The Sims 3: Late Night – Good clean debauchery

The Sims franchise has always taken place in an idealized world, with your Sims enjoying huge houses with nice yards in a relaxed neighborhood with a small town feel. But it's always been limited to the suburban ideal – what about those of us who want to vicariously live the big city fantasy? Enter the Late Night expansion for Sims 3, where you can design a penthouse in the sky with a hot tub on the roof, the perfect spot for skinny dipping with vampires…

As the title suggests, the focus of Late Night's all-new urban setting is the night life, from bar hopping to playing gigs with your band and mingling with Sim-celebrities. Bar locations range from crappy dive bars to ultra-exclusive VIP hot spots and a range of locales In between. One minute we were watching a bar fight in a smelly-looking, no-frills pub, and then next we were in a rooftop club watching people swim in a pool through a giant aquarium-style window facing the lounge. Each location has plenty of stuff to do – you can dance on the bar or even try your hand at mixing your own drinks (you can even name your creations and save the recipe to make it again), pick fights, flirt and the like.

We're also told that hot tubs are big deal new addition in Late Night. And – brace yourself – you can even "WooHoo" in them (that means S-E-X, giggle!!). So as you work your way up to a super deluxe penthouse with sweeping views of the city, you'll definitely want to leave room for a fancy jacuzzi. The sky seems to be the limit in terms of decorating too, and you can even have one of those uber-baller status aquarium window-wall set-ups so it looks like your kitchen and your living room are separated by a slice of ocean.

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Oxygen bars seem to be making a comeback in Late Night too; we saw one in almost every bar we visited. Different flavors of oxygen affect your Sim's mood in different ways, so you can actually use them to facilitate whatever other activities you want your Sim to partake in.

Also, vampires. Don't worry, they're not scary – these are totally the nice kind of vampires [insert sparkle joke]. They can't just attack any person they feel like when they need to feed – forming a relationship between a vampire and a human it feeds on is similar to forming other relationships in The Sims, and the two have to make a personal connection before any feeding can occur. And if your vampire strikes out too many times, he can always eat some plasma fruit to quench his bloodthirst (or if he's a vegetarian vampire). Vampire-human couples can have babies too, and it's up to chance whether the baby will come out a vampire or a human. Just like in real life.

Aug 16, 2010