I'm a huge fans of The Sims. I played the original from the very beginning (with all the expansions too), beta tested The Sims Online, and I played The Sims 2. Needless to say, I was excited when The Sims 3 was announced. I bought it right away, and even ditched my World of Warcraft raiding schedule to play it more often.

When Electronic Arts announced The Sims 3: World Adventures expansion, I was intrigued. The social network marketing machine went into full swing, and my Facebook account was bombarded with screen shots, videos, and updates. They had me hooked. I wanted to play it. The only problem was that the price tag was a pretty big slap in the face. I went home hoping that it was going to be worth it.

What Got Added to the Game:

The Sims 3: World Adventures added three new countries for sims to visit: China, Egypt, and France. Each one has multiple locations, catacombs/tombs, merchants, a “base camp”, and homes. I spent a lot of time exploring the little nooks and crannies of the various areas (which are stunning), and loved going into the tombs. Each one has secret areas, little puzzles to solve, and elicits some great emotional responses from the sims.

Some new furniture items, patterns, hair styles, make-up, outfits, skills, recipes, and other various elements were added. I loved the additional items (I love new furniture!), but was disappointed in the lack of new hairstyles and outfits. I just expected there to be a lot more included, given that the expansion was almost as expensive as the original game itself.

I did appreciate the new skills and traits added to the game. I quickly created a sim to explore the new Kung Fu skill. I took the sim to China, had them learn and practice it, bought some training equipment for home, and soon found my sim with an orange belt. I especially loved the facial expressions the sim made, and their fluid movements.

I also tested out the new photography element to the game, which I found to be pretty entertaining. I took my sim to China and took a bunch of photos in the tombs and around the base camp. I can't wait to see what happens when I max it out.

One of the single best additions to the game was a basement option. Fans had been trying to create workarounds ever since the game came out, but having an official basement is awesome. It adds so much additional space to houses! I spent hours adding basements to houses and then decorating them. This was something fans clearly wanted, that EA finally delivered (now where are our hot tubs, EA?!)

Overall Game Play:

The basic mechanics of the game didn't really change much after the expansion. If you know how to play The Sims 3, you'd have no trouble playing the expansion.

But what did change was the load time for the game. I have a decent gaming machine, one I had built originally for World of Warcraft, but also for The Sims 3. The expansion doubled the load time for the game. It's especially frustrating when taking a sim to one of three countries. It just sits there and sits there at the load screen. I really wish they had worked to reduce these load times.

Overall Look of the Game:

I must admit, the new expansion is visually stunning, particularly the China area. I found myself taking my sims back there time and again, just because it was so pretty. Not that the other countries aren't impressive, but China in particular really stood out.

The new items also added a great deal to the look of the every day sim homes. I felt inspired to create and decorate. Between new furniture elements, new construction items, new roof options, and new patterns, I was able to create some truly gorgeous abodes for my little sims.

Criticisms and Complaints:

While I have been enjoying the game, I do have some criticism I want to mention.

The first issue is that price tag. $45 is just way too much in my opinion (it could cost less depending on purchase location). If EA wanted to charge that much, I would have wanted a lot more in the way of furniture, outfits, patterns, and hair styles. I guess they tried to make up for that by giving a $10 credit for The Sims 3 website store with purchase of the expansion. But that's only 1,000 points, which typically only buys you one full furniture set. That's not a whole heck of a lot.

I found myself a bit frustrated with two elements from the actual countries. First, transportation: too much time on foot, not enough time on a bike/scooter. It takes so long to get from location to location. I played so much of the game on the highest speed setting, just to get through the travel. I wanted more of the paths to be ridden, and not walked. I understand the need to make parts of the vacation use up time (you have to earn more time via visa points), but I think that concept was taken too far.

Second: placing that darn tent. When you go abroad in The Sims 3: World Adventures, you can buy a tent to spend the night in. With items in the game, if you accidentally try to place something, you can hit the delete key on your keyboard and clear it. You can't do that with the tent. Heaven help you if you try to place it somewhere without a single valid location. I tried everything I could to clear it from my cursor. I don't even remember how I solved it, but it was almost a 10 minute ordeal. It seems like a bug, and really should be fixed.

Concluding Thoughts:

The Sims 3: World Adventures is a lot of fun. I like it. I've spent many hours playing it. I'm intrigued by the tombs. I want to experience the new skills fully. I was inspired to design and decorate.

That being said, I was really glad a I had a gift card to cover half the cost. That price tag is just too hefty for me. Even after playing it and having fun with it, I still could never justify paying full price.

Any time an expansion cost almost as much as the original game, the developers had better be providing just as much content as the original, and World Adventures didn't do that. No matter how much fun it is, it just isn't $45 worth of fun. I'm a big fan of this game franchise, but I feel a bit taken advantage of here.
 

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