A few fan sites were invited to a special event for The Sims 2 Apartment Life. Many reviews are starting to pop up on the net, so here is a small collection of what you will find.
Mornings at nine thirty in Germany…… ääh California. Together with six other international fan sites, we are awaiting the EA headquarters south of San Francisco in the Sims developers to us the world as the first new expansion pack apartment life and the next game NintendoDS apartment imagine animals. The former could we even allude, and so extensive impressions of the new AddOn.
We would like to take this opportunity again to thank EA for the invitation, the great days in San Francisco and the insights into the coming AddOn thank.
GOOD :
- The new special Sims… Not only one, but 3 new !!! That’s very nice, because you have different ways to play.
- The spiral staircase. The fans ask for it long time ago.
- A lot of new build items, specially the ceiling !!
- New interactions between the Sims (and also with the toddlers).
- New social groups, with really specific things…
- And I’m sure I didn’t see everything !!! So it must be more good things.
BAD :
- All the neighbors react for fire, even if they are not in the room (that’s not good at all…).
- The Sims can only rent the flat, they cannot own it and rent it to another Sims.
- No home buisiness available in rented buildings.
- There is lot of thing to discover, so I’m not sure that the players can see everything, and play with all the content.
- Not enough time to test all the possibilities lol
And what of the residents of Belladonna Cove? Well, the story is still being created so we only know of a few characters at the moment, such as the Jeffersons, an up and coming family that recently came into some money and are ready to up sticks and move up to better surroundings. Bunny Wuzzy is a new character who is best described (excusing the stereotyping) as trailer park trash. She’s got 4 kids, a vibrating love bed and all the attributes (and fashion sense) of someone you would expect to live in the downtrodden end of town!
Let’s start by taking a look at the new ‘hood. Welcome to Belladonna Cove! Absolutely no point in showing you what it looks like right now because it will certainly change, but I can show you some of the new Lots and Plopables (‘hood decorations) that you will see in AL.
The Sims Resource Apartment Life preview
First up is a celebration of the name of the hood, and someone you might recognise this statu which will tower over the hood for all to see. This is one of the more elegant items, the rest are pretty much scrap and rubbish. Literally. You see, Apartment Life conjures up the image of comfortable accommodation, but this pack has also been designed to accommodate those people that have wanted to build trailer parks and other low-grade areas. We will look into those in more detail later, but so that they fit in with their surrounding, you will now find Plopables such as alleyways and trash piles that can be used to really bring an area down.
After lunch we were joined by game designers Shannon Copur, Bim Majekodunmi and Lakshmi Jayapalan who discussed Apartment Life with us and explained the game play. We then had about two hours to play the game and explore all the new items and characters. Apartment Life, which ships around August 26th, is a whole other game from Apartment Pets and targets the regular Sims2 Teen and up player. You can have 4 families per apartment and the apartments range from trailer-park all the way up to the swank townhouse. Apartments are set up much like the dorms in University with each family claiming an apartment by paying the rent. The player can then choose one of the families to play or create their own and they can interact with the other families who live in the apartment. You have a landlord who drops by each day to either fix things or yell at you if you haven’t paid your rent or are too loud for your neighbors. You can advertise for a roommate or live alone. There are also quite a few new interactions for our sims which you will discover as you play!
Skye’s “SIMposium” at SterlingSims2.com – Apartment Life preview
Makin’ Magic nostalgic’s (it was a The Sims 1 EP) will be for sure happy to know that witches are the new race. We’ll have 3 kind of witches: good, evil and neutral. To become a member of this race you have to be friend with a witch. If you are lucky you’ll find one of them around the community lots.
Once you become a Witch, you’ll receive a cauldron, a spellbook and the access to the secret community lots.
If you practice a bit and you buy reagents from the Evil Witch and the Good Witch, you’ll be able to create potions and magical objects. You can also buy a potion that will make you be a normal Sim again. Witches can freeze time, make Zombies, summon Sims, cheer up lot, make a sim fat or skinny etc.
But not only new outfits, but also lots of new furniture will come. Be it small decorative objects, wide bookshelves, new sofa sets, all new beds as the vibrant love bed or the bed Murphy – a cupboard bed – a huge TV, vending machines, walk-in closets, heating ventilation system, game devices and a housing for a small dog ( or even cat). This dog has nothing to do with pets and has the same characteristics as the animals in pets, he will, however, contain some surprises. Except in the bathroom and kitchen sections there are new objects (even a garage).
An additional option that EA has incorporated, the possibility of different images in height on the wall hanging. By holding down the CTRL, ALT keys, it is now possible to move a picture (or other objects on the wall) higher or lower, and thus depend on two different pictures on a wall to place.
SimPlaza’s Apartment preview (translated from German to English)
Oh, on a sidenote it appears that the official Sims 2 site received a new facelift today on their main page!
