselves having aged older. There are many familiar families like the Goths, Burb and Pleasent. Non of the original lots return, will all the houses being remodeled to take advantage of the new building tools.
Strangetown – One of my favorite hoods because of how eccentric some of the characters are, set in a remote desert.
Veronaville – Inspired by various Shakespeare plays including Romeo and Juliet and The Midsummer Knights Dream. There are three main families who have a very rich backstory. The lots follow either a tudor or an Italian design.

Hoods are based on Simcity 4 small citys, and you can even see the .sc4 file extension allowing for custom hoods to be created using Simcity 4, and then exported to The Sims 2. The terrain level and type could also be customised, although once set you cannot change this within the game. This differs from the original game which was fixedin the neighbourhood type and layout,a dn yiou were limited by the amount of lots (10 int he stock game, 48 in Unleashed) WithSims 2, you are givern the choice of quanitity or size, with larger lots occupying more space.

Pre-made sims

A lot of the premade sims have a storyline allocated to them, although this isn’t part of the gameplay itself, storytelling is a focused component of the game with the ability to take screenshots and capture video through the game. Of which can be collected into a family photo album. Some sims have premade scrips that function when you play them for the first time, some of which will introduce some of the games mechanics and features. The Calientes for example with have a scripted burglar appear on the lot at the first night

Pleasentview

Goth: Mortimer and Cassandra return 25 years older, complete in a new crib with the trademark gothic architecture and a gravestone. Alexander is the son of Mortimer and Bella, who is mysteriously missing (but can be added back into the game with either SimPE or the Sim Manipulator object) .
Pleasant: Daniel has grown up and has a wife Mary-Sue and kids of his own, twins Angels and Lilith. Daniel appears to be having an affair with the maid, whilst the twins have the worst sibling rivalry ever seen
Broke: Brandi with her son Dustin and Beau, live in what appears to be a trailer
Dreamer: Widow Darren and his son Dirk, who are struggeling to pay the bills
Oldie: An elderly couple with no kids, Coral and Herb. I normally have these adopt a kid just to keep their legacy alive, if you prefer to keep their generics there is also a mod that lets you create a baby from the crib directly.
Burb: Daniel Pleasant’s sister – Jennifer who married John Burb, who was also from the original sims game. They have a daughter. No sign of Johnny’s pet dog Tucker
Caliente – Nina and Dina – two sisters who have recently moved in and have already wrecked havoc in the neighborhood. Dina has already had an affair with Mortimer Goth, had previously married Michael Bachelor (Bella’s brother and a sim who was also in the original game). Interestingly their family tree shows they have alien ancestry
Lothario – Don who is the male counterpart to the Caliente sisters, this one also has an affair with both of them, and is engaged to be married with Cassandra Goth
There are also a few NPC’s that are well known, Kaylin Langerak (Who appears in The Sims 3), Gordon King and Goopy Gliscarbo – the NPC with the best fashion sense.

StrangeTown

Grunt: A military-esque family with General Buzz with his three sons Tank, Ripp and Buck Grunt. Tank seems to be the type of sim who is desperate for his fathers attention and tries to emulate him, Ripp seems like a slacker/stoner type who is struggling to find his feet, while Buck is the youngest. Their mother, Lydia divorced before passing away, and her grave can be found in Olive Specters garden, speaking off…
Specter: Olive Specter, one of my favourite premade sims since there is such as mystery around her, why does she have so many gravestones in her yard of different sims, why does she have positive memories of the Grim Reaper, why has she been married multiple times and why did she lose her only child to social services? Living with Olive is her niece, Ophelia who has a punk-rock style, like a black Avril Lavigne during her ‘Let Go’ era or Fefe Dobson.
Smith: The first alien hybrid family consists of Pollination technician 9, his human wife Jenny and their kids Johhny and Jill who live in a house that looks like something off Wisteria Lane (Desperate Housewives)
Singles: Four roommates with Erin (Who is related to Loki Beaker below), Kirsten and sisters Lola and Chloe.
Beaker: Loka and his wife Circe, along with their adopted slave Nervous Subject
Curious: Three brothers who live on some sort of observatory, with one of them being up the duff from an alien.
Loner: Just Ajay on his own, ready to move into a vacant lot. I typically pair him upo with a random townie

Veronaville

Capp – Consort is the oldest surviving member, with Kent and daughter’s Regan, Goneril and Cordelia, who is deceased. Goneril is married to Albany, who is ready to move into a vacant lot. Cordelia issurvived by Juliet, Hermia and Tybalt who live with Consort.
Monty – Based on the Montague family from Romeo & Juliet, Isabella is the matriach of the family, with Antonio and Biana present in the family bin, ready to move into an empty lot.
Summerdream – Oberon and Titania, and their kids Puck and Bottom.

