The Sim-Dating Game(TM)
Written: Dec 03 '01 (Updated Dec 07 '01)
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Downtown areas, new NPCs, interactions, objects, walls, floors & building materials.
Cons: Did they make it harder… or does it just not work?
The Bottom Line: If you're already a Sims fan - BUY IT. If not, master the original first.
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| Sundrop's Full Review: The Sims:Hot Date PC for Windows |
Act I
Hot Babe: Bachelor Number One, if I choose you, where would you take me on our date? *giggles*
Bachelor One: Umm, well - on my ideal date, I'd take you for a stroll along the boardwalk during late afternoon. We'd watch the sunset… we'd grill out in the open ocean-air, we'd cuddle up in lounge-chairs and watch the sunset together… and I'd make sure we changed into our skimpiest bathing suits beforehand!
Hot Babe: Oh! That sounds nice. Bachelor Number Two - same question!
Bachelor Two: *Clears his throat* Well, my dear… I'd meet you downtown… dressed to the nines, shower you with gifts of flowers, chocolates and jewelry. Then, of course, I would wine & dine you at the finest restaurant in all of Simville! Nothing is too good for MY date!
Hot Babe: Ooooooh! Jewelry!!! Well… Bachelor Number Three - same question! *smiles shyly*
Bachelor Three: Well baby, if you choose me, I'll make sure we meet up early, grab dinner at a trendy restaurant, have a drink at the local hangout and then we'd go nightclubbing all over town! Everything from disco-dancing to square-dancing… anything your heart desires! We'd stay up all night and maybe… spend all night together!
Hot Babe: *Claps wildly and giggles uncontrollably*
The Review
Okay, I'll start off by telling you… I'm a huge fan of Sims games - not only do I own The Sims, but also the first expansion, Livin' Large, the second expansion, House Party and now the third & latest expansion, Hot Date. I have scoured the Internet for the BEST fan-sites, choked our bandwidth with thousands of downloads and now I've even ventured into making my own Sims-stuff. So… well, I'm experienced with The Sims.
Hot Date is an inventive expansion. Not only do we have the new objects, walls, floors and building materials (pretty standard fare for Sims expansions) - this time we get a downtown area, new NPCs (non-player characters) for your Sims to interact with (in Downtown mode), new object menus (to organize all your stuff) and new options when you're making your Sims interact with each other (make sure you try the flying hugs!).
Installation & Set-up
The expansion comes on 1 CD and includes a small set-up/new feature manual (I read it in less than 10 minutes). Installation was easy, though it took longer than previous expansions (10 minutes or so). As always, once you've installed the newest expansion, the game requires that CD to run… even if you have all the other expansions loaded. And… if you don't have the previous expansions, and you're thinking of buying them, make sure to install them in order. The manual actually recommends un-installing the expansions AND the game if you install them out of order - so my advice is to get it right the first time.
Interface & Game-play
The interface is basically the same… with a couple of notable exceptions. We still have the big, easy-to-see control panel along the bottom of our screen, the ability to rotate our camera angle as well as zoom in & out (and change screen resolution). The big change is in our menu-selections. Our objects were once categorized in broad units like "Seating" and in "Seating" we had dining chairs, office chairs, sofas, loveseats, beds, etc. Now we have "Seating" and we have subcategories like "Dining", "Sofas", "Beds" and "Living".
I like the subcategories, especially since I'm fanatical about installing player-made objects, however, all of my player-made objects are not sub-categorized and therefore they all get thrown into that dreadful "Other" category. Why is this bad? Well… it can be a pain trying to find which "Other" menu they're under and then having to scroll through my 500 objects to find the one I want.
Starting the game is S-L-O-W. I have a pretty good system and it still normally takes a good 5 minutes from the time I double-click the game icon to when I can actually see & select my houses. On top of that, we now have to load the "Downtown mode" when we select a house, and that adds on another minute+. Load-time is irritating for me… I can't imagine what folks on slower processors with less memory have to deal with. By the way, expect longer waits when you save games as well.
