World Adventures - Bon Voyage it Ain't (Review)

I've spent every free moment of the last five days with my butt planted in my not particularly comfortable desk chair playing World Adventures, and since I've had the past five days off, that's a lot of time. I usually let this site speak for itself and let you decide if you want to play TS3 or not, but in this I think EA has misrepresented the game and don't want anyone who's merely looking for a place to take Sims on vacation to waste their money. I didn't have Vacation for Sims1 but I can tell you, Bon Voyage this ain't.

What this game is, in my opinion, is EA's version of Broken Sword. If you've ever played that series of adventure games, you understand what I mean. Don't get me wrong, I love this game. But, and I really do mean but, I've spent more money over the years on Adventure Company and other adventure/action adventure games than I've ever spent on The Sims (I have all EP's and SP's). Have you ever played Riddle of the Sphinx? I won't rule out Tomb Raider, either. Areas of this game, especially in Egypt, are riddled with very Tomb Raider-type puzzles. No, you don't have to kill big friggen' spiders or do back flips at the same time you're unloading a shotgun into a dinosaur that thinks you'll make a good snack, and you don't have to take out the major corp's goons; but you do have to break into the major corp's headquarters and steal something and hack into a computer. Seriously.

Also, not everything you need is in one country. You have to travel from country to country to get different things.

Now for the traps. I've been caught in more than one trap along the way. If you can't disarm them, sometimes they're not essential to completing your adventure, then you're not going to get past them. All you need is the same skill that fixes toilets; but like repairing TV's and computers, the traps are dependent on how high your skill is. Now are the traps easy to find? Early on, yes, later they become very difficult. When the floor tile is the same whether a trap is present or not, then you have to do a ton of pixel hunting, as it's known in the adventure game world. You literally have to slowly run your pointer over the area to get the cursor shape that indicates a trap is there. Traps are also in the wall, which I found out by getting poor Galen steamed a couple of times. :/

Early on it's easy to find a hidden door in the wall; but as time goes on, once again unless you do a ton of pixel hunting, they blend in.

Now to the adventures. You go to the board at your base camp (which I'll further explain later) and check for adventures. Pick one, I've been going in order that seems to be best, and get started on building those visa points. Eventually, one adventure will lead to another without the need to revisit the board, and sometimes you'll just get a phone call offering them. You can only do one adventure at a time while you're in a country. If for some reason you can't or don't want to complete it, you can cancel it by right mouse clicking in your control panel where the adventure is located. Oh, and I actually had one adventure spill over into my base game neighborhood.

So, you really don't want to go through all this adventure crap and just want to take the family on vacation and have a good time. Unfortunately, that's not what this game is about. Yes, you can take them on vacation, but unless you complete the adventures, your stay is very short. You can only stay at the base camp and besides wandering the country and picking things up off the ground, there's frankly not much to do. Sure, you can buy cameras and photography books in Egypt and run around the three countries taking pictures and putting together picture collections. In France you can buy a nectar making machine and although I haven't done it, I would assume you can start growing all sorts of plants and trees to make different kinds of nectar. Once again, you can wander around picking up and collecting things. In China everyone can learn martial arts and meditation and buy a fortune cookie machine. In all countries you can buy skill books that match the country. Egypt, photography; France, nectar making; China, martial arts.

So where do you stay and how long can you stay? Well, if all you want to do is go on vacation and not try to get yourself fried, electrocuted, speared or steamed by the traps or if doing adventure game puzzles and pushing statues around leaves you with glazed-over eyes, your choices are very limited. You can only stay three days, unless you choose a Lifetime Reward to extend your stay, then I believe you get to stay six days. Where do you stay? Well, once again if you don't do the adventures and gain visa points, you stay free at the base camp. Which is a campground in Egypt, a rather nice hostel-type place with a few individual rooms and bathrooms in France, and a nice place in China that has one private room with bath, the rest are all community rooms and baths. That's it, you have no other choice, you don't get to pick where you stay.

If, however, you do choose to be an adventurer, once you gain three visa points in the country you're in; and believe me that's time-consuming and in China I did more fetch quests than I care to do in one game, you can actually purchase a vacation home. Because I now have everything in China available to me, I think Galen can stay 18 days. I'm not positive about that, however.

Oh visa points, with 1 or less visa points, it's 3 days stay total, with 2 visa points, it's around 11 days, and with 3 it's around 18. Visa points are gained by completing adventures. Until you reach three visa points, you have no choice where to stay, either.