Theres a shocking lack of Macbeth here, maybe that was too spicy for the game?

The new NPC’s

Most of the existing NPC’s serve a similar purpose to the previous game, but you can now interact them by talking or tipping them. If your sim builds up a relationship with them they can also move in with them.

Typical nanny experiance — Your typical nanny experiance

Nanny: These will take care of your child and toddler sims and can be set to track your sims work schedule so they will arrive before your sims are due for work. Unfortunately the Nanny’s are either incompetent or senile as they will often neglect the children and will go off and do something else whilst the babies are crying. Also the default-generated nanny’s seen to have very low nice personality points and will constantly fight with your sim. And they will constantly cook meals when there is no need to, and will also keep fetching baby bottles from the fridge despite there being plenty avaliable. Still, they are useful for keeping the social worker at bay.
Bartender: Useful for parties, they will tend the bur and will refill and serve drinks.
Exterminator: Will remove roaches, but not flies from the lot. You still need to clean up after them but they are useful against large swarms of them.

Dina left the front door unlocked again…

The Maid, Repairman, and Gardener continue to appear and can be contacted through the phone.

Deluxe Edition

This edition comes with the base game and the Nightlife expansion, another edition exists that adds the items from the Celebration expansion.

The Sims Nightlife

Developed similar to the Hot Date expansion pack for the original Sims, Nightlife was intended to bring added depth and variety to the social and nighttime activities of Sims in the game. The expansion aimed to provide players with more opportunities for their Sims to engage in exciting nightlife experiences and explore new aspects of their virtual lives. Here are some of the key intentions behind the expansion:

Downtown is where a lot of these new lots are located, and it can be added to any neighborhood in the game. Once added, Sims can call a taxi or drive to Downtown. Sims can also live in downtown lots, as there are residential lots available.
For shops, books, magazines and video games can be purchased from downtown stores, so sims are no longer stuck with SSX3. Video games that can be brought are references to other Sims games like SimCity 4 and The Sims Bustin Out

Like the regular neighborhood lots, Downtown is entirely customizable and new lots can be added and edited as normal lots.

A few new objects have been added, with mobile phones being featured for the first time that enable sims to make phone calls on the go which does not require a landline (no text messaging though). A handheld gaming console can also be purchased along with an MP3 player which plays the same music as the radio stations.

Dates are also a new concept to the game, where sims can ask others on a downtown date. Although this was in the first game, a new scoring meter which determines how well the date has gone based on social interactions and the amount of wants fulfilled during the date. You will be able to see the other sims wants to help fulfill them. Sims are rewarded for getting a high score, they may receive a gift or a card in the mail.

Cars are a welcome addition to the game where sims can drive to different community lots (but not residential lots) This was a similar concept to Bustin out. Sims must purchase and make room for a driveway on the lot, which a lot of the default Maxis lots had little to no support for and require adjustment. Adults can use their car to drive to work, replacing the carpool. They can also drive to work if they miss the carpool, though they are warned if they repeatedly come to work late. Teenagers can also drive which is useful if they miss the school bus.

No premande sims are included unless you count the mysterious Tricou family. There are exclusive Downtown NPCs that will only appear on Downtown lots and are generally intended for dating.

DLC

Shortly after release, EA offered official downloads for the game, which could be downloaded under the ‘Get Cool Stuff’ section of the website. One of which was a Running With Scissor’s, where your sim will pick up and run around with a pair of scissors. Some sort of PSA from Maxis on why you shoudn’t run around with sicssors. There is also an Alienware PC which gives a lot of Fun, but was never upgraded for alter expansions which means it cannot take advantage of features introduced in University (Like completing assignments or scholraships) but modded versions are available which support these features.

The Nightlife expansion also featured exclusive DLC in the from of downloadable Ford cars.

The Sims Superstar

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Sims get their 15 minutes…

The sixth expansion pack where sims can get famous by following specific careers such as Acting, becoming a Model or a musician (Even though careers for these existed in the base game, and sims in those existing careers already do not gain any fame) It also introduced a new studio town community lot and a set of new objects.

