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At Gamescom 2010 we got to see a presentation about The Sims 3: Late Night by Azure Bowie.
Xelles and I (Kyta) left home at 07:45 to go to Köhln in Germany, at 12:00 we found Hiki at the EA community lounge and finally we were complete and ready to go to the presentation. We weren’t exactly the only fansite there: there were six other Dutch ones and a few German en French sites.
The first image we saw looked good: The neigbourhood Bridgeport. The Sims 3: Late Night will work in the same way as Twinbrook in The Sims 3 Ambitions; there is a new town where you can go and enjoy nightlife. If you have The Sims 3: Ambitions you have to add the special lots like the fire station etc yourself. Fortunately, there are enough lots to put them on.
This completely new city – called Bridgeport- contains a lot of skyscrapers, your Sims can live in the penthouses. There is also a small piece of land behind the island, there you can find big houses where your Sims can settle down and live a quiet luxurious life. It looks really nice, because it is on the foot of the mountain and there for it feels a bit like Hollywood. Too bad there is only one house at a skyscraper lot, this means there can only live one household so there won’t be other people living in the same building, unlike The Sims 2: Apartment Life. There are two different types of penthouses: a penthouse with only one floor and a penthouses with two seperate floors, which one you buy depends on how much money you have to spent.
There can only be build (also placing walls) within the all ready existing outer walls, this means you can’t build an extra room or add a new floor. This really limits you. But that won’t matter, there is enough to adjust inside and you can also use the terrace to place a few items. The skyscrapers look really nice, they have an amazingly detailed view.
Building mode has another new feature: building a pool on a outer terrace of a penthouse and, for the regular houses, a pool on every floor you wish. This gives you a lot of possibilities for your swimming pool. You could build a swimming pool outside and build your house right next to it, and put a window in the wall that is next to the pool. This way you could look directly into your own pool. It will also look terrific.
There is also a new trait (just like vegetarian) available in The Sims 3: Late Night: Star Quality, what this means is not clear yet, we just saw this trait without getting an explanation.
And, fortunately, the butler is back again! He holds the door for you and will do chores around the house, there is only one but, you will have to pay the butler 1200 simdollars a week.
The new feature that is just briljant is the breastslider. Now you can, like the name suggests, adjust the breasts, you can give them a nice cleavage or make them look like watermelons. EA didn’t forget about the men’s, there is a muscleslider for them so you could give them a real sixpack. This slider is also available for your female in Sims at Create A Sim. There will be no average Sims with these sliders.
With The Sims 3: Late Night you have the opportunity to become an actress or actor and become really famous. Your Sim gets, at its user interface, stars which show on what level of celebrity he or she is. You can raise your level by building your network, by bragging about how famous you are or about your skills against other celebrity or offer them a drink. You can also do assignments to gain fame. When your Sim has all the stars and is really famous, you could get all kinds of free stuff, like free groceries via mail. This is a nice bonus for being as famous as you are.
But you do not need to be a actor to be famous: every Sim can be a celebrity in his own way. When your Sim has a sports career, for example, he or she can become famous as well. But when you are at the top of a career you become more famous quicker than when you just begin with this job. This counts not only for the sports career but also for others.
Your Sim also has to deal with paparazzi, they can destroy your career. When the paparazzi takes a picture of your Sim fighting with another Sim, you may be fired! But do not be afraid, you can drag the paparazzi to court!
The bars look more realistic than ever; when you go to a bar you will easily pick up the bar atmosphere. There are 5 types of bars: sports, literature, luxurious, vampire and exclusive ones. You can also create and build a bar or club yourself!
A nice thing for the bar is that there is a new item you can use. This special object wasn’t shown to us at the presentation but we were informed about it. With this object you can tell at what celeberty-level a Sim needs to be to enter the club. By doing this you can determine what kind of bar it is; a regular bar or an exclusive bar and whether there needs to be security or not. This will be an NPC who will show up when the clubs opens. So there are bars for celebrities, but they need 5 stars. So you can only find Sims with 5 stars at this bar. Of course there are also other ways to get in this club, you could bribe the usher or you can try to sneak into the building. This is really exciting and fun to try.
There are also so-called ‘hotspots’, these are really important, every night there is a new hotspot. Your Sim needs to search for the bar/club which is really busy and where there are the most Sims.
It is really funny to see a Sim dancing on top of the bar. At bars you can also see real mess on the floor, like empty bottles. But when the bar closes, everyone goes home or will be sent home.
