Weather is a fantastic conversation starter - or a good topic to make a conversation last. Meeting up with a potential girlfriend or boyfriend? Talk about the weather. We all feel it, we all have an opinion on it and we're mostly always disappointed with it - and bonding over a mutual hatred could spell good things for the future, possibly a good foundation for a new relationship. Of course, this real life tactic applies to the new Sims 2 expansion pack too. The Sims 2: Seasons brings weather to the neighbourhood and spring going on summer is definitely the time to score some well deserved booty.

Our editor Geoff Holland doesn't miss a trick when it comes to scoring - not only has he got a platinum tongue for chatting up those ladies, a tongue that reflects in his reviews I might add, but he knows the weather. If they've forecast snow, it's the perfect time to have a cup of coffee with an old flame and to exchange gifts to keep spirits up, if they've forecast showers then it's a perfect time to go singing in the rain and if we're in the season of summer then nothing can beat sitting on a swinging bench, chatting into the long summer nights, watching the pretty little fireflies dance the streets alight while he grabs the opportunity by the horns and seizes the night in the way of a romantic kiss. If romance is dead however, who could argue with some magnificent fishing in autumn. Go to the lake with your male friends and see who has caught the biggest cod!

Welcome to another one of my Sims 2 expansion pack reviews. If you don't already know, my stories involve three of the AceGamez crew - our editor Geoff, Christopher Martin, the US reviewer who was my long haired idol until he went to get it cut last week, and myself, who now has long hair - and writes these Sim story reviews. I'm the one you won't see for a while in this tale, the one with a rainbow coloured jacket and semi long hair. Geoff comes complete in a green top in summer, but watch how he goes all jumper and scarf on us when the snow falls - and Chris, well, he comes as laidback as you like with a retro gaming top and a pair of sandals. And some trousers, hopefully. His hair is also just as long as it's ever been - we didn't get chance to take him to the hairdressers in Open For Business, and I'm glad about that!

So there's Geoff, exploiting the seasons, harnessing the power of spring, summer, autumn and winter to score brownie points with those senoritas. Who could blame him? We're in summer at the moment, a season that brings high temperatures and the occasional shower. You have to make sure your Sim is cool enough (or warm enough in winter) to survive these testing times, so both Geoff and Chris were in T-shirts, while I was somewhere else, doing other things that you aren't going to find out about just yet. Christopher felt sorry for Woodman with his thick Collie coat, the only pet we kept of the four we adopted in the Pets expansion - the other three Geoff gave away with the 'propose to give pet' option to a girl he'd recently impressed. Safe to say, Geoff did a runner once he'd dumped three of our most useless pets on a poor lass who almost felt obliged to take them off his hands!

In our new cosy cottage, Chris has just made a discovery. At the bottom of the garden sits a wishing well. A well, you could, well, make wishes into. Although Geoff had enjoyed many successes by using the seasons to his pulling advantages, he didn't really get any relationships worth settling into - just the odd fling, lasting as long as the seasons themselves, relationships as fickle as the Great British weather back home. One minute it's hot, the next it's cold. So, as sceptical as Geoff was feeling at this moment in time, he got a pound out of his back pocket and said, "If Dexter was making a wish, he'd only throw in a penny - tight bast…" Woodman's timing was impeccable, barking to interrupt Geoff's remark on his sensibly frugal and unfairly maligned companion. "I wish for a relationship that will outlast this season. For a partner I can enjoy all year round."

The heavens opened, and from the sky dropped a young lady who Geoff had never seen before. Cassandra she was called - and she and Geoff instantly clicked. He got her number and now, maybe in the not too distant future, Geoff has an iron in the fire that might last longer than those long summer nights - no doubt he'll be taking her downtown for some Nightlife later on, but that's another tale for another time.