Studio Town and Fame

Studio Town has a very 1950s Hollywood theme to it, since this was considered the golden era of Hollywood on which Studio Town is based on. Many lots consist of shopping sections, but will also cater to various different types of fame, with some being geared towards music, acting or fashion/modelling. Even if your sim is not part of the fame career, regular sims can still visit lots as guests and can interact with most of the objects.

To get to Studio Town, your sim will need to call for transportation, which will take them to Studio Town, from the lot select screen, you can highlight lots that cater to either fashion, acting, music, shopping or spa locations. Like other commercial lots, studio town can he customized by the player by entering a lot directly from the neighborhood view. Objects are grouped by the type and function of studio town lots (Food, Shops, Studio and Spa)

Also if you’ve played The Sims Bustin Out, some of the buy mode music will sound familiar 😉

Fame is measured through a level represented by stars, with sims staring out at level 0. Higher levels let your sim have access to further opportunities and will change the vehicle used to transport you to Studio Town, eventually being transported in a custom limousine.

At 0 stars you will only have access to karaoke or open mics which makes sense for the musician or acting paths, but not for modeling. As you level up you will have access to photo shoots and print adverts.
Getting 1 star lets you record Jingles at a recording studio, and 1.5 stars let’s you record a TV commercial. As you progress, more fame objects will become available for your sim to use. You will also notice your sims name in the Who’s Hot section of the Superstar leaflet.

The maximum is 5 stars, which will give you access to all fame objects and opportunities on the Studio Town lots.

Objects

DSTS Satellite Dish – Adds a few extra channels to all televisions on the lot, increasing the fun rating depending on your Sims personality and interests. Its appearance is similar to the old BUD C-band dishes that were huge (around 3m in diameter) that was common in the 80s, compared to the smaller satellite dishes that can fit on your house.

Ponce de Leon Tub – Increases your sims hygiene and comfort but is very time-consuming to use. It takes nearly a sim hour for them to get out, with is bad to use it before they go to work.

Whisper Steam Personal Steamer – A steamer for your sim, increases hygiene and comfort.

Flatscreen TV – a television that can be wall mounted to save space, and gives the same motive increase as the plasma screen does.

Uncle Roger’s Culinary Offerings – A buffet table similar to what was included in House Party or On Holiday, your sim just needs to set it for a fee and sims can grab a variety of meals from it.

The Face of Shakespeare – A high end bookcase that has an additional option to practice soliloquy which increases the charisma skill

Scuba Tank – Sims can enter this tank, although it takes some time for them to enter it. Increases their fun score.

Galileo’s Free-For-All – A mini skydiving simulator

Energize! Oxygen Bar – A bar that sims can sit down on, increases comfort and fun, and social if multiple sims use it

Movie Posters – These can be purchased in Studio Town and then can be decorated into your sims home when they return. Your sim will place them on the nearest surface, which you can then placed in build mode.

NPCs

Butler – Alternative to the maid, although he does much more (gardening, greeting and preparing meals) and stays for a lot longer.

Obsessed Fan – Appears after your sim gains two or more stars, these will follow your sim around studio town and will appear randomly on your lot. They may also rummage through your sims trash and leave black roses on their lot. Having a butler helps shoo them away.

Lana -A helper NPC that your sim can use to find out different aspects of Superstar like the fame system, fans awards and name dropping to boost social.

Celebrities – A few real life celebrities appear int he game like Marylin Monroe, Avril Lavigne and . Additional celebrity NPCs could also be downloaded from The Sims website and have been archived. Andy Warhol also appears as one of the fashion set managers.

Conclusion

Studio town was a nice addition to The Sims but was lacking in several places, especially with the residential lots. Where are the mansions, studio apartments and condo’s for the sims to live in? The fame careers could have been integrated better as the base game already features a musician and actor career paths, neither of these have any effect in studio town.

The Sims 3 Late night is considered the spiritual successor for The Sims 3, the closest for Sims 2 would be Nightlife, but that’s more geared with Hot Date.

The Sims Unleashed

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The fifth expansion pack to be released, Unleashed brings a significant change to The Sims, with the addition of pets, larger neighborhoods that can hold more sims and new game elements such as farming and commercial lots.

Whilst Unleashed brought new improvements, it noticeable made the game more unstable and brought some frustrating changes to the gameplay. One noticeable change is sims have issues moving and turning and will sometimes rotate multiple times when interacting with an object.

