Bruce Von Stiers

A while back, EA picked up Maxis Studios. This added a great simulation design team to EA's stable. Last year the Maxis folks put together a sim about people called the SIMS. They followed it up with an expansion pack called Living Large. Now the team has come up with a whole new expansion pack. This one is called The Sims House Party. It is ever bit as fun as the original and has a few wrinkles thrown in.

The first thing that you need to know is that this is truly an expansion pack. That means that you will have to have a copy of The Sims in order to play House Party. The second thing that you need to know is that this game takes a lot of time in order to do it right. You will have wrapped up hours and hours putting together parties and houses with this program. And you will be having so much fun; you won't even realize how much time it has taken up.

In this new expansion pack there are new home decorating themes, a bunch of new household objects and all kinds of elements that will make your home a real party house. The emphasis of House Party is to bring other people into your sim home, hang out and party hearty.

The basic idea for The Sims is that you create and control the lives of computer simulated families. You can use an existing sim family or create one of your own using the tools available in the program. You grow the family in the way a real family grows, providing them with food lodging and love.

With House Party, the program takes on a whole other perspective. There are rooms in the house that can be built purely for entertainment purposes. Add a bar and a killer sound system. Put in a dance floor and a mechanical bull for those Urban Cowboy types. For a flashback to the '60's, throw in a dance cage or two in your party room.

Each thing that you do in the game has an effect on something else. If you have food in the kitchen, then people will gravitate there and have conversations. This can be extremely helpful in learning new recipes and the possibility of new job openings down at the plant. Keeping the drinks flowing from the bar will almost guarantee at least a couple of drunk quests at your party.

The program lets you hire caterers for your parties or buy already prepared food items. There are a bunch of new wallpaper designs and different furniture to decorate rooms with.

There are over 100 new items that have been added to the program. In addition to the caterer, there is a Mime who shows up occasionally at parties. Be careful of the huge birthday cake, something just may pop out of the top of it.

There is a new Costume Trunk that will outfit your sims in some outlandish clothing. Break out the Leisure Suit for a Disco party, or a pair of cowboy boots and a big conch belt buckle for that old time, Merle Haggard type of Country Western party.

The program also comes with 25 original tracks for the music mix. Among other types of music, there is Techno, Rap and Disco.

If you are into simulations, you just have to love The Sims. And House Party is just too cool not be part of your Sims package. With the additional items that you have at your disposal, The Sims House Party will give you more hours of gameplay than ever before.

The Sims House Party Expansion Pack is sold at retailers like Best Buy, Target and Wal Mart. You can also order it directly from EA.

For more information about the Sims, visit the official web site at www.TheSims.com. To check out other EA titles, visit their web site at www.ea.com.