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
Read more!