Some pets will occasionally come onto your lot and piss everywhere, leaving a bunch of puddles randomly outside your sims house, and will trash the outdoor room motive when your sim goes out for work. Also, any malicious animal that spawns will sound the burglar sound, which can startle or surprise some players, but given how frequently these will spawn the effect will eventually wear off and will become more annoying to the player as they play the game.

Neighborhood

One of the first noticeable changes is the neighborhood screen which sees an increase of playable lots from 10 to around 48. With it is a new lot zone type, commercial. The main difference is a commercial lot is intended to be visited by multiple sims where they can shop or explore. Commercial lots cannot be visited directly from the neighborhood screen, but they can be edited which gives access to buy and build mode. To access a commercial lot, your sim will need to phone up for the Old Town bus which will arrive, and all sims on the lot will be transported to the commercial lot that you choose. These lots cannot be edited whilst sims are visiting, the Build and Buy modes are disabled.

Typically commercial lots will consist of shops, such as a pet store where pets can be adopted, along with any pet accessories. Traditional lots are renamed as residential lots and is where sims reside as they did in the previous expansion packs. Additional neighborhoods still exist as they did in previous expansion packs.

Pets

Two types of pets are featured in the game, mainly cats or dogs which can be adopted by sims themselves. Other pets exist such as budgies which are treated by the game engine as objects, similar to the fish tank that was included in the base game where sims have to feed them every so often.

Skills can be taught to your pets to make them more obedient, this is harder than expected since pets will most of the time go off and do their own thing. The best thing to do is to use the Sit n’ stay command to build the obedience skill, which will make the other skills easier to build up. This interaction only works when your sim is near your pet.

Objects

The Aviary – A bird cage to keep birds that have been purchased at the petstore, You need to frequently feed the bird in a similar manor to the fish tank to keep the pet alive.

Sims can play with their pet birds which boosts their fun and social. Two types of birds can be stored here, Love Birds and Budgies. Cats will also try to play with the cage.

Speaky Scarlet – A pet parrot that can be purchased from buy mode. Sims can talk to it to boost their charisma skill

Ceti the Happy Whale – A playground item that child sims can play on, boosts fun and can be played in groups

Squeak-EE-Clean Pet Tub – Used to wash your pets, can be used with both dogs and cats, requires regular feeding

Forgotten Jungle Terrarium – Used to house a pet iguana

Other expansion packs featured pet objects like the gerbil featured in Livin It Up (Livin Large), or the fish tank from the base game. These remain unchanged although pets may interact with them.

Commercial Lots Only

SpueakNip Pet Toys

Only for commercial lots, sims can purchase toys for their pets. Requires a nearby cash register

Notable NPCs

Giuseppi Renni and Mr McCutch

A musical duo that appears on Old Town lots and will entertain your sims, can be tipped 5 Simoleans

Gardener Bob

Appears on Old Town lots that sell seeds and vegetables, sims can buy plant tonic for their crops and get advice on how to grow their own crops

Pet Judge

Appears on lots that have pet judging podiums, he can tell you further details on pet judging.

Pet Trainer

This sim will appear on the pet store or anywhere you can adopt a pet. Can be used to train your pet for an increasing fee, dependent on your pets skill level.

W.C. Friendly

A jazz player that appears on cafe lots (any lot that has a barista/coffee or pastry stand)

Farming

Sims can grow crops by purchasing seeds from an Old Town merchant and planting them, which can be used for food, or produce can be sold in Old Town for money. Growing crops requires a certain amount of effort as sims will need to water, weed and protect the farm from animals or gophers. A buyable scarecrow or a pet cat can help with this, depending on the hunting skill of the pet. Once the crops have been harvested, they can be stored in a pantry or sold at the farmers market.

Garden plots can be found in the gardening section of build mode.

Sims can also purchase produce on certain Old Town shopping lots, if the sim has no room to farm. To store crops for cooking, you will need to purchase a pantry to store the produce in.

Residents

Unleashed also introduces a few new pre-made families to play.

Burb: Brad and his wife Tiffany, with their son Johnny and their dog, Tucker. This family would later appear in The Sims 2.
Charming: Consists of Claire Charming, with her pet dog Luna
Hick: Mama Hick and her son Elden live in what appears to be a trailer, with their three dogs.
Goth Sr: Parents of Mortimer Goth.
Kat: A single female with four cats, Yup a spinster.

