It's a Magical World!

Makin' Magic was one of the most popular EP's for Sims 1 and players have been hoping to bring a little bit of magic into their Sims 2 game since launch. Every EP has its own creature or special character and so ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, let me introduce you to... Witches!

At last... We have Witches in the game! Learn and cast spells, make potions, craft exclusive items and fly around on broomsticks until the 'Ground Flairs Cow Sculptures' come home!

Witches (both male and female, no Wizards here), can be anywhere in the scale of alignment between good, neutral and evil. If they really work at it they can become atrociously evil! Each stage gives them a different outfit, as seen here. Good witches have white robes, neutral have brown and evil have black. If a Witch becomes atrociously evil they also turn green.

A witches alignment determines which spells they can learn and cast, which potions and reagents they can make, and which type of items they can craft. The craftable items are a throne, floor light, wall light and ceiling light, which can be used to decorate the Witches magical room where they will also place their cauldron and spell book (also color determined by their alignment).

You can see here 2 rooms, on the left decorated with good magic and on the right, evil!

Spellcasting

To be able to cast spells, Witches need to possess particular reagents of varying quantities. You can use the Spell Book to check Witches abilities, which also shows which spells and craftables are known about, and the required items to cast or create them. In this image you can see the Magic Spell Book UI. You can see a list of Spells, the Magic Skill and the Alignment (although the alignment UI is not working in this build).

Reagents are a mixture of weird and wonderful magical items including Enchanted Essence of Cur Tails, Magic Dust, Dragon Scales, Eye of Newt, Vipers Essence, Crystallized Moonbeams, Sun Gem's and Essence of Light. These can be created in a cauldron or purchased from NPC Witches when you bump into them, or at the 2 secret Witches Community Lots (one for good and one for evil alignments).

Reagents

As well as using reagents they can be placed on the new shelves that come with AL, or on any other surface. Here you can see a selection of them stacked neatly on 3 levels of shelving.

Casting spells can be great fun, but can of course have negative backlash if done wrong. Spells can be cast on other Sims, objects and even on yourself. Many of the animations are hilarious as you can probably imagine if you have a read through some of these example spells (these will be temporary names so expect them to change in final version). There will be around 30 spells in all:

Good Spells:

Banish Death: Click on a dead Sim or Death himself to bring a Sim back to life.
Aura of Niceness: Makes the world a better place to live.
De-Fuego: Instantly extinguish a fire.
Bugs of Ambiance: Summon butterflies of fireflies, depending on the time of day.
Make Agreeable: Cast this spell of a Sim to make them accept the next five socials.
Waves of Happy: All Sims in the area get a boost to their happiness (great for parties)
You Can Has Cheezburger: Spawn a tray of food, varies depending on the time of day.

Neutral Spells:

Make Fit: Instant fitness for the target Sim.
Make Fat: Opposite of Make Fit ;-)
Mighty Cluck of the Beyond: Posses the target Sim to perform chicken moves.
Leave'spolsion: Clear all the leaves from a Lot.
Puddle Evaporator: Clear rain, mess and pee puddles from your Lot.

Evil Spells:

Resurrect Zombie: Bring any Sim who's tombstone is on the Lot, back to life as the walking dead.
Bees!: cast a spell on someone to have them chased by bees.
Mist of Plague: Force a Sim to throw up.
Fuego: Cast a fireball to start an object blazing.

Lastly, as I mentioned earlier about the Pets EP. If you have this installed your Witch can have a 'feline familiars' as a magical Pet. I had trouble with this in the current build but hope to have screens and more info for you seen.

Child's Play

The kids get a look in with Apartment Life too! A whole new playground set provides new entertainment for toddlers and children. The huge Jungle Gym allows Sims to climb up, look around and then slide down the pole, while the monkey bars let them burn off some energy swinging and dangling.

The slide is now not just for pools, and the roundabout ride will keep any kid happy spinning around and 'round until the point that nausea sets in. Then stand back!

The Bouncing Bork Spring Rider is for toddlers only and can be put on the ride by an adult. All rides can be owned on a residential Lot, or found in the new community parks.

Adults Play

The kids don't get all the fun though. There are some great new attractions for adults too, including the welcome return of the Pool Table which allows Sims to perform trick shots to woo the crowd. A new Open Mic allows Sims to sing, recite poetry or perform stand-up comedy.

Another great addition is the huge new home cinema screen which is 3 tiles wide. Significant of course, because you can now put a 3 seat sofa in front of large screen TV! All can be seen in this picture of the family gathering in the den.

While venturing out your Sims are also likely to come across a couple of other great characters. The Human Statue parks himself on a box, moving only when he gets an itch or a fly lands on his nose(??), unless you stare at him for too long, then he's likely to jump at you!

The Homies in the 'hood can often be found on flat cardboard boxes in front of a boom box, drawing crowds with the break dancing skilz. Offer him a few simoleans and he will teach your Sim to break-dance too, a skill that they can improve on to wow the onlookers who can't resist the mesmerizing beat and your Sim flailing around like a whirling Dervish!

Self Study

I found some more info about the new study options from bookcases in the encyclopaedia. There are 5 new study topics which Sims can work on at home from the bookcase.

Fire Prevention will make Sims better at extinguishing fires on their own, as well as being slightly less panicky when a fire erupts in the first place.

Anger Management will give them the edge when something occurs that would usually make them furious, as well as help calm them down once they are furious.

Lifelong Happiness will help Sims keep their aspirations higher for longer!

Physiology will teach Sims more about how their bodies work, making building body skill and keeping their figure easier.

Couple Counselling will gibe Sims a new interaction: "Repair relationship with…" which they can use to help heal relationships between married or dating Sims who might be going through a rough patch.

Anything else then?

I did say there was a lot to this pack didn't I? I bet after all that you almost forgot about Apartments? Well yes, of course there is more. How about Witches flying on broomsticks, that's great to see! Oh, and the huge new aquarium, the new computer, the new plopables, jump ropes, awnings, up/down wall positioning (you can move all wall decorations up and down to any position now, and even place 2 items on the same wall)...

Tell you what, have a look at these screens for now and I'll keep adding more with some descriptive info as I finish processing all my screens, so check back soon. I will also add more video as time permits.

For now though, that's it. A mammoth preview of some 4,000 words and still going. It's fair to say I think, that this pack has gone further than most ever imagined it would from the name, I think you will agree. There is something here for everyone, but I hope this preview helps you make an informed decision as to whether Apartment Life is for you (or Magic, or Build Stuff).

We don't yet know if this is the last EP for Sims 2. If not, then great. If it is, I'd say EA went out with a bang on this product :-)

You can see many more TSR Exclusive Screens by following the link below. Also, be sure to check out the Videos (more added soon).

My thanks as always to the team at EA for the opportunity and information, and to Tug and my Sims Community colleagues who attended, making the day informative and enjoyable once again.

/Steve

Links:
Enlarged Article Images & other TSR Exclusive Screens
Official Screenshots & Renders at TSR
Sims 2: Apartment Life at the Official Site

Steve's Guestbook, in case you want to leave feedback about the article :-)

Continue to Page 4 for exclusive videos!