As if "The Sims" didn't cause enough trouble, Maxis has released "The Sims Hot Date Expansion Pack." Now Sims will be able to go Downtown and date. I don't know about your Sims, but mine have enough romance problems as it is, at least I thought they did. "Hot Date" will give your Sims a whole new world of dating to explore. Gone with the days of only being able to date within your own neighborhood. Now you can visit Downtown, and meet and romance the Townies.

GamePlay
What's this about romancing the Townies? Townies is the last name given to NPCs that you can only find Downtown. You can talk, date, and marry these Sims, creating a whole new selection of possible loves. But that's just the beginning.

To get Downtown you call a cab to bring you there. Before you do that, you can invite any Sim adults also at the house, or call and invite a prospective mate Downtown. The cab will pick your Sim up and bring you Downtown where your Sim will meet their date (if they invited one) as soon as you get out of the car. Without a date they are free to explore Downtown.

There are a variety of lots (of course you can always design your own) to choose from to go to. There is a fancy restaurant, a boardwalk, beach, park, small shopping mall, bars, and small diner. Like I said before, you can create your own lot DownTown, in fact you can share them like other house lots in The Sims Exchange. When building Downtown your imagination is the limit since you get unlimited funds. But your Sims will pay for the cost over time. Dinner, tips, rentals, shopping, all starts to add up after awhile.

When I say your imagination is the limit to what you can build, I truly mean it. There are so many options. You could build a park with basketball courts, and swimming pools, or a library, or arcade. One my favorite lots to visit is the park that comes with the game. At the park there is a bar, grill and some picnic tables, ponds (you can rent remote controlled boats to use in them), garden swing, hot dog vender, and buy a picnic basket full of goodies.

Since this is an expansion pack all about love and dating, there are, of course, new interactions that allow our Sims to show their love for each other. There are now choices as to what type of hug you wish to choose. It could be romantic, friendly, intimate, or leap into arms hug? With dating comes flirting. Sims can check out, growl, sweet talk, and give a back rub to the object of their desire. Once they start to warm up to each other they will probably want to cuddle or maybe kiss. There are now 6 types of kisses - peck, polite, suave, romantic, passionate, and fiery kiss.

There a few new options in the building section that are rather useful. There is a water tool that easily lets you create ponds. There is a grass tool that will make the grass grow where is has stopped. My favorite new tool is the flat roof tool. For ages I have been creating one story homes, and simply using a floor tile to cover the top for roofing. Now the game will do it itself.

New Interactions, Objects, and NPCs > > Page 1, 2, 3