Don't have much free time anymore and I just don't have time to catch up with my friends on Ciao. I...
Don't have much free time anymore and I just don't have time to catch up with my friends on Ciao. I will try pop back when I can, but for now I'll just have to be the silent member of the site. Take care everyone and good reviewing!
Member since:02.07.2003
Reviews:50
Members who trust:20
Anyone who has ever read any of my reviews on pc games will know that I absolutely adore simulation games, none more so than the fantastic Sims. When Maxis first released the Sims I thought I’d died and gone to heaven. Could it get any better than this, I wondered?
Well, yes apparently it could, because a range of expansion packs followed in quick succession, each more brilliant than the last. But still I felt something was lacking. Ok, so my Sim could throw wonderful House Parties and choose from a variety of interesting jobs. She had interesting relationships going with several men, often all at the same time. But where was the challenge? Sim men are, on the whole, extremely easy to romance and seduce. Flirt with them a couple of times, give them a backrub, and they’re ready to fall at your feet and declare never ending love.
Or so I thought. But then I discovered the Hot Date expansion pack, and all of a sudden my view of Sim men was radically altered. Because in Hot Date they’re not easy at all. In fact, just getting them to talk to you for more than a minute at a time can be a huge challenge!
Hot Date has all the elements of the basic Sims game – you create a Sim, buy or build them a house, get them a job, make them some friends and generally run their life for them, keeping them happy and healthy.
But unlike the somewhat small world of the Sims, which contains a few neighbourhoods and is sadly lacking in variety, Hot Date gives you the option to hop into a cab and travel to various locations downtown, opening up a whole new world of experience to your Sim. You can choose
to go to the shopping mall and buy yourself a new outfit, or pop to the beach and have a drink at the side of a pool. Downtown is a fantastic new concept and, for me, turned Sims from what was already a damn good game into one of the best games I have ever played.
The beauty of it is that just like the neighbourhoods, everything in the downtown section of the game is customisable. You can choose to go to any downtown location and change anything you want, or even start again from scratch and build up an entirely new location. You are supplied with everything you need to build up the town of your dreams, and there’s also a wealth of goodies to be downloaded from the Internet, making it even more fun. There’s a high level of realism about this game that wasn’t always present in the original Sims. For example, I would often have the television on but guests would ignore it, and wouldn’t use items the way they should be used. So imagine my surprise when I built myself a downtown hotel and found dozens of Sims sleeping in the beds and taking baths in the bathrooms. Fantastic fun!
The other new element of Hot Date is, as the name suggests, dating. You now have the option to go downtown with the Sim of your choice, either just for a shopping spree or on a date. The Sim will then go wherever you go, and do whatever you do. So if you’re peckish and pop into a restaurant for a snack, you end up dining with your date. If you feel like having a dip in the pool, your date will tag along.
As well as giving you the option to date your fellow Sims, Hot Date also offers you some fantastic new actions to try out on them. For example, when dining with your date you now have the option to snuggle up to them, or play footsie. When playing in the newly created “love tub” (basically a hot tub, but heart shaped) you can choose to wash them, or even “play,” an option which sees your Sims vanish behind a blur, and sends their happiness soaring!
It’s not all fun and games though. Unlike the Sims, where giving a Sim a hug will pretty much guarantee marriage, the Sims of Hot Date are nowhere near as accommodating. You can spend hours and hours wandering round downtown with a date, treating them to gift after gift, making them laugh with your witty charm, and then be slapped for daring to play footsie with them when you’re treating them to dinner. Likewise, your date could be totally in love with you, but you then suggest them coming home with you and are immediately subjected to a tirade of abuse, before your date storms off refusing to ever speak to you again.
Frustrating as this can be, it does add an element of interest and intrigue to the game. Unlike in the original Sims game you will find yourself thinking very carefully about the actions you make your Sim perform. One wrong move and the Sim who was just about to propose marriage will suddenly become your mortal enemy, and it can take lots of hours, and hundreds of simoleans worth of gifts to get back into their good books. As I say, this can at times be extraordinarily frustrating, especially as the same Sim will often act totally differently if you invite them to your house than they do if you invite them downtown, meaning it’s very hard to judge what you can and can’t do and say. But at the same time it makes the game far more challenging, and once you’ve decided on the lucky Sim guy or gal it certainly makes for a fun time trying to get them to accept your proposal of marriage!
All in all I would say this is a fantastic expansion pack. Maxis could have just added in the dating element and left it at that, but instead they added the new downtown setting which was, in my opinion, the best thing they could have done. To someone like me who loves nothing more than building houses from scratch and then decorating and furnishing them, the ability to customise downtown is like finding gold at the end of a rainbow. It’s incredibly satisfying to see happy Sims wandering around your shopping mall and stopping for a drink in the bar before nipping upstairs to the hotel for a quick nap.
The customisability of the game, combined with the added new element of difficult dating means that this is another simulation game that will never become boring. As soon as you find things getting a little tedious all you need to do is hop online, download the fixtures and fittings for a new shop, demolish your old shopping mall and start all over again. If you’re a lover of The Sims and have never tried Hot Date, I recommend that you get downtown and buy it immediately!
The Technical Bit: Due to a lack of spectacular graphics or sounds, Hot Date isn't really a very demanding game. Minimum system specs are as follows: Full copy of The Sims installed Windows 95/98/XP (Windows NT not supported) 300 MHz processor 64 MB RAM (128 MB recommended if also using other expansion packs for The Sims 4x CD/DVD-ROM drive 600 MB hard disk space 2 MB video card with DirectX 7.0 compatible driver DirectX 7.0 compatible sound card Keyboard and mouse
Hot Date is readily available from any computer game outlet, I got mine from amazon.co.uk where it is currently priced at £14.99 for a brand new copy, or prices start from £8.00 for a second hand copy. You can also pick up new, sealed copies from ebay.co.uk for an average price of £10.00. I'd say it was definitely worth a try at these prices!
How helpful would this review be to a person making a buying decision? Rating guidelines
I've got house party and the sims : unleashed. I never fancied this one really but it sounds pretty good from what you say here so I might get it and give it a go. Thanks!
Cabron xx
Miss_BooBookitty 15.07.2003 21:30
I always fancied this but haven't tried it yet. Good op, M xx
tabyorky 14.07.2003 17:21
I have got the sims ut not got this expansion pack though.
Hot Dateis the third add-on forThe Simsand is probably the most value for money; rather ... more
than just a few more items and a couple of extra career paths you get to explore the altogether friskier side of sim life... dating.The first addition to the Sims u...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Jetzt können Die Sims völlig neue Erfahrungen machen durch Verabredungen! Mit aufregenden ... more
neuen Charakteren, Interessen und einem neu gestalteten Innenstadtbereich mit Restaurants, Geschäften und Parkanlagen holt Die Sims Hot Date die Sims von der Cou...
Postage & Packaging: £1.94 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Jul 14th, 2003
very helpful by (100%):
