Mini-review: Two Sims 3 expansions
"Ambitions" is a clever, well-done expansion to Sims 3. It provides opportunities to pursue careers that don't involve going to a black-box workplace every day. One of my characters is an inventor (aka mad scientist) who spends his days in the garage creating widgets, trying to invent new things, and blowing things up, in between visits to the junkyard to replenish his raw materials. His girlfriend (a premade sim from the game) is a journalist who goes to work, but also interviews people and writes stories from her home computer. The male "maid" is a kleptomaniac and I had to fire him.
"Late Night," on the other hand, is rather poorly conceived and buggy. It's supposed to represent city life, unlike the suburban life of the basic game. Being close to things is supposed to be one of the benefits of city life, but in the new city of Bridgeport (who thought of Bridgeport as a city teeming with night life??), it takes forever to get anywhere. And the expansion has vampires, which just don't fit into the game concept! They aren't the first fantasy element to appear in The Sims, but they're the most intrusive; ghosts have always been in the game, but unless you visit graveyards they generally don't bother you. I guess everything has to have vampires these days. There are obvious bugs; I can't make the Opportunity of delivering a meal to another family work (it claims the meal isn't in my inventory when it is), and I've seen sale announcements in which the name of the store is blank. ("Everything is 35% off at !")
"Late Night," on the other hand, is rather poorly conceived and buggy. It's supposed to represent city life, unlike the suburban life of the basic game. Being close to things is supposed to be one of the benefits of city life, but in the new city of Bridgeport (who thought of Bridgeport as a city teeming with night life??), it takes forever to get anywhere. And the expansion has vampires, which just don't fit into the game concept! They aren't the first fantasy element to appear in The Sims, but they're the most intrusive; ghosts have always been in the game, but unless you visit graveyards they generally don't bother you. I guess everything has to have vampires these days. There are obvious bugs; I can't make the Opportunity of delivering a meal to another family work (it claims the meal isn't in my inventory when it is), and I've seen sale announcements in which the name of the store is blank. ("Everything is 35% off at !")