Difficulty:

Easy

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Ambitious"

The Sims 3 World Adventures is the first Expansion Pack of this iteration of The Sims franchise. It is a good way to start making the base game bigger and better.

It is basically a vacation expansion pack, but unlike previous versions like Vacation and Bon Voyage this one adds adventures, just as the title says. When you arrive at one of three destinations including China, France and Egypt you have the chance to search for an adventure. Talking to people you get some directions and need to complete different missions, just like those in RPG games.

Exploring tombs you get to find ancient treasures which help you complete missions, can be exchanged for money or to decorate your home. It includes some funny and simple puzzles, which is a nice change from the usual The Sims gameplay. It is still the same sandbox game we know and love, but it feels more focused and may I say, more fun.

It is good to have an adventure theme in a game that often was criticized for being a doll house simulator or to casual. Maybe it can bring new fans to this great series. And maybe we'll get other exciting themes in expansion packs in the future like science fiction and fantasy.

One small nitpick is the fact that they didn't allow you to travel between base game cities like Sunset Valley and Riverview. It would be interesting to have, in the future, the chance to travel to meet people in another city, making this start to feel like a real Sims world.

And yes, there is a small loading screen when you travel to other countries, but nothing to bad and once you get there you may visit all its locations at will, with no loading times, even when you enter tombs or stores. That's right, you may enter stores now! They are not rabbit holes.

The Sims Development team decided to focus mostly in the gameplay elements, instead of including silly, boring objects like tables and sofas. They also showed some respect for fans giving for free as an update features of WA for gamers that haven't bought it like the possibility of making basements. It's good to see that they are changing the formula from The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 as it was starting to get annoying to have an Expansion Pack with some gameplay elements, lots of useless objects and after a few EPs it all started to feel like a Frankestein game with lots of stuff that don't work that well together. Here they made the base game with the idea to really add the content of the EPs to the base game. Hopefully it will feel more coherent, be more fun and have more quality than previous games.

This is a really entertaining expansion to the somewhat empty base game. I like that new styles of gameplay are being added and that we have big places to visit. But what is more exciting is to think about what they'll make next as it is usual with the series, the game feels better with a few expansion packs working together as it gives you much more to do.

The Sims 3 World Adventures is definitely as must have for fans, and if you are not one, even so, you should give it a chance. It is among the best EPs like Seasons and Making Magic and we can only wonder what cool things will come next.