THE SIMS 2 LIVE WITH FRIENDS

If you thought (as many of us did!) that Free Time would have been the last EP for The Sims 2, well you were wrong! Between the end of August and the beginning of September, in fact, an eighth expansion pack will be released: it’s called Apartment Life and it will be just about living in a flat in the town center! Finally our Sims will be able to leave the quiet countryside life and live the groovy life of the city, with all the pros and cons.
Within a month circa, then, we’ll enter a new world, that has been wished by many players and that will shake a little the lives of your characters, even in prospect of the releasing of The Sims 3 in the second trimester of 2009. But let’s see in details how this EP will be, thanks to the news available on TheSims2.ea.com and the several reportages done in the last weeks (not least the Edenstyle.it one).

The new 'hood and the apartments

Apartment Life will introduce a new neighborhood, called Belladonna Cove, where we can find apartments and new families, that can be also used in our pre-existing hoods. To live in an apartment, every family should rent a flat, as we have to do for the hotels in Bon Voyage and the dorms in University, for a maximum amount of four families per condo.
Sims will have to pay the rent every week or they will be evicted, and try to get along with noisy and boring neighbors, building a positive reputation.

Flatmates and butlers

Sims can even choose to share their flat with other mates, that won’t be playable, to afford the costs of the apartment; on the other hand, if the Sim is very wealthy, he/she can even hire a butler and live in prosperity. Remember, anyway, that once we rent the house we cannot make major changes to it, nor buy it and make it our own.

NPCs and the new creature

Walking around in the downtown we’ll find several NPCs, such as the mime, the break-dancer and Sims belonging to different social classes, that will be recognizable by their clothes.
The new creatures introduced by Apartment Life will be…witches and wizards! We’re sure that The Sims 1 players will love this feature, that much recalls Makin’ Magic, one of the most popular EPs of the first version of the game. Witches can be good, bad and neutral and will be able to create many many spells.

New interactions

Among the other features of Apartment Life, we’ll fine new interactions with toddlers and newborns (finally!), and new topics to study to improve the everyday life of our Sims (preventing fires and other stuff).

The Buy and Build mode

Other new features will be introduced in the catalogues of the Buy and the Build mode, among which: spiral staircases, ceilings, huge TVs, heart-shaped vibrating bed (that recalls the one from Hot Date for The Sims 1), and the possibility to place paintings and objects in many more different slots. There will also be new hairdos and clothes.
This should really be a rich and interesting expansion pack, so much to make us think that it will really be the final chapter of The Sims 2 era.