There are now three different musical instruments - keyboard, double bass, drums - and adding that to the guitar, sims can now form a four-piece band. The promotional graphics made it look like there was a singer with the group, but that was misleading and disappointing. Nevertheless, we can still have a four-piece band that requires a set-up area in order to be able to perform.

In order to form a band, a sim just needs to ask another sim with who they have some form of relationship. They can be friends or even someone your sim has just met. They can even be family. Bonus Brothers anyone? After a while, one of them will be contacted with the day, time and length of a gig. Once the band member who was offered the gig is on his way, the rest of the band follow. At the venue - the first one is invariably Waylon's Haunt, which is a Dive Bar - they get to pick what set to perform. After finishing the gig, the band member has to make sure they get paid by the one who hired them. Strangely, he doesn't go around the band giving them a cut of the takings.

This is Dire Prospects performing their first gig at Waylon's Haunt. Although the guitarist (Nemo Vine) founded the group, it was his bass player (Beefy Black) who got a call booking the gig. Therefore, after their 2 hour session, it will be Beefy who will get paid.

Being in a band can be a full time job, which requires registering as self-employed at City Hall. Progress is rated on earnings from gigs and tips from playing for tips or jamming in public. However, registering this way is optional. In Dire Prospects, Nemo and Koni are officially self-employed in the band, Crash is a self-employed angler and Beefy is self-employed as an artist but also moonlights as a mixologist.

Anyone seen the movie "Cocktail" and wanted to be able to mix cocktails? As long as there is a suitable enough cocktail bar and with the new skill of Mixology, now you can.

This is Beefy Black. You might have seen him just recently in this review as he is the bass player for Dire Prospects. He also spends his time learning the skill of mixology and trying to make money from it on nights when the band does not have a gig. Having got to the 3rd level in mixology skill, he is now allowed to do that and here he is at Waylon's Haunt. He hopes that when he becomes more recognised, he may be able to moonlight at some of the more exclusive bars.

Mixology is a skill to be persevered at as for the first four or five levels, it is more about breaking glasses and tumblers than serving up a decent drink. Even once a sim can make a certain class of drink, they are recommended to keep on trying. Beefy might have served up 23 drinks but 21 of them were diabolically bad. At Level 6, they can start to work on their own drinks and collect ingredients. The high the skill and the better the ingredients are, the more special that the drinks that they can make.

There are many different types of drinks that are already available for those out on a late night to purchase or for those with the Mixology skill to learn how to make. Not every place serves the same drinks. A sim would need to visit dives, sports bars, lounges and dance clubs in order to sample every one.

This illustration shows what is available at one place that Tarquin Tenantino has visited.

Critical Note - I was disappointed to find that it was not a self-employed career, which is odd considering artists and anglers can be self-employed and rise in their career from earning so much from their related skill. I suspect that they may have thought about this but not been able to get far enough with it on time for it to be included as a recognised feature or they may think that the special drinks compensate for not making money? Nobody on the outside can tell.

When "Nightlife" came out for TS2, it also introduced the concept of social groups whereby a sim could organise a group of friends. "Late Night" now does the same for TS3. For example, your sim might want to gather up his workmates to go clubbing or a vampire might want to gather up his clan to go for a night on the town hunting for fresh meat ... or maybes have a few games of shuffleboard.

We already have had table football for a while as a pub game. We now also have shuffleboard and darts as several more pub games to play. I am still awaiting pool, however, which I am quietly confident will make an appearance soon.

As well as things to lighten up pubs, there are plenty of disco lights, "lasers" and the return of the famous bubble blower to brighten up the clubs and make them something special. I thought that the lighting in The Sims 2 was good but the effects from these new lights is really good, especially the addition of "Black Light" as lighting options.

Hot tubs have made a return and they look very stylish. They have subdued lighting which can be changed by the sim using them, they can go skinny dipping in them - although they are prevented from doing so if children are around - and they have another place (at last) to woo-hoo.

Elevators have also returned, which are essential for high-rise apartment blocks. They are also another place to woo-hoo. For some sims, however, they can be a bit of a trap, not just by plummeting but also trapping them in the doors as they try to get out.

Another returning NPC is the Butler. This NPC made his first appearance in The Sims: Superstar and his first return in The Sims 2: Apartment Life. As well as paying him a daily fee of §500, the employer needs to find him his own bed to sleep in. He attends to all other staff around the house, cooks, cleans, handles repairs and deals with burglars. He can also dispense advice as we can see here. I don't know if he see to the bills being paid, though, but my vampire couple finds him good to feed from.

As has happened so far with the previous expansions, there are new character traits, wishes, different moodlet effects and additional lifetime rewards, the majority of which revolve around the new game content. There is now the ability for sims to choose exactly which lifetime reward they want instead of having to juggle their traits around towards the one they want.

New Wishes include meeting or even befriending a vampire, becoming a celebrity or for a sim to increase their own celebrity level. A sim can wish to visit a hot spot or two ... or five. They can also wish to have a drink, eat bar food, bribe a bouncer at a swanky nightclub or at the other level, they might want to become involved in a brawl in a dive bar. They might even want to go skinnydipping.

New Moodlets include enjoying greasy food from the Food Truck, getting a buzz from having snuck into a nightclub, getting the "stride of pride" from having had woohoo away from home and even being star struck from having seen a famous celebrity. Celebrities themselves get positive moodlets from being recognised. Less positive ones include feeling out of sorts, being hunted by an unfriendly vampire and the result of being mugged in the subway. Buskers beware.

New Lifetime Rewards include being a hustler, which means the sim has a knack of being good at bar games. Watering Hole regulars get a discount for all drinks and pub food. The Next Big Thing applies to band members and gives them extra income and recognition for each gig. Better Mixologists are just that. A Master of Seduction never has any of his romantic advances rejected, which I am sure is a lifetime reward that any sim wanting to emulate Glenn Quagmire would want to have. Giggity-giggity-giggity!