The Sims 2: Nightlife is the second expansion pack for The Sims 2, was released on September 13,2005 (USA and Canada) and September 16, 2005 (European Union, Australia and New Zealand). It was released on September 9, 2005 in Brazil, September 11 in Switzerland, September 12 in Singapore and September 13 in the Philippines. The expansion pack centers on the new downtown area, which has various activities, such as bowling, karaoke and dancing, as well as a photo booth.
| The Sims 2: Nightlife | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Maxis |
| Publisher(s) | Electronic Arts |
| Platform(s) | PC (Windows) |
| Release | 13 September, 2005 |
| Genre(s) | Simulation |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
The Sims 2: Nightlife will be followed by The Sims 2: Open For Business, which will be released in March 2006 and will allow Sims to rent or own community lots and run their own businesses.
Description
The game is reminiscent of an expansion pack from the original The Sims game entitled The Sims: Hot Date, which focused on new social interactions and locations for Sims to visit, such as a dance club or romantic restaurant. Nightlife follows in a similar theme.
New additions include inventories, new interactions (ex. "Dip Kiss", "Gaze"), and over 125 new objects. NPCs that a player's Sim dates can now leave gifts or hate letters at the sim's home, depending on the success of particular dates. Some of the new NPCs include party DJs, a gypsy matchmaker and even vampires.
Nightlife also adds a new aspiration, or to be more accurate, two new aspirations. The Pleasure Seeking aspiration is assigned in exactly the same way as any of the other 5 aspirations. Sims with the Pleasure Seeking aspiration crave enjoyment in many different ways, whilst they fear embarrassment. Nightlife has also introduced a new reward object titled the ReNuYu SensoOrb which will enable any sim to have their aspiration changed at any time. However, this object can fail, like all other aspiration reward objects. If that happens, the sim using it at the time will then have the somewhat less desirable Grilled Cheese aspiration, and normal wants will be superseded with the urge to eat grilled cheese sandwiches.
In Nightlife, Sims can own their own cars instead of relying on the carpool. There are several models and colors available. In addition, driveways and garages can be built into the Sim's lot.
The lot mode has been expanded in Nightlife, so that it is able to view the neighborhood from a lot. Players may leave one lot to visit another without having to go back to the neighborhood mode. It is still impossible, however, for a Sim to invite himself or herself to another lot.
New Gameplay Mechanics
As with previous expansion packs, not only does it come packed with more content, but also adds something to the overall gameplay of the original game. New aspects of gameplay that are added to Nightlife are:
Fury
The Sims 2 Nightlife introduces the concept of fury. Of limited duration, this generally affects which social interactions are accepted. It is most likely to occur when a spouse is caught cheating with another Sim.
Contacts
Contacts are friends-of-friends that can call your Sim up wishing to establish contact. These contacts come predefined with both friendship and lifetime relationship points, making it easier to build a friendship with them. These predefined points are only availabe for a limited time, however.
Vampires
The Sims 2 introduced aliens, The Sims 2 University introduced Zombies. Now with the Sims 2 Nightlife your sim can become a vampire. By befriending the "Master Vampire" that hangs out in the downtown area at night, you can persuade him to bite your Sim. Once your Sim has become a vampire, they get the symbolic sharp teeth. Vampires will die if exposed to sunlight for a few seconds; during the day, they stay stuffed up in their coffins. The advantage to being a vampire, though, is that your Sim's needs do not decay during the night. Thus, your sim can party downtown all night, return in the morning and go to sleep. Then at 7pm, the vampire Sim can wake up, fufill some needs and get ready to party again. Obviously vampires can't hold a job so you either have to get them plenty of money before being bitten, use the money cheat, or have another sim in the lot provide the money.
Turn-ons/offs
Each teen, adult and elder sim has two turn-ons and one turn-off. Turn-ons and turn-offs are designed to make relationships easier (or harder) to achieve. Sims with compatible turn-ons/offs will have lightning bolts in their relationship panels. Sims in community lots can scope crowds to find those special Sims.
A list of turn-ons/offs (they apply either way) are as follows:
- Cologne
- Stink
- Fatness
- Fitness
- Glasses
- Color of hair (blonde, red, brown, black, gray and custom)
- Hat
- Facial hair
- Make-up
- Formal wear
- Swim wear
- Underwear
- Vampirism
Gypsy Matchmaker
The gypsy matchmaker can help find you a date. All you have to do is call her on a phone. Once she's been called, you can pay her between 1 and 5000 simoleans. The more you pay her, the better the match will be. The best matches involve similar turn-ons and turn-offs. She can also give you a cure for vampirism and love potions.
