With every new EP comes different socials, different ways for our sims of various ages to interact with each other and the world around them. Apartment Life is no exception and we will try to look at some of them here beginning with the question left over from the last part of this review..

Cuddle Under Stars or "clouds", depending upon the time of day. Big softie that I am, I must admit that this is one of my favourite new socials. Your sims lay on the ground in each other's arms, gazing up into the sky. Although I am yet to try it out, I'm wondering if "death by satelite" would wipe them both out at the same time. Muahahaha.

Huggle is a really sweet one that toddlers get to do to each other. Aaron & Miriam, who are brother and sister, were always doing it.

Another thing toddlers now like is for children and older to play Peek A Boo with them, which is another new social that has come with AL.

Suck Face is a new type of kiss. Somewhere between smooch and makeout, it seems to fill the gap and has a positive effect on two sims in a good enough relationship to try it.

Classic Dance is a new form of dance, similar to Slow Dancing but with a style from a more bygone age. Children and older can do it, plus it increases the hidden Dance skill level.

A lot of the new socials are related to apartment living. Introduce to Neighbors is one of them, which is a good one to try out when you've moved into a new apartment building and want to start to get to know people. If they are making a noise or their apartment stinks, you can complain to them, although it can negatively affect your relationship with them.

Ask to watch kids is where you can ask a neighbor to watch over your children, toddlers and babies if you wish to go out to work or visit a community lot. I very much doubt that it would work if you were going to one of the vacation resorts for a week and wanted to avoid paying a nanny.

Jump Rope is a new self-interaction. I prefer the term "skipping" as it is known over here, but as that is already used for a type of movement, I suppose they could not use it twice. Instead of being dependant upon exercise equipment and fitness shows, you can use this to build that body skill. I am yet to see any skilled sim doing it as so far my sims seem to get slightly tangled in the rope quite often.

Walk to School/Work is also new and very much appreciated. I have lost count of the times that my sims have missed the carpool by a matter of minutes. The same also goes for the children and teens who miss the school bus and lose an entire grade because of it. I would have liked to see this earlier in the series but "better late than never".

Gesture and Tell Story are related to social groups, which we look at in more detail in the next section.

This is one of the other major gameplay changes. Five social groups have been introduced with this EP and they each have what you could call a certain social class. In ascending order, they are:

Gearheads, Bohemians, Jocks, Techies & Socialites.

Not being a console player, until it was pointed out to me, I did not realise they are very similar to the social groups that were in "Urbz", which was a version of The Sims released for the Playstation 2 and how having a reputation in there was everything if your sims wished to advance. Thankyou to Margaret from CDC and J.Meadowcroft for pointing this out to me. However, further investigation revealed that there were some differences to how they were represented there.

Each of these groups has their own specific gesture and type of story that they never tire of hearing and if they are properly identified and greeted appropriately, it gets your social level off to a good start. Most of them have a distinctive mode of dress. Jocks seem to be in tracksuits and the Techies look like they are wearing something from a convention for "Babylon Trek 9".

If you find one of your sims being greeted by a specific gesture, you can be sure that the greeter belongs to that specific group. High Five for Jocks, Firm Handshake for Gearheads and so forth. I could tell you everything, but that woud take all of the fun out of it. Naturally, the Jocks like to talk about sport and the Gearheads like to talk about mechanics. Also, not surprisingly, the Techies like to talk about computers. Looking at my offline world this way, I've found I hang around with a mixture of jocks and techies as they never tire of talking about their respective subjects.

As well as these "townies" looking different and having their own quirky gestures and stories, there seems to be where the Urbz similarity ends.. Through walkbys of residential lots, occupancy of other apartments and patronage of community lots, these townies also serve as an indicator of the social class of the lot and area. As the social class of an area is dependant upon neighboring lots, it changes from the previous in that a trailer on a lot next to a mansion had no effect at all. Now, a select placing of a certain value of lot be it residential or community, can affect things positively or even negatively. There goes the neighborhood. Yes, there are cheats that can inflate or deflate the value of the lot, but I'll be looking at those in a later part.

Seasons Note - For those who have this EP as well, I have found out that it in the Winter time, it can be a lot harder finding out which social group a new townie belongs to as their "group uniform" is replaced by outerwear which gives off no clue at all. I've had to pay more attention to who else they have been talking to and wait to be greeted first in order to identify their class. However, if an area's social class is known, it may be possible to narrow it down a bit. More about that shortly.

Poirot Place here is a High Value lot, although there are not many other lots nearby. This means that of its 12 apartments, it is expected that the majority of NPC residents will be Socialites and Techies and Jocks, which are two of the five social groups. It will also be expected to affect any other future lots built adjacent or otherwise nearby.

Christy here is a socialite. Socialites dress smartly, respond well to stories about "Fame" and their preferred greeting or gesture is "Kiss Kiss Darling". It also seems that she has taken an instant liking to Damian.

Although I first thought that social groups was just an "Urbz" transposition, I looked deeper and found more. Personally, I am quite impressed as with this pack, they have introduced a greater sense of community and a social class. The value of your lot is affected by what is next door or nearby. This in turn affects the type of townie who will walk past your lot or who the type of townie who you are likely to run into when you pop down to the store or have a break in the park.

I am yet to decide whether this means drawing our attention to neighborhood value and social class might be a way of changing our perceptions so that we look at the community and the bigger picture in our sim-playing and therefore subtly condition us towards the more community-based The Sims 3, which is released in less than 5 months.