You can also use your spare time to get a new hobby at the bar: Mixologist. The better you become the better and the more, non-alcoholic, drinks you can make. These will also influence your Sims, like being better in romantic interactions. You can mix drinks and keep your own career, you don’t have to quit your regular job. Like we already know from The Sims 2: Late Night, The Sims 3: Late Night has an option to hang out with groups, this is called a ‘group date’. But now your Sim has to keep the whole group happy and stay in touch with every group member. If the contact is good and stays good, you will become part of that group. Just like a real life group of friends, it takes time and effort.
The vampires are also back with The Sims 3: After Dark. If you want your Sim to become a vampire, you have to look for a special vampire bar. A little clue; skyscrapers also contain bars.
Personaly, I never really liked the vampires, but I need to confess that EA really surpassed itself with this expansion. Vampires ain’t hungry but thirsty. The need of honger is now called thirsty. Vampires won’t attack Sims, but with enough contact they can persuade Sims to give plasma, blood. As a vampire you have certain Gifts which will make the socializing a bit easier, they can read someones mind and figures someone’s traits out a bit quicker. You can also learn skills a lot faster but only at night. A vampire can also go to hospital and get plasma, but you can only go in at night, at day time you cannot go outside of course. The change they get blisters all over their skin is pretty big. A cool feature is that a vegetarian Sim drinks fruit plasma. This fruit is a great solution which replaces the real plasma (blood) that the not vegetarian Sim drinks.
Vampires can have children, if you have one vampire and a normal Sim, the change you get a vampire child is 50%. A vampire child will have the positive qualities (like better visions) and won’t have the bad qualities, they will get these when they become teenagers (like getting blisters from the sun). If you don’t want to be a vampire any more, then you can go to the scientific lab and get a potion. If you do not want to play with vampires, you can just ignore them and after a while it feels like they aren’t there.
EA also thought about furnitures and new items. For example, there is a subway which transports your Sims really quickly, without loading time. You can place it anywhere you like when you use town-buildemode. It can even take you to a lot where someone lives! I thought the snackstand was really nice, we have never seen this in a The Sims game. Your Sim can simply go there and order a hotdog, a taco and many more. These stands can be placed anywhere in town.
The new effect machine is an unique item which make a bar or party more fun to be. This machine has a lot of different adjust able modes, these will give you the special effect at clubs. You could create different colors laser beams, but there can also be snow, smoke and different kinds of sparkly glitters. There is also a random mode to choose, we haven’t saw this option but it will probably switch between the different modes.
There will be a fishtank you can place on the wall, it will funcion as a window at the same time (you don’t need to feed the fish). This will make your penthouse looks extra luxury, together with the modern Furniture your penthouse will look marvelous. The Arcade and the bubble blower machine are back, you can even give your bubbles a flavour! The instruments look really pretty, you can now learn how to play the drums, bass and piano (we saw a keyboard). And last but certainly not least, the jacuzzi is back! Yeah!
We all were surprised by the view of the city Bridgeport and really liked being able to see the presentation. We were so excited that we couldn’t wait to write this review.
Kyta1702 Conclusion:
The game is really nice and every aspect of it is well thought, everything is so much better and so much more than The Sims 2: Nightlife. The island where you can find the city is small but still big and a real city. I am looking forward to the release of this expansion pack.
Xelles Conclusion:
The new neighborhood of The Sims 3: Late Night looks just amazing. It almost looks like a real city, with its high buildings where you can buy a penthouse or where you can find a club. The clubs and pubs have their own opening hours and the fun an realistic thing wbout this is that your Sim may be kicked out when the pub or club closes. I think The Sims 3: Late Night could do without the vampires, but I think it will be a nice new element. Late Night is in my opinion the best expansion pack of The Sims 3, well up until now anyway.
Hiki’s conclusion:
Most of the time I play with one family, generation after generation. I am sure a lot of members of the family Kwana would love it to be a party animal and go to one of the many clubs. Fortunately for the elderly generation, they won’t be bothered by the noises of the city and stay at their beloved small and quiet town, but the younger generation can rent a penthouse so they are close to all the parties and they can go to them whenever they want. Maybe I will turn the Kwana’s into vampires for a couple of generations? My Sims will become really happy ones I’ve bought this expension pach.
We would like to thank EA and especially Anita – Community Manager of EA Benelux -, again, thank you so much for this opportunity to go to Gamescom 2010 and to see all the Behind Closed Doors presentations. We haven’t only seen and heard much about the games but we have also had an amazing day! So thank you!