Dating
Dating is core to the Sims 2: Nightlife add-on pack, making it easier to build relationship points with other sims. The starting point is for your sim to ask another sim out for a date, either at home or downtown. Once accepted, a panel appears on-screen with a timer denoting how much time is left until the date is declared over, along with a meter showing how the date is going. The advantage of the dating bar is that it is possible to see the date's wishes and fears, making it easier to make the date a dream or nightmare. Each of the date's wishes that is fulfilled, such as dining out or dancing, increases the time available for the date to continue.
New NPCs
"Nightlife" also contains several new NPCs (Non-Player Characters) for your sims to interact with. The NPCs can be found on Community Lots, with some making more frequent appearances than others.
Miss Crumplebottom
Miss Crumplebottom is a distant relation of a similarly-named character in The Sims: Hot Date equivalent. She tries to make sure your sims repent their evil ways by lecturing and admonishing them if she doesn't approve of their behavior, and punishes them when she feels they do not live up to her standards by hitting them with her purse. It if possible for a Sim to provoke her by playing pranks on her.
The Diva
Without any nice points at all and a large amounts of confidence, this NPC is notoriously difficult to win over. The Diva can always be found with a handheld mirror to Primp herself. Although she's an incredibly difficult date, getting it right is worth the time and energy: manage to marry her or get her to move in with your sims, and all her fortune (which is a considerable amount) comes with her. Another reward is her high earning potential as Professional Party Guest - The Diva is at the very top of the Slacker career track. Equally important is her large number of friends, highly desirable for Sims who need good social connections to advance the top levels of their careers. It's important to make sure the Sim that hooks up with this diva has plenty of Simoleons in the bank - she's a Fortune Aspiration sim and always looking for big bucks and expensive objects to fill her home with.
Mr. Big
Mr. Big is another big dating challenge, and as difficult to impress The Diva. Although difficult sim to date, Mr. Big is worth the effort for social-climbing Sims looking to improve their prospects. Like The Diva, Mr. Big has a large social circle of friends and a lot of simoleons in the bank, so if you can get him to Move In with your sims, a comfortable life awaits them. But beware: Mr. Big has a wandering eye and just about every other female sim in the big city will be instantly attracted. Found about as frequently as The Diva on any Downtown lot, this NPC shares his name with the famous character from TV's Sex and the City.
The Count and The Countess
The most powerful of all Vampire Sims, this NPC has the ability to turn any other sim into a vampire. With one bite, The Count can make sure a sim never wants to be out in the sun again. Perhaps the most elusive of all the NPC's, The Count, is found less frequently than any other NPC in "Nightlife". There is also a female version, called The Countess. The vampires walk with one arm in front of their face and are difficult to miss.
New music
Like University before it, Nightlife includes music by well-known artists. To fit in with the expansion pack's theme, house/dance tracks were chosen.
Junkie XL and Timo Maas provided remixes of the Sims 2 and University theme, and various other artists re-recorded their songs in "Simlish". Because of localization, not all music has been made available to all languages. The songs can, however, be extracted from the game files.
Artist/song listing
- Norwegian artist Annie: Heartbeat and Chewing Gum
- Finland's Christian Forss: Hubny Harb (That's How It Goes)
- Spanish duo Andy & Lucas: Madre and Mi Barrio
- Victoria: Cry
- Germany's Jeanette: Run with me
- UK's The Faders: Jump and What it takes
- Germany's Timo Maas: Sims 2 Theme remix
- Denmark's Lux Spencers: O blay wobba zoon (All I Want To Do)
- UK's Adam Freeland: Busy
- Denmark's Musikk ft. John Rock: Summer Lovin'
- Hyper: Sim the Builder
- the Netherlands' Junkie XL: Sims 2 Uni Theme remix
System Requirements
These are the requirements as set by EA Games. Your system must meet all of them for it to run The Sims 2: Nightlife successfully. You must have The Sims 2 Installed to play the expansion.
Minimum System
Processor: 1 GHz or faster RAM: 256 MB or more Hard Drive: 1.5 GB free space Video: Supported T&L-Capable Video Card with 32 MB Video Ram
Recommended System
Processor: 2 GHz or faster RAM: 512 MB or more Hard Drive: 1.5GB free space Video: Supported T&L-Cabable Video Card with 128 MB Video Ram - nVidia 6 Series Highly Recommended.