Downtown Mode & Dating
Okay… personally, I loved the concept of having a customizable downtown. I loved the thought of interacting with NPCs (that my Sims can date). I loved the idea of being able to call up friends and invite them downtown.
I only wish it worked.
Perhaps it's just me having difficulties adapting to this new dimension of The Sims, but I'll be honest - I don't like going downtown so far. It just doesn't seem… to work! Here is an example…
Sim_1 calls Sim_4 and asks her to go downtown. Sim_4 says, "Great! See you there". Sim_1 calls a cab, the cab picks her up & takes her downtown. Sounds simple, eh?
Unfortunately, the game saves (house-mode) and enters a "new" game (downtown-mode). Your Sim is saved in whatever mood they're in when they leave the house, but when they get downtown, all of my indicators are at halfway - even if I leave the house completely full (when I go home again, it goes back to whatever mood they were in when they left). This wouldn't be so bad IF any downtown area (you have areas to choose from, it's pretty neat) had SHOWERS. I spend so much time getting all the other indicators up to make them happy, but they're filthy-dirty in a matter of minutes… which, of course, makes them relatively anti-social & cranky.
When Sim_4 gets downtown, it would be logical to have her walk up to Sim_1 to hang out, right? Well… I've tried numerous times, and I can't even CLICK on Sim_4 to interact with her. The help pop-ups tell you that Sim_4 should have some sort of "blue cursor" over her head, you can't control her, but it makes her stand out so that Sim_1 can see her they can do stuff together. Well… not only does this elusive blue cursor escape me, but poor Sim_1 can't even click on Sim_4 to greet her, hug her, talk to her… anything! Sounds like a bug to me.
Everything downtown is outrageously expensive. A meal will run you hundreds of dollars… buying a flower for your inventory (that's right, we have an inventory now, so we can buy things and give them to our friends as gifts!) will run you a hundred bucks! And what's worse, if you buy something downtown, it's not in your inventory when you return to house-mode.
Since I couldn't get Sim_1 and Sim_4 to interact when I used the phone to invite downtown, I tried a different approach. I used Sim_2 and Sim_3 instead. They LIVE TOGETHER. I control both of them. Sim_2 asked Sim_3 to go downtown, they agreed, called a cab, got in together and guess what? When I got downtown, Sim_3 had somehow… ummm…. disappeared! POOF!!! He was gone from the cab and never showed up downtown!
My final word & a little advice
If you're already a Sims-aholic, certainly buy Hot Date. There are some new twists that you'll most assuredly enjoy. If you're new to the Sims, make sure you master game-play on the original and you like it before buying any of the expansions.
Go to www.thesims.com and download the Object Organizer tool (you'll see it under the "Get Cool Stuff - Make Cool Stuff" links - which, by the way, has some other really cool utilities for you). It was made by Maxis, and it lets you categorize and subcategorize all your objects! Now I can manually tell it to take all those objects out of the "Other" category and put them where I can find them. It's slow & laborious, especially with all the extras I have, but it definitely helps in the end. It also allows you to categorize objects for downtown-mode, which means you can put SHOWERS in! Yay! My Sims are a bit easier to keep content, but it's still more difficult than it used to be (which is good, cause it was waaaaay too easy before).
Also, download all the patches and visit the site often for new patches. Hopefully they'll clear up the problems Hot Date caused.
Finally - VISIT FAN SITES! Seriously, there are so many wonderful Sims-fan-sites out there. Places you can download new skins, heads, objects, walls, floors, houses and other extras; fan-made utilities and tutorials on how to make your own stuff; forums where you can get advice from other Simophiles; cheat-codes and bug-fixes.
Here are a few to get you started - ENJOY!
Sim Freaks - http://www.simfreaks.com/
7 Deadly Sims - http://www.7deadlysims.com/
The Well Dressed Sim - http://www.welldressedsim.com/
Sims Resource - http://www.thesimsresource.com/
BriSims - http://brisims.webskyline.de/indexe.htm
Recommended:
Yes
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Sundrop
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Location: Charlotte, NC
Reviews written: 51
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