The Sims: Hot Date

"Wait, Sims are supposed to be hot?"

The Sims: Hote Date is the third in the series of expansion packs released for the series. At this point, there is no excuse for the Sims not being able to leave the neighborhood, so now the Sims can venture out of town and go downtown, either for a date or to hang out. While I do admire Maxis for coming up with some ingenious new features, the way they are implemented is as if they wanted you to exhaust these new features to the point of boredom because nothing else in the game is noteworthy.

The Downtown area is similar to a neighborhood as in you can go into free edit mode and design stores with any visual design you like. Stores include a fancy restaurant, a diner, a gift shop, a clothes store, and a recreational area/park. To get to these areas, simply pick up a phone and call in a cab to travel. The catch is is that you can only go with two people—one whom you take control over and another family member or friend who accompanies you. If you expected to be able to “put on your Sunday's best and go to Sears,” you've got it completely wrong as Downtown is mostly a means to make friends or "go on a date" with a specific person.

In Downtown, there's a whole plethora of randomly designed people called Townies to socialize with and befriend. There's tons of NPC cooks, waiters, busboys, and cashiers running about. There's also shelves of stuff to buy and give as gifts to friends. At first, you'll be amazed by the “new world” you've entered as a Sim and have a fun time designing amazing shopping malls and whatnot. Anyway, with your Sim and his friend, you get some time to socialize. New interactions include wave greetings, asking about one's interests, using a hand puppet to tell jokes, peck kisses, and even playing “footsies” under a table. Gift-giving is completely different as you must buy your items from downtown to give to your friends.

One flaw with the game is that when your Sim leaves home and returns, no matter how long he's been away, he returns home at the same time he left. What's wrong with this? It leaves the Sim more tired/hungry/uncomfortable than usual, which leads to plenty of messed-up schedules. Sure, now you have a bit more time to devote to relationships, but I thought this was sloppy on Maxis' part.

Another new, but not really groundbreaking feature is Sims' interests. Categories include money, weather, technology, the 60's, politics, etc. If two talking Sims share the same interests, they will talk longer, and vice versa. You can alter a Sim's interests by having him read magazines purchased downtown. During talk, you can adjust the interest to one that both people enjoy. Not only that, but a new “Lifetime Relationship Meter” between steady friends will keep you from losing points at the same pathetic linear rate as before (YES!!!) I will admit that Maxis improved interactions between Sims (one of the game's basic flaws) slightly here, so it makes Hot Date a decent purchase.

I was, however, dismayed by Downtown in general. When you think about Downtown, you think about buying furniture, groceries, toys, you-name-it. However, the majority of what you can do Downtown is buy magazines, flowers, diamond rings, pajamas, bathing suits, and formal wear. That's right, it baffles me that you can't purchase regular clothes for your Sim, as well as the piles of furniture including small items such as trash cans that can be delivered to your house ASAP except you need to drive Downtown just to get a magazine or some flowers. Personally, it makes no sense to me, but as it stands, Downtown is just a place to socialize and nothing more, which I was somewhat disappointed by. Though the restaurants look cool in motion.

Ironically, I found the social options in the game more interesting than Downtown itself, but neither seems to do much to aid the aging Sims series. Previously-mentioned things aside, I can't recall there being anything new in Hot Date besides a few generic arcade machines, some typical floors and wallpapers, and a big teddy bear. If you've played The Sims since the beginning and have enjoyed them, then this'll give you some more value. If Maxis could've gone back in time and implemented Hot Date into the original in some way, I can see Downtown, and the series for that matter, being a little more practical.

Presentation: 7/10 – Same old Sims, but it's starting to wear out it's welcome.
Gameplay: 6/10 – Some new changes to the socialization keep the series from taking an immediate nosedive. Downtown isn't so hot after all.
Graphics: 6/10 – Now the series is starting to look aged.
Sound: 7/10 – Just a few new voice clips as well as some giddy-little generic shop tunes here and there.
Replay Value: 5/10 – Still hanging in there with the third expansion...

Reviewer's Score: 6/10, Originally Posted: 01/08/08

Game Release: The Sims: Hot Date (US, 11/12/01)