I don't know for a fact, but I don't really think there's much for kids to do. Also, anyone slightly showing pregnancy can't go; babies and toddlers can't go.

I will be putting together Galen's Travel Blog for here. I won't be giving away any of the puzzles, but I do hope to put together something that's at least more entertaining than a review.

Lastly, as usual the game has bugs. I ran into one where the special merchant in China was no longer able to sell his special items. I used the resetsim cheat on him and he was fixed. I understand merchants will disappear and there's a long drawn-out fix for that. There are others. If you've never been able to play with the full shaders option on, in the past that just made for funky-looking grass. However, EA mucked something up, and now pools are black and the Sim disappears into it. And for even more fun, they just pop up on the side when you tell them to get out. Oh, and pool ladders disappear as well. This isn't noticed when you're able to play with the shaders option checked.

Prior to WA and at first with WA, I was able to play with the shaders option enabled; but as I played the countries, movement became so painfully slow the more I accomplished, I had to turn that option off. :( Also, the more you do in all the countries the slower your load time becomes. I noticed the last time I was in China with three visa points, a vacation home and a ton of friends it took more than five minutes for the country to load!

Oh speaking of friends, a lot of completing your quests depends on making friends. :/ They took that out of the base game and job advancement, but they put it back. Using another Lifetime Reward that makes your Sim more appealing helps; but really, it can get to be tedious making friends to get through the quests, especially if you only have a few days in a particular country. And when your time is up, it doesn't matter where the hell you are or what you're doing, you're whisked away to your home neighborhood, and there you have to stay for a couple of days before you can travel again.

In closing, if you love puzzle games (although what I've seen so far, it falls into the easy category), if you love pixel hunting and if you love pushing statues around, this game is for you. If you're as nuts about adventure games as I am, if you thought the hours you spent playing Broken Sword The Sleeping Dragon and The Angel of Death were pleasurable, then this game is for you. If you just want to take your Sims on vacation, you might want to put your $40 US back in your pocket and wait for the next expansion.

I understand that with the way updates are now, even if you don't get the EP you'll still get the basement tool and the roofs and other building goodies. You don't have to buy the EP for the fun stuff any more, just update the game when EA makes them available.

My 2 cents worth.

Take care,
Lachesis
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Sims 3 and the Mac - Patch Available

Edit: November 25, 2009. Mac users, update available. Check your Launchers. Hopefully this fixes the problems listed below. :)

It's enough to burn your butt. :(

When I put Leta up for download, my husband and I became aware of an ongoing problem with TS3 on the Mac and EA's seeming inability to fix it. After my husband spent the most of the day yesterday reading Mac/Sims forums, I asked him to do the following write up for me. It doesn't have any magic answers, but I wanted to pass it on because I think it's necessary to get the word out to Mac users who don't normally frequent the forums.

Please note: I play the Sims on a PC and my husband, although he does use a Mac, has a Mac incapable of playing the game and he has never played it. So we don't have anyway of checking this problem out firsthand. :)

***
Sims 3 for Mac is afflicted with a number of issues related to the Launcher and its ability to update the game and the installation of downloaded content. The two issues seem to be related.

The updater issue is that it, the updater, is telling the player the game is up-to-date and there are no new updates. This is affecting the installation of the 1.5/1.6/1.7 update for the base game and the 2.2 update for the World Adventures expansion pack.

The installer issue is apparently related to the above in that when a user downloads content from the Exchange or 3rd party sites, the installer tells them the game needs to be updated, but there are no updates available as it also thinks the game is up-to-date and will not install the downloaded content.

If a player installs the World Adventures expansion pack from DVD, it will, apparently, update the base game (from the DVD) as well as install itself and be playable, but the updater/installer issue will still persist.

If a player has the downloaded version of the World Adventures expansion pack it will not install as it doesn't contain the updates that are included on the DVD version necessary for installation.

EA says that a resolution to some/all of these issues is forthcoming.

Here are a couple of links to discussions pertaining to this on the Sims 3 Community Forums:

The Sims 3 Community Forums - ggrrrrr - sim exchange downloads won't work

The Sims 3 Community Forums - 1.5/1.6 patch for mac - available?

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Leta Sim

Get Leta here. This is the one that was in my bin, so it's the first one I made, the only change is she just has long hair, not that this pulled back version.