Other Additions

The phonebook has been expanded to a dialog box now appears when calling neighbors. Previously sims were called from the pie menu which would also include any known townies or vacation sims if those expansion packs were installed. Services remain the same as their own section in the pie menu.

Five new careers are included – Fashion, Education, Animal care, Culinary and Circus.

MacOS Version

The game was also ported to the MacOS platform, and makes full use of the Carbon library which gives it OS X and OS 9 compatibility. As this was released in the PowerPC era, you cannot play it on modern OS X versions (10.7 Lion upwards, as these versions of OS X lack PowerPC support) On modern Mac’s it’s easier to use Boot Camp and use the Windows version of the game, but for M1 Macs you may prefer to use an emulator like QEMU or Sheepsaver to emulate an OS 9 PowerPC environment, which the game will run.

Conclusion

Unleashed was a dramatic upgrade to the sims engine, adding new specific to the game, expanding the neighborhood and the type of lots that can be used. I would say this was one of the more important expansions of The Sims as whilst previous expansions added features to the existing game, and expansions like Hot Date added their own expanded areas (Downtown), Unleashed dramatically replaced many game mechanics and in some ways feels like a sequel rather than an expansion. This was also one of the first expansions to ship on two CD’s, highlighting the amount of changes and value being added to the game.

Tragically this expansion never made it to the console versions, which deviated int heir own direction with the release of The Sims Bustin Out and URBZ Sims in the City.

The Sims On Holiday

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Or The Sims Vacation in simplified English

The expansion is very similar to Hot Date in which many game elements were revamped. With a new social interaction system, revised user interface, and a new vacation island area with additional sub lots. Whilst Hot Date introduced the concept of sims leaving their lots to go downtown, here sims can actually stay on these lots for an extended period of time, depending on how much money they have.

New interactions exclusive to On Holiday are released that allow sims to invite each other to play games based on the new objects added, like playing archery, volleyball or fishing. In addition, some of the new interactions from hot dates are added.

Holidays allow for sims to take a break from their schedule, as they are not required to work or go to school and dance sims in the first game have no concept of days off or weekends, this expansion allows sims to go off and do other stuff without having to worry about their jobs as they can stay on holiday indefinitely.

Vacation Island

There are three types of vacation lots available, each with a different environment:

Beach Lots: Set on your typical beach/seaside, sims can sleep in a hotel located on the lot which will each have a bed and a bathroom. Sims can swim in these areas or play volleyball and can rent sandcastle kits.
Forest Lots: Simulates a camping lot, here your sims are set near woodland and have the option to camp in a tent or rent a log cabin. These lots typically feature a campfire
Snow Lots: Set on a Ski/Snow resort, Some lots have an igloo that your sims can sleep in

Each of the three environments has three different resorts that scale to accommodate the budget of the sims traveling there, there is a cheap resort that features only basic amenities, a moderate one that features a mix of both, and a more expensive one that resembles a hotel of sorts.
Sims will need to check in every day at 11:00AM in order to access and use most of the lot facilities. The game will do this automatically unless the sims check out.

Internally, houses 40 – 48 are used or the holiday lots.

NPCs

Whilst On Holiday, sims will encounter NPC sims that will also be on the same resort. These are like townies (Downtown NPCs) of sorts in that the player cannot control but they can be interacted with, and if your sim has a higher enough relationship they can move in. Some families will have an adult but one or more kids, who will also join the family.
This is convenient if you wanted your sim to marry and expand their family quickly without having to go through the baby raising process (Which is horrid in the first Sims)

There are also new NPCs

Vacation Director Kana: Just walk around the lot relentlessly 24/7 with a clipboard, you have to admire her dedication. Your sim can ask her questions to find out more on the different features of the expansion.
Mascots, there are three in total but only one will show up on a lot at a time. The mascot will vary based on the lot environment, beach lots will get the Marky Sharky mascot (If only they got the Marky Mark mascot instead. Berry Yeti is present on the Snow lots and Archie Archer is on the forest lots. They can only be interacted by kids. This makes them annoying since they will constantly try to play with the kid, even if they are busy.
Janitor: Cleans up dirty items on the lot. They’re a bit too keen as they will immediately come and will sometimes block the doorway

Objects

A lot of these are intended for use on holiday lots, but can be used in the home buy mode catalog. As introduced in the Hot Date expansion, subcategories are introduced in buy mode which allows for better organization of custom objects.