The Sims 2: Seasons is a laidback expansion pack. It doesn't add any extra tasks as such - its aim isn't to get a pet and breed them or to take your teens through university - it's not external. Instead, it beautifully integrates with The Sims 2 without going downtown to enjoy some of its nicest features. You can fish at home in any body of water, you can build a garden and sow seeds, then water them, grow food and be all organic in the kitchen, eating your fresh produce, or even saving leftovers for later to save both the environment and the money in your bank. There are a lot of fun things for your Sims to do outside and changing into clothes to reflect the current season gives your Sim a new look all year round. In summer building a ladybug house to attract those pretty little insects is something of a striking activity and even cruelly catching fireflies in jars is really fun to watch.

While Geoff was getting to know Cassandra some more and Chris was loafing around outside enjoying the smell of freshly cut grass, I was trying to formulate a plan. Newly bought with my aspiration points from completing seasonal goals by steering clear from seasonal fears and achieving those seasonal wants, I had secretly installed a weather machine around the back. I even - to make my weather changing antics seem more sinister than they already were - bought voodoo masks to put on the wall near my weather machine! Powering up the machine, I pressed a few buttons, hoping to change the season from summer to winter. Although summer was good for a lot of things, winter brought snow and indoor activities - and more importantly, Halo 3; I doubted that the weather machine could advance time but it was still worth a shot! With a pull of the lever, I realised I just made the biggest mistake of my Sim life. Meteors stuck the earth as if to make fun of the mistake I just made - I was operating the weather machine while not in a gold aspiration mood and that normally spells bad news for objects bought with aspiration points.

I screamed as a fiery ball from the sky set the ground alight and I found myself in the middle of a fire. Geoff heard me scream but he was too busy with Cassandra to come to my rescue [Hey, come on now, I wouldn't let you burn to death because of a woman! Okay, okay, so you might get a little singed… Ed]., but Chris and Woodman came right to the heat of my dilemma - pun intended - however, instead of extinguishing the fire, Chris joined in with the screaming in panic mode, not really knowing what to do. I was still trapped in the middle of the fire and it didn't take long before my pants set on fire, and those flames licked my beautiful rainbow jacket. Soon I was on fire with nobody to put me out. I couldn't drop and roll, as the entire ground was on fire now, with Chris and Woodman standing at the edge of the flames, telling me to run.

And I ran.

Ran to the light.

Elvis? Is that you?

I regret to inform you that the Sim version of Dexter was burnt alive thanks to the weather machine and this review will be continued by none other than the family pet, me, Woodman, that undiscovered, multi-talented, telepathic dog. Poor Dex only wanted some cool, crisp snow, but instead he got burning hot fire - and a crispy pile of ashes. Geoff pleaded with Death - "I know he was Northern, but please, return him to us." However, Death simply argued "If he wouldn't have bought the weather machine with free aspiration coupons then he might have got a better model, one that actually altered the climate and not one that causes a mini-apocalypse. Have you any idea how much work he has caused me? NO DEAL!"

The Sims 2 Seasons may well be a laidback expansion pack, but it's the one that can land you into the most trouble. As well as getting burnt alive from the weather machine, getting too hot and flustered in summer or dangerously cold in winter you can join a gardening club too. While this is all well and good, I wouldn't want to get caught by those garden snobs with withered petals on my prize roses that I soiled and fertilised last week - they'd laugh about me at the next garden meeting, if such a meeting existed. If it did, Chris never got an invite. Granted, his garden was small but he loved growing fresh flowers and food - it was a hobby that both stimulated and entertained him. Dexter's gravestone would go in the middle of Christopher's valued miniature garden and I'd visit it on occasion. Lift my right leg up. And urinate all over it. What? I'm a dog! Give me a break! [Bad Woodman, have some respect for the dead Woodman! Ed].

Winter came, a season that Dexter would be truly remembered for. This is all he wanted and now Dexter's grave lay in Christopher's garden, in and amongst shrubs, trees and two grown men crying. "And the worst part is that the tight Muppet didn't write us into his will," Geoff said, while cursing the skies for his loss. But Christopher had a plan. He'd been busy - busy tapping into the roots of The Sims 2, he backtracked and started a career as a paranormal mystic. Climbing up the ranks, working from summer right through to winter, promotion after promotion gave our Chris a paranormal career reward that would get Dexter back for good. A telephone with one number on speed dial: 0800-DEATH-4-U.

