Others say...

"Those Social Sims..."
While the late-night phone calls inviting the Sims downtown can get annoying, the ability to have Sims go on dates is quite enjoyable--more fun than just throwing a party. I particularly enjoy sending them on blind dates arranged by the matchmaker. This expansion pack provides additional fashions for the Sims, more house furnishings and decorations that give their dwellings more color and diversity. My Sims like the bowling alley and the karaoke machine. I like Nightlife more than I thought I would--I bought it for the ability to give my Sims a car.

"An important note about expansion packs"
As other people have noted here and on the other Sims 2 game pages, you MUST have the right machine specs to run this game and have a good time, and you MUST check the Aspyr website to download any available patches. I have a brand new Macbook with tons of memory which ran the Sims 2 base game like a dream... AFTER I installed the patch (before the patch it tended to hang a bit).

But here is an important word of warning. If you plan to purchase Universty, Nightlife, or any other expansion pack, you should only download the patch for the LAST expansion pack you installed. In other words, I have the base game, Uni, and Nightlife installed, and I ONLY installed the Nightlife patch. I realized this after much irritating trial and error and emails to Aspyr tech support after installing the patches for both the base game and Uni. If you install more than one patch--even in the "right order"--your game will not run and you will get an error message telling you to reinstall the game. And that means ALL the games--the base game and all expansion packs. I had to do this 3 times because the directions on the Aspyr website were not clear about this point.

Furthermore, make sure you open the unpatched game at least once before you install the patch. None of this useful information is on the Aspyr website and my suggestion that they include it was met with a "Thank you for your interest, have a nice day." I see that many other people have had negative experiences with Aspyr tech supprt as well. It's too bad that such a fun game has a Mac port with such an indifferent publicher behind it.

Save yourself the aggravation!
--Back up your game file
--Download only the patch for the latest expansion pack you install
--Make sure to open the game once before each installation of a new expansion pack and/or patch

Hope this helps other people avoid my tribulations!

"The Fun Continues with Sims 2 Nightlife"
The fun continues with Electronic Arts and Aspyr's The Sims 2 Nightlife Expansion Pack. The basic premise of Nightlife is to add pleasure to the lives of the Sims and to give them a richer social life. This is accomplished with many new additions to the game. There is a new aspiration in their lives by the added Pleasure Seeker aspiration. The Sims just want to have fun!

The Sims 2 core game is necessary to install the Nightlife Expansion Pack. Installation was easy as double-clicking the Installer on the DVD and following the onscreen instructions. Nightlife came with a 12 page paper manual which is all inclusive and very helpful. Nice touch! To start the game, double-click the Sims 2 icon in the Applications folder on your hard drive. Loading one of the three town locations, as does going downtown, takes a minute or two. The time taken was not disconcerting considering the richness of the resulting screens and actions. It is worth the short wait!

The Sims can now date, form groups to go out, have them a good time, purchase cars, build garages, go out on the town to restaurants, bowling alleys and nightclubs. They don't have to depend on the taxi or carpools. There are many new item objects, some of which include a DJ Booth, poker table, Electro Dance Sphere, photo booth and coffins. Coffins are needed to keep vampire Sims protected from the sun. Vampires roam downtown looking for victims so you should be wary.

You can now take your possessions with you if you move to another house with the new addition of personal inventories. There is also a lot of new art and furniture collections to buy to add to the Sims enjoyment.

The Sims 2 Extension Pack is all about social interaction. Dating is a mini-game within a game. Dating Sims have a certain amount of time to raise the date satisfaction level which then adds more time to the date. New actions allow Sims to ask each other what they want and like. They can now "scope out a room" to determine who might be most interested in them. Look for good chemistry and lightning bolts! There are individual turn-ons and turn-offs to be considered, a new Gypsy matchmaker if you have enough Simoleans (Sims money) and buying the new ReNu Yu Senso Orb to change your Sims life's aspirations. The gypsy can also cure the vampire Sims aversion to daylight with potions if you have even more Simoleans to cross her palm.

Group outings can be fun and keep the Sims busy. You must consider the personalities of those whom you invite to make the outing a success. If you are not careful, a fight may break out. "Woo-hoo" occurred in the core game but there are now more places and opportunities for it to happen. You can control the Sims to a certain extent but they do act independently at times. I like that the Sims can now eat out in a restaurant instead of having food delivered or buying expensive pizzas. In the Sims 2 core game, my Sims were always falling down from hunger. It seemed that by the time they took a taxi to town, they were hungry with very limited access to food.

The game can be as easy or complicated as you want. There are many screens for the novice player. The more seasoned players can keep a family of Sims going through many generations even as the elder Sims die. The family's offsprings retain many traits of the parent Sims just as in real life. We may not have vampires roaming our downtown but life has its ups and downs and is unpredictable just as the game. I love the Nightlife Expansion Pack and if you enjoy the Sims, I think you will too. I highly recommend it!

"Can your Mac handle it???"
The Sims2 takes a great computer game (the sims) and makes it even better by adding awesome graphics and Nightlife adds even more things to do with your sims...

Unfortunately my brand new intel MacBookPro doesn't seem to be able to handle the game even though it meets the system requirments. The game regularly crashes after a certain length of gameplay (deleting all of the new progress I had made) even after I set the options to lowest detail and made sure no other programs were running. (Maybe I should buy the PC versions and see if the game runs better on that half of my MacBook!)

"Nightlife for Mac"
I LOVE it. Finally my SIms can have a car. I love all the additional things you get with this expansion pack. I highly recommend getting this addition to your Sims2.