Thank you Michelle for letting me know the link didn't work. I've tried a couple of things, and now I've got it working on IE as well as Firefox. :)

To give her the proper skin use this one at Club Crimsyn located under Default Replacements. Everything else is EA base game.

Thank you everyone who's interested in her. :)

Lachesis
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Yuri's Journal - Egyptian Vacation

(Some of the pictures were taken with walls down to show the most of the area Yuri is in at any given moment, so the full effect of the tomb is somewhat lost. Also, this solves the puzzles of the tomb behind the base camp, so if you're not interested in the spoiler, you might want to skip it. :) Frankly, the simplicity of the area is such that I'm sure even my pictures can't spoil it. -Lachesis)

Yuri's Vacation Journal

I had a wish to take the family on vacation. As lead guitarist I get quite a few days off, so off we went to Egypt.

After landing at the base camp, we took off directly for the market place to see what we could see and buy supplies in case we needed them.

For whatever reason, Aiden spent the entire time in the pool. I had no idea he was that fond of swimming, I guess we need to put the pool in the backyard I'd been thinking of when we had the house built. Leta bought a cookbook and then proceeded to stick her nose in every book she could find at the market.

Me, I decided to look around.

I stumbled on a stone shaped like a key and then found this stone in the wall the key-shaped stone would fit. When I hefted the thing up to the stone on the wall and pushed it in, I was covered by a blue light pulsating from it.

The chain on the door next to me disappeared, and in I went only to find a really cool treasure.

Once I took the treasure and found my way back up, it was getting late, so off we went back to the base camp where Leta and I shared a tent and Aiden had his own.

The next day I was dying to explore the tomb behind the base camp, so the three of us went in, but when I reached the bottom of the steps the door above me closed and locked me down there by myself. The skeleton in the pile of sand in the corner did nothing to make me feel better, mind you.

There was nothing to do but press forward in hopes of finding a way out. I moved through the only opening in sight only to find another locked door, a chest and another of those stones in the wall, this time shaped like a crescent moon. I found the keystone in the chest and put it in the stone on the wall; the door opened.

There was nowhere to go it was just a room, but I stepped on the square with the footprints and discovered it was a floor switch which opened a stairway.

Oh good, another skeleton; but also another floor switch. You know, now that I think of it, I should have taken a better look at that skeleton, maybe he had something cool on him. Dang, well, if we ever go back...

This time it opened the door in front of me and onward I went. Another floor switch, but this one didn't stay down when I stepped on it, so I needed something else. Oh good, the statue moves, so by pulling and pushing I was able to get it in place.

Through the door I found another room. This time another no step on switch and three statues. I had to find the one that moved. Once I shoved it in place, a step on switch appeared in the floor behind me.

This led me to an empty room except for another chest. I opened it and stairs appeared behind me. Finally, I'm hoping for a way out; but first, is that a secret panel in the wall? Just out of curiosity, I push on it.

It is, and other chest. This one was filled with an ancient relic.

I took the stairs, stepped on the pressure plate and out I went, the door back to my family had finally opened back up. Hours had passed, and they were starved, tired and worried.

Hey, look who I saw in the men's john.

So that was my great adventure. We did other things during our three days, but for the most part, they were just wandering around getting a feel for the place. Someday, we may go back and stay longer, but really, I think Leta and Aiden were bored since they spent most of their time reading.

Oh, and be sure to dress appropriately for where you're going before you leave home, because we couldn't find anywhere to change out of our hot clothes. Leta seemed to be the only one who came close to having the proper clothing.
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Misc. In-Game Pictures

It's been ages since I've done anything here, and I'm afraid this isn't Sireta's Blog. I play a family in the Riverview neighborhood. It's play only and I created the female who fell in love with a townie. These are some pictures I took and want to share just to show some in-game events. Above is the clown fish Yuri caught and put in the fish bowl. Yeah, I know, that's just a bit too...

If you're interested in more read on.

Since I only play this to kill time when my RL has gotten to be too much, the walls are down and the pictures aren't fancy. This was my first stove fire since I started playing TS3.

The fire truck is now this pickup - guess it's a volunteer fire department now. Yes, she did just stand there on the sidewalk before she finally decided she might want to do something about the fire, and it took so long for her to get there, Yuri started extinguishing the fire without her. :/

Once she finally made her way into the house she made a half-hearted attempt at extinguishing the fire, but eventually gave up and stepped back, letting the bugger burn.