KampRite Instant Campfire

Volleyball

Redwood Hot Tub

A hot tub that seats two sims, adults only. Very similar to the one introduced in Hot Date

Archery

Sims will earn tokens when they win, whih allows them to redeem prizes

Water Ballon Fort

Group activity where sims can throw water balloons

Snowboard Halfpipe

Sims seem to have problems skating without falling down

At least in heaven I can skate

Polar Bear Rug

Wait until PETA sees this…

Snowman

Not a buyable object but sims can build their own snowmen on snowy lots

Snowball Fort

Same as the ballon fort but with snow

Snowslide

Sims can slide, SSX style

Carnival Games

Like the archery game, your sim can earn tokens with they can redeem into prizes. These then become souvenirs when they move back home, which they can display on a dedicated shelf.

Mac OS Version

The expansion was ported to Mac OS and OS X and install’s in the same fashion.

The Sims Hot Date

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The third expansion pack and one that brought a major change to the mechanics of the game, the main one being the introduction of community lots and the concept of your sims leaving their lots (well they could technically leave to go to work in the base game)

Also included a nice jazzy soundtrack when editing or vising downtown lots.

Installing the game requires the original game CD, or the House Party disc if that expansion pack is installed, as the game will install the original audio files to the hard drive. Previously the game would stream the audio from the CD to save disc space at the expense of performance.
If installing over the Deluxe Edition expansion pack, the user will need to run the deluxe edition installer before they can play the game, this is because the deluxe edition was released after Hot Date.

No new neighborhoods have been included with this expansion, but if you are missing the created neighbourhoods from the House Party expansion (Hoods 5-8) then the installer will create them for you. They will be typical blank neighborhoods without any houses or premade sims.

Upon starting the game, new sims will be generated. These will be your townies that are used for downtown.

Downtown, a new sub-neighborhood. Each hood has its own version of downtown with its own generated set of townies. Sims cannot visit a downtown from another hood.

The user interface has been updated with new features

The house meter and the friend’s meter have been removed and have not been replaced. They were removed in favor of adding the inventory and interests panels.
The inventory panel shows objects that are stored by the sims, these can be gifts that have been received by other sims, or prizes won by various games.

Downtown

A new sub-neighborhood, and the first to be included in the Sims engine. There are lots that your sim can visit with other sims.

You can have different themed downtown lots that cater to a specific
Restaurants typically have a podium, a kitchen with a commercial over, and a dining booth or dining table/seats

Shops generally have till’s and can have clothes racks that sims can browse and buy new clothes, or skins as they are referred to. There are also entertainment lots that have activities like pool tables, pinball machines and slot machines

The default lots for Hot Date make use of objects from the base game and the expansion itself, but not objects from other expansions. With this in mind, you can create new downtown lots using objects or themes from other expansions, like a nightclub using the DJ booth and dance floor from House Party. A spare downtown lot exists (23 Wright Way) for this purpose.

Objects

The buy mode catalog has been updated, and new sub-categories have been added to help classify items better. Downtown lots also have their own categories, depending on what type of lot you wish to build. Here objects are sorted into shops, restaurants, outdoor

Niagra Love Tub

A hot tub that can seat two sims, who can cuddle and ~~woohoo~~ play

Dawnette Hooded Stove

An oven that occupies two titles, can be placed downtown and is required to operate a restaurant

Bachmeier Grand Piano

A more expensive piano, placing this downtown will spawn a dedicated piano player NPC

Boggs Home Canning Center

Allows your sim to make preserves at home to sell, also increases the cooking skill

Laguna Vista Instand Pond

A fish pond where your sim can feed fish and place boats, multiple sims can use this

Bel-Air Dining Booth

Sims will sit after they order a meal at the podium, works as part of a restaurant set otherwise function as a regular table and chairs

Kiosk

Items such as flowers, toys, chocolate, and a copy of the game itself are sold here and can be bought by your sim, A cash till nearby is required to order

Food Counters

Two exist, one for ice cream and another for burgers, bars also exist for drinks

Social Interactions

New social interactions have been added, and the social system has been revamped for each sim to better handle interactions. Many have been grouped into one main social interaction, which then has a few sub-interactions. E.g. Talk has the ‘About Interests’, ‘Gossip’ & ‘Brag’ interactions. Entertain has ‘Joke’ and ‘Juggle’ interactions.

Mac Version

Hot Date was later ported to the Mac OS platform and was a Carbon application from the onset which meant support for older Mac OS versions was dropped. Only Mac OS 8.6 onwards and OS X 10.1 is supported.

