Sims here, Sims there, Sims everywhere ! Admit it, who doesn’t know The Sims ? Even if you think ballet is for faggots and you’d rather occupy yourself with some shooting, you MUST have noticed A game where the word “sim” is part of the title. Maxis isn’t the development studio with the world’s most extensive inspiration and therefore releases something sim-like with the regularity of a clock; Sim City, Sim Earth, Sim Park, … and of course their most well-known creation: The Sims themselves ! This last one has even given birth to enough expansion packs to make the post-world war 2 baby boom jealous and this last one promises to add a bit of magic to your Sims’ experiences. Let’s see what we can expect of this and how this baby plays…

Do you have to be happy these day when a new Sims expansion gets released, or rather start crying ? The first expansions arrived with great applause while the latest mostly have been criticised as being hardly original and all but renewing. This is quite strange in fact as the last ones are the most inventive of all. So how come there’s such a big “been there, done that”-feeling hanging around ? Well, this is mostly due to two reasons: first of all the three year old graphical engine which makes any add-on look oldfashioned even before installing it and secondly the gameplay experience could use a bit more variation. After all, you’re playing already three years with the same concept and this sooner or later becomes boring.

However, this won’t last long anymore as The Sims 2 will be released within a couple of months and will deliver a great 3D engine combined with renewing and surprising gameplay. Don’t sheer out loud too early though, first you have to go through this latest expansion still ! The Sims: Makin’ Magic endulges you in a magical atmosphere which could have come straight out of a Harry Potter novel. Needless to say this can influence the gameplay enormously. Maybe this add-on is alright after all ? Time to list the new features.

You’ll have to endure it: You’re just looking around your new house and suddenly some weirdo drops a strange package on your front lawn. After inspection of the bomb-squad of the US Army you dare to open it and what do you find ? Some good soul has given you a magic staff, some ingredients (necessary to make some potions), some kind of cooking pot, a bundle of magic money, a digital enchantment book and a real black hole as a present ! The enchantment “with a staff in the hand you can travel throughout the land” (or how did that one go again ?) is true more than ever because a dive in your black hole is enough to visit magic town, the place to be for the wanna-be Harry Potter.

This is a clear example of using magic on the daily lives of your sims which helps you save time and money (in this case the taxi). One of the biggest additions to this expansion are the enchantments. With these you can magically create a new friend, change that idiot flamingo on your front lawn to a nice-looking waitress or that garden goblin into a full-prepped gardner. Sick and tired of those nosy neighbours ? “No problem” they say at Maxis, just say the right words and you’ll only hear them in bullfrog sounds !

The ingredients you need for your potions can be bought in the shop in Magic Town, more exotic stuff (like fairy dust or rare mushrooms) will need to be gotten with your magic money. You can earn this special money by doing shows or selling certain things in MagicTown. These shows can also be duels with other wizards where you can proove that you and you alone are the most powerful magician of the Western Hemisphere.

Further in MagicTown you can visit fairs and make a ride in a completely ridiculous “rollercoaster”. What this has to do with magic beats me, I think Maxis is just trying out a couple of things for The Sims 2. If you’ve finally succeeded in getting to lead a rich man’s life it might be time for a new challenge. After all, you can also buy ordinary ground in MagicTown although this isn’t quite as ordinary as you would think due to the fact that there are quite some “specials” present.

For the rest there are of course a whole bunch – 175 according to EA – new object added to the game including: a baker’s oven, skeleton closet, typical magician’s attributes and also enhanced versions of all sorts of basic items from the original. Every Sims lover of course knows for quite some time already that Maxis isn’t scared of adding some humour in their games and this time they haven’t held back either ! I’m not going to say any more about this as the fun part is discovering it for yourself.

The graphics are, as previously stated, untouched and since remaining the same is the same as going back, they are no longer of this time. The usual bugs (2 sims that get stuck or forget how to do certain things) still haven’t been removed and this is very sad. The sound is ok as usual although the TV starts to annoy me more and more after each expansion. One thing that stands out is that with this add-on, the sounds have gotten even more childish than ever before with lots of gigly voices and ridiculous reactions of your Sims.

The Sims: Makin’ Magic is yet another typical Sims expansion: enough renewing to get you back to playing but not enough to keep you interested for more than 10 hours (for me at least). It’s of course mandatory stuff for the real fan (of which there are many) but if you only now discover the game you shouldn’t get it. In that case it’s best to get the Super Deluxe edition which contains the original and first two expansions and which can keep you occupied for a very long time !