House Party: Yet Another $30 to Spend on The Sims
Written: Dec 30 '03
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Yet more items and themes for your sims, including the ability to throw parties
Cons: Do you really want to buy five more expansions at $30 each?
The Bottom Line: I like House Party better than forgetting to pay my bills for two months.
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| B_Campbell's Full Review: The Sims House Party Expansion Pack For Windows |
Now your Sims can get a life.
If you have The Sims and Livin' Large, or The Sims Deluxe, you might feel like you're missing something. Well, you are, namely the six other expansions for the game. But what you're desperately missing is: a tiki theme?
House Party is the second expansion for The Sims, adding even more objects and features on top of The Sims and Livin' Large. Since, like Livin' Large, House Party requires The Sims to play, I won't be going into detail about the basic gameplay; check out my review of The Sims for that. Instead, this will be a relatively short review (short in comparison to my usual reviews) touching on the important additions.
Most importantly, as the name implies, House Party is all about having fun. As the name implies, your Sims can now throw huge parties, inviting over half the neighborhood all at once. This isn't only superficial; throwing a party in House Party is not the same as inviting a dozen people over individually in the original game. When you have enough guests, the game surreptitiously goes into party mode, which looks and feels no different than the normal Live Mode but has its own rules and consequences.
Once in party mode, your object is to keep all of the Sims in the house happy. A party generally dissolves around 2 or 3 A.M., so you generally don't have much time which is a good and a bad thing. In order to keep the guests happy, you have to provide plenty of things for them to fulfill their needs - and since you can't see their needs, you can't tell exactly what they want. This means you need to have plenty of food and fun handy, as well as more than one restroom. Throw a bad party and the dreaded mime will show up; throw a good one, and you might get a visit from a special personality.
There are a few additions to facilitate throwing a party. One is a new phone interaction, throw party; this instantly invites over several people from the neighborhood. There are also items, like the birthday cake, which will start a party by getting neighbors over. Among the items added are new items with group interactions, most famously the 'party cake', which hides the surprise of a special dancer inside. It's guaranteed to get your Sims going - or at least all those of one gender. Other additions make a great party easier, like the buffet table and caterer which can provide plenty of grub to go around.
As with Livin' Large, there are many additions to the wallpaper and flooring selection as well, though House Party goes a step further by offering a few new 'themes'. For example, there are bamboo wallpapers, woven straw mats, tiki torches, tribal masks, and even a bamboo shower so your Sims can throw a tiki party. Dressing up a house with one theme really starts to make things interesting, and further personalizes the game.
As I mention in my review for The Sims, the system requirements are somewhat misleading. If you only want to install The Sims, Livin' Large, and House Party, you can probably get by with a mediocre system - 500mhz processor and 128MB of ram, along with a 32MB video card should do it. Thankfully, most of the bugs from the first game have been worked out by the point, so the game is a bit smoother.
If you want House Party, you have three options: for those who already have The Sims, I would highly suggest buying Livin' Large before buying House Party. This is the order the expansions are supposed to be installed in, and while it can be done backwards it's possible to create problems with your system by doing so. Another option is for those who have The Sims Deluxe, which includes The Sims and Livin' Large, which House Party can simply be added to. The third option is to just pick up The Sims Double Deluxe, which includes The Sims, Livin' Large, and House Party; this is probably the best (and cheapest) route to go as of this writing.
While expansions for The Sims are really just financial juggernauts for EA, who can count on millions of fans to buy a copy at the price of $30 each, they are great additions to an already great game. With the huge amount of new objects added and a few new options, House Party really begins to fill out the original game. If you have The Sims and Livin' Large, (or The Sims Deluxe) there's no reason not to get this add-on.
Recommended:
Yes
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B_Campbell
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Member: Bennett Campbell
Location: In a Volkswagen somewhere in upstate NY
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