The Sims House Party

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The second expansion pack for The Sims that allows them to party (or Partay)

Objects

Some of the objects that come with House party, there are other items like chairs and tables that are not listed here since they have a similar function to the base game objects.
Granny Raymond’s Holiday Cookies: A plate of cookies you can buy direct from buy mode. If you leave them on a table next to the fireplace, along with a Christmas tree from Livin It Up, Santa will appear.
Birthday Cake: Another buyable food item, kids can choose to blow out the candles, although this does not age them up (You need a charm in Makin Magic for that)
SimFarm Turkey Dinner: A piece of turkey sims can buy and carve up
Punchucopia Extraordinaria Punchbowl: sims or their cater can refill to keep guests satisfied at parties
The Elegant Chef Buffet Table: Used to serve a starter, main meal and desert from one table, excellent for parties or for large gatherings.
Fancy Feet Cake Treat: Spawns a male or female dancer (Stripper), or if it’s a kids party, a giant bear. Give a boost to the fun motive.
KampRite Instant Campfire: Sims can sit round the camp fire and sing songs, tell stories or roast marshmallows
Spazmatronic Plasmatronic Go-Go Cage: A Dancing cage, boosts fun. Best place with the dance floor and the DJ booth
Turntablitz DJ Booth: Used for the dance floor but can also function as a radio, has access to all radio stations in the game.
Jukebox: Two versions of this seem to exist, the first is just labelled as the Jukebox and has access to only the fault radio stations in the game. An updated version comes with Hot Date that can select all music tracks House party has to offer.
Bounce My Booty Dance Floor: The dance floor where sims can get their groove on. It’s a 2×2 tile than can be combined together in various patterns. When sims are dancing, the floor will light up in various different patterns and colours.
Porta-Parody Costume Trunk: A costume trunk that can be used to give your party a fancy dress theme. When one sim changes their costume, all sims will change to that costume theme.

Screenshots

Sims carving some turkey, which is buyable from buymode. When carving, sims will stand round and clap until its served.

The dance floor, in the front of someone’s living room. Puts Dance Central to shame

The costume trunk is ideal for theme parties. Available themes are Western, Disco, Toga

Here sims are rocking the disco theme

The buffet tables and the hireable caterer, sims can restock the table themselves at a cost of §20. A punchbowl can also be restocked.

The campfire, sims can tell a ghost story, roast marshmallows or sing a folk song.

Neighborhoods

The expansion pack adds support for multiple neighborhoods if you’ve not installed Livin It Up, Neighbourhoods 6-8 are added since the game assumes Livin it Up has been installed and takes the place of 2-5. It’s easy to add custom hoods. More hoods can be added by going into the games directory in the Program Files folder and adding a new UsedataX folder, where X will be the new number (since the game creates 8 hoods, you would start at 9) and can support up to 99 unique hoods.

NPCs

The Mime: Appears when you are throwing a shit party, and sometimes tries to steal your items. Leaves automatically once your party score has increased
Party Crashers: Appear when you are throwing a good party, these two (Pete and Pauline Dropinsky) will arrive and will try to wreck anything in the party, including breaking objects as they use them. Best to get rid of them as soon as possible.
The Caterer: Can be hired through the phone, the main purpose is to restock the buffet table and the punch bowl. He will also socialize with the guests if he has nothing to do. You must have a buffet table or a punch bowel or he will leave.
Drew Carey: Some American celebrity who appears when you have thrown a great party, arrives in a limo of which sims will rush to it upon arrival. For those who don’t know who Drew Carey, he was a popular late-night show host, like Jimmy Kimmel back when late-night talk shows weren’t biased towards a specific political party.

Some new NPCs have additional roles:
Police Officer: If you throw a party after 8pm, Officer meddling will appear regarding a complaint by one of your neighbors regarding the noise. You are supposed to disband and end the party by asking the guests to leave. Should you fail to do so she will reappear after 2 hours (10pm) and will find you.

Install

The game’s installer will pick up from the previous install, and will automatically install the game patch.

Disc read error upon install, caused by a scratched CD.

HTML view of The Sims House Party, listing sims that are currently moved into the neighborhood. Sims could be viewed here before they were uploaded onto the Sims exchange, which was a place where families and houses could be downloaded.

Mac OS Version

The expansion pack was made avaliable for the Mac OS platform, which a Carbon patch being released later for OS X compatability.