Geoff didn't want Chris to phone Death. He'd watched too much Buffy the Vampire Slayer. "They never come back from the dead quite right. He might come with memory loss, he might not know who we are - he might even have creepy vertical eyelids or a tail! Let sleeping Dexters lie Chris, let sleeping Dexters lie." It's funny really, because I was downstairs, starving as I barked at the fridge. Dexter was the only one who fed me, y'see. But Christopher persisted. "I've just spent four months lying to people about their loved ones contacting them through me - all to get this Death Telephone. Hell, this telephone didn't even come in this expansion pack! We should be enjoying the weather effects, not delving into old content to get Dexter back!"

And Chris was right. Seasons is about enjoying the season and the weather effects, which I have to say, look really nice. I love it when winter comes around and it snows constantly, starting off with small sprinklings on the ground, and, as the days go on, the snow gets thicker and thicker until it's ripe for making snow angels and snowmen - and even having snowball fights, although I swear if that Cassandra throws another snowball at me and thinks it's cute as I cower behind Dexter's gravestone for cover then I'm going to lay a steamer in one of her shoes! All of the other seasons look equally as beautiful - autumn when the leaves fall, summer when the sun shines and the fireflies come out to play, and spring when the flowers blossom and the warm showers sink in. It sounds real too, as I lie outside in my kennel and the rain is drumming on my roof!

Anyway, Chris rang Death, who asked Chris how much he would be willing to pay to get Dexter back. "Well, what's the maximum amount you've ever been paid?" Chris probed. "Ten-thousand simoleans" bellowed Death - which was a lot of money, one could buy a miniature ice rink with that, a new item that comes with The Seasons expansion. "But at least I brought him back to life with all his bits intact, if you know what I'm saying." Chris probed some more. "And what's the lowest amount you'll accept?" - "One-thousand simoleans!" chuckled the immortal being on the other end of the blower. "Well, we'll go with the one-thousand simoleans option; it's what Dex would have wanted. He's not one for spending money, y'know?" Death hung up.

The sky darkened and no sooner had Chris hung up the phone than Dexter was returned to Chris on the balcony. But there was something a little different about Dexter. Apart from walking right past me, his favourite dog, muttering "BRAINS!" and not stopping to feed me despite my desperate attempt at barking excessively at the fridge, something seemed a little different. Only after biting Dexter to find that I'd just severed off a new dog tog in the form of a limb, did it dawn on me that our Sims storyteller had been returned to us, from Death, as a ZOMBIE!

But as if this zombified Dex had successfully changed the weather to make it snow as originally planned, he limped right outside and built a snowman in his own hellish perception, with the Devil's own pitch fork and Death's own fiery party hat. Geoff was doing the old "I told you so" routine with Chris - needless to say that neither of Dexter's co-writers were happy that a zombie would be living with them for the foreseeable future, a being that prefers brains to organic vegi-burgers and blood to tomato juice. [I know, I'm a veritable feast for zombiekind! Boast-Ed].

But after the arguing had died down and the snow had stopped falling, Dexter was hiding another secret - and this one was behind his back. He was about to have some fun for the first time in this expansion. And Chris was about to receive a rather icy ball in his face. This would no doubt cause a snowball fight and Cassandra would pop out from nowhere and throw a snowball at me - only this time, I'd have no gravestone to hide behind, as Dexter is alive again, at least to some extent. Even though The Seasons isn't an expansion pack that adds a great deal in the way of compulsory objectives and items, it does give your Sims a new purpose to stay at home. Its weather effects are welcome and it's always nice to see your Sims' aspiration wants longing for seasonal activities. Fishing, kissing, catching fireflies at night, building snowmen, wishing down the well and socialising around a campfire singing songs when the sun is setting is the back to basics gameplay that we were after this time around. It's nice to go out, it's nice to get pets, it's nice to have a business, but it's also nice to talk about the weather.

And The Sims 2: Seasons lets you do just that!

Now what does it take to get some dog food around here?

Reviewed by Dexter Pearson & Woodman for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).