Customer Reviews: Read 8 more reviews...
 The worst expansion pack - waste of money December 9, 2008
Shantimar (Greece)
4 out of 6 found this review helpful
I am amazed in reading all the reviews saying that they liked this expansion the best (My favourite is Free time, then Seasons and Pets but I cannot afford to go without any of them because they each bring some useful change). I think it's the worst, I wish I could uninstall it without having to re-install all the others one by one. Oh well...
For starters, you have so much more trouble finding out your Sims through all these walls and floors.
And you have no gardens - I have lived all my life in apartments in a smoggy city, and one of the joys of the Sims was to build them proper houses with gardens...
You all know that in The Sims, friends who come to visit have to come to the door, ring the bell and then cannot be clicked and greeted unless they go away from the door, stop on the pavement and stay there waiting. Well, in this case, after ringing your bell you have to go chase them down the steps, and if you don't make haste, they will go down on the street to wait. Ugh!
Given the fact there are no lifts (elevators for you Americans), it's so much easier to miss the carpool or bus.
And of course if your family gets a new member or your needs change, you cannot add a room or take down a wall.
Most of the buildings are realistically ugly as real apartment blocks, at least from the outside, although I must admit that they put all their creativity in the insides and some are really posh.
The new clothes and hair are such a terrible disappointment in this expansion. Generally Maxis clothes, tiles and walls are so drab nad tasteless that they make it a must for you to go out there and get custom material. Every now and then they have one or two nice items, but in this expansion the clothes and objects are worse than ever,and the furniture is all ultra-modern, in a cheap way, like a night club's or something. No finesse at all, gaudy colours etc... (and of course you are not allowed to delete all these useless greyish clothes you'll never use).
And yes, it dows slow down the system and take a long time to load, although my PC has been upgraded last year and is double core, with a good graphics card, and I take care to kill all other applications, even the antivirus, before running the Sims, as recommended.
I'm also waiting impatiently for the Sims 3, but again they will start with none of the things we now take for granted. Remember how after the Sims (1) we had to wait for so long to have Vacation (Bon Voyage) and Pets? This way of handling expansions is very annoying, because every time you must start from scratch. And all the trouble to download proper elegant European clothes and tasteful walls and floors, it must be done all over again - hours and hours of work. I'm not looking forward to that, I'd much rather hope that Maxis hires some talented clothes and object designers.
 I love this expainsion! November 30, 2008
Olivia Stanley (UK)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I was unsure whether or not to purchase this expansion as I was aware that the Sims 3 was coming out. However I am really glad I did buy it! I have all the other expansions and most of the stuff packs, and The Sims 2 Apartment Life is a great addition to the game. I do not feel this way about all the expansions, I feel that with many of the expansions availible you rarely experience them in the game unless you play particuluar actions such as 'going downtown' or 'creating a pet'. I feel the same way about the Sims 2 Seasons as I do this expansion. They both add things to the game, without you having to think about it or put in too much extra effort. I automatically find myself putting a family in an apartment or hiring a butler for any family, whether or not they live in an apartment. The element of having witches in the game is also very enjoyable, you do have to go to extra efforts to find witches or make your sims a witch but I do not feel this lets the game down. There are some elements in the game which fall naturally into game play, others that require a bit of effort to happpen and some which require a longer amount of time spent playing and fiddling with interactions. I find this is good and entertains me in all moods. I can put as little or as much effort into the game, depending on my mood, and still really enjoy the time I spend playing. Overall I love this game and I'm delighted that I purchased it. I think it's a great final addition to any sims collection and you shouldn't be put off by the fact that the Sims 3 is coming out soon.
Worth every penny $ October 27, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Brill game worth every penny may slow up your game but worth the wait so much is added belladona cove is a amazing neighbour hood brillant would recomend this game to sims2 and non sims2 fans alike so worth everything.
 STILL WAITING FOR IT TO ARRIVE October 25, 2008
annoyed customer (Leicester, England)
0 out of 10 found this review helpful
I ORDERED THIS ITEM IN SEPTEMBER & WITH IT NOW BEING OVER A MONTH I'M STILL WAITING FOR IT TO ARRIVE EVEN WITH 1ST CLASS POSTAGE - & NO REAL EXPLANATION FROM AMAZON - JUST AN AUTOMATED RESPONSE!
Better than it sounds September 25, 2008
Ms. C. A. L. Turner (Kent, England)
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
From the blurb on EA's site, I wasn't expecting great things from this expansion. It sounded as though you just get a new building type, but there's much more to it than that.
Sure, a large element is the apartments, but even those are better than I anticipated. If you've ever been stuck with a homeless family with low funds, or if your single guy is friendless, apartments provide the perfect solution. If your sim feels lonely, they only have to go and tap on someone's door (at a reasonable hour), and some apartments cost less than 1k a week.
There's also a hint of magic in the air, but I suspect that it takes more than the hour that I played to find that
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