I couldn't let his house burn down, so I told Yuri to extinguish it, and low and behold, she just stood there till he was done and then walked out telling him to be more careful. What?

The smoldering remains, but at least his house was safe. :/ And the cool part, click on the stove and it will ask if you want to replace it for the cost of a new one. Replace it and you get exactly the same stove that burnt back.

This is Leta - my created Sim. I'm learning how to make them, and she's actually quite cute. Babies now come wrapped in either pink or blue blankets and stay that way. No more grungy diapers.

Grown up to toddler stage, Yuri is teaching him to walk. The toddler steps are a bit unstable as you can see. Oh, and for an EA townie, Yuri is quite nice looking. I've done nothing to change him except using the default skin replacements.

Lastly, I kept Yuri on the course EA set for him except he divorced his first wife who now shows up in his relationship panel as his ex-wife. His children from her show up in Leta's panel as step-son/step-daughter. He's just playing in the park here, but you can have him play for tips and he opens his guitar case and they throw money in. Recently he got as around 4 or 500 simoleons. doing that. :)

I do have more Sireta's blog both pictures and written. As soon as I get things a bit stabilized on my other stories, I hope to tackle that. I just wanted to let you know I haven't abandoned either this blog or TS3. It's a good possibility that you'll see more of the same here in the near future. :D
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Sireta's Blog - Part 6

Sunday (Week 5)

Poor Tris, Sunday is the only day we get off together and the poor guy wound up having to repair the shower and mop the floor before he could even shower himself.

I also reminded him of the toilet downstairs that had been clogged for a week. So much for moving into a new home and getting away from the plumbing problems.

By the time he was able to get leftover apple pancakes, I’d already eaten. The poor guy couldn’t get a break; his phone started ringing before he could even eat. He wound up tell Marty he couldn’t talk

I got my first royalty check today, 50.

We just do not get enough time together, today is for us. Just us.

I checked to see if anything was showing at the theater, but the next showing is Monday at 5:00 – we won’t be able to attend that, so Tris suggested we go to Hogan’s for a bite of dinner.

That’s our Prius that Tris got from the inheritance. It’s black; can’t you tell it’s his? We had a wonderful day together, and it ended on the perfect note.

Monday

Tris is the last of his family; he so wants to the name to go on through the generations, so we went to City Hall and changed the family name to Verur. While there, Tris took a Charisma class.

Tris found a copy of Elves of Dagon in the mailbox.

What a great day. I got a promotion to Anonymous Source Handler and a great bonus.

I went to the park after work to read and saw Tris jogging around the park.

I also saw Agnes Crumplebottom. I’m still trying for that interview. I presume the child, Colette is her daughter.

I started my interview, but she called that boring so I apologized and we chatted and gossiped some more before I took off for another painting lesson. Damn, I took too long getting away from Agnes; the school was closed when I got there.

Oh well, I found an unknown seed in the park. I’m going to go home, grab a bite and then check out the gardening book Tris bought for me.

Tris is the sweetest man, he always compliments the way I look, then he told me he’s been promoted to Rookie.

Tris ordered a pizza. He may be health conscious, but he does love a greasy pizza. Now I’m going to find cold pizza in the fridge for days.

Tuesday

Nowhere near as good a day today. I came home and found the hired maid standing outside the house. No wonder the bed is never made and the house is a mess. On top of that, the woman is a kleptomaniac. I sure hope there’s nothing missing, but then, she never goes inside. I fired her and she insulted me!

I finally found an article I can write. I’ll review the movie at the local theater. But no pictures for the article Wilsonoff Community Theater is also a stickler for not using cameras.

After the movie, I stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items for some recipes and found a tomato seed on the sidewalk outside the store, so I just picked it up off the ground and took it home with me.

Wednesday

Went Tris’ game at 3:00 today, unfortunately, I took a nap before I left and got there a little late. I’ll write a review on this, Tris’ team won 11-6. I’m so proud of that man.

Thursday

Tris’ boss, Marty, wants the speakers on his stereo fixed. So Tris is using his one day off to fix the man’s stereo. It will bring in a little extra money, which we can use since the house and furnishings are so expensive.

We have a new maid the service sent over. Tris said he seems to be doing his job.

I’ve been promoted to Investigative Reporter making 137/hour.

Tris told me Marty paid him 600 and he and his wife were both very nice.
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