This time, the gnomes don't do the gardening and you cannot buy a skeletal maid who lives in a battered coffin. Anyone can have a butler now, but I'll be coming to him later. Instead, with the right level of learning and skill, a witch can call a servant who will do their bidding until their services are not required. The servant appears in the form of a witch ... albeit with no body. Once summoned, "she" immediately gets down to work. In this case, she's cleaning one of the bathrooms at Ricardo's dorm.

Also, for those who have the "Pets" expansion as well, as your skills in witchcraft develop, they can summon their own familiar, either a good or evil one. Fortunately, they do not require a litter box and their needs can be recharged by sitting on one of the thrones. Disappointingly, you don't get the opportunity to name your witch's cat unlike Sabrina who was able to call hers Salem. Yes, I know, I've watched too much TV.

There are indeed a lot of useful spells and I'm sure I've only come across half of them. At the time of writing, Ricardo is a Level 7 Warlock firmly on the side of good. His knowledge is mainly Good spells although he knows a few Neutral ones and a couple of Evil entry-level ones. He can teleport from one part of a lot to another, summon sims to him and send them home when he is finished with them. Also, as is illustrated here, he can conjour food out of thin air. This turned out to be a large cheesecake.

Other useful spells can make your own witch or any other sim around there into a fit or fat person and with the right level and alignment study, a sim can turn any other sim he or she chooses into a witch or warlock. Ricardo isn't quite there yet. Spells can force sims to accept a string of interactions or to reject a string of them. One very nasty spell indeed can erase every friend someone has, resetting every rating to 0/0 and another nasty one can split up relationships.

Firstly, a sim does not have to look like a witch in order to still be a witch. Ricardo likes his robes so he wears them as much as possible. However, he could choose his everyday to be "plain clothes".

However, there may come a day when he decides he no longer wishes to be a witch. Some people have the wish for people they know not to be a witch. That can be done in a manner similar to no longer being a vampire, plantsim or werewolf just with the use of a potion. Chugging back the potion WitchBeGone turns your sim back into just a normal sim. No more flying everywhere, no more ability to summon sims to you. Nevertheless, all of that studying and creating may not be in vain. If your sim decides to become a witch again and still has a good relationship with a high witch, they can become one again, keeping their skill level although their alignment will not be restored.

Although I can only see a handful of my sims becoming witches and warlocks, I really like the new magic system and feel a lot of work has been put in. It is not as convoluted as it was in MM for TS1, nor is it as "in your face". Although there are no spooky rollercoasters, there are magical items that can be crafted and a wide repertoire of spells to be learnt and understood. I am surprised in myself as I actually do like magic this time around.

In the 5th part of this review, it will be a bit of a mixed bag. For a start, we'll see what Ricardo and Phoebe are doing here. Stay tuned.