Returns with yet another expansion pack for their long-running Sims franchise, the fifth for The Sims 3. From the title alone, it probably goes without saying that focuses on animals you can adopt to wander around your home.For the first time in the entire franchise, the idea of Pets made me a little wary. This is the third time EA (or Maxis) had a similar idea for the franchise, after releasing The Sims: Unleashed and The Sims 2: Pets years ago. Luckily, EA has added enough that the concept still feels fresh, and it makes for a worthy addition to The Sims 3.The pets in Pets are basically into two types: low-maintenance pets that you only need to worry about feeding, such as snakes and lizards; and high-maintenance pets that can be trained for tasks. Traditionally, high-maintenance pets were limited to dogs and cats, but EA has added horses to the mix this time.One of my favorite features of the game is actually the removal of a Sims 2-era feature.
Back then, cats and dogs could actually get jobs, and would hop in a carpool on their own to help the family pad its bank account. Even for a game where a werewolf publically making out with a human-plant clone was an everyday occurrence, I thought pet jobs were a little weird.
In The Sims 3: Pets, pets do not have strict jobs with specific work hours, but that doesn't mean they can't contribute to the family. They can contribute by peeing on your neighborhood rivals, for one.Cats and dogs can be trained to hunt, which is their only job skill per se. Cats hunt for other animals, such as low-maintenance pets, while dogs hunt for valuable ores and gems. Unlike previous Pets-like expansions, your pets are fully controllable, so while your humans are away at their jobs, you can personally command your cat or dog to hunt around the town. It's a far less crazy system and allows you the freedom to ignore it if you'd rather just keep the pets for their social benefits.Horses meanwhile are a nearly game-breaking goldmine if raised correctly.
Horses can be trained in running races or equestrian competitions. Your human Sim trainer will also gain skills, such as his ability to ride, and the combined skill of horse and human will affect how you do in races. If you create a new Sim and horse from scratch and do nothing but train, you can probably start pulling in over three grand daily after just an in-game week of training; it would take several weeks to get that much from a conventional job. It's a get-rich-quick scheme that actually works, but it's contained just enough not to unbalance the game.Strangely, you can adopt a horse—just like dogs and cats—for free at any time.
Previous pets-like expansions forced you to spend several hundred Simoleons, shutting it out from first-generation newly made families. This is a bit gamey, but it allows you jump into working with the pets right away, rather than having to wait to establish a family before trying them. You can always pick up strays or attempt to tame wild horses, but doing so takes time and resources new families may not have. It's a time/reward tradeoff: wild animals and strays may come with certain skills and traits already, but they take more effort to adopt.If profit is the main thing on your mind, horses, dogs, and cats can all be bred and sold, giving you an amount of money relative to their training, skills, and known tricks. Of course, selling them means you can't use their hunting or racing skills for your own profit anymore, so you have the choice in how exactly you want to approach pet ownership. This freedom is what makes The Sims such a fun franchise: there are a number of ways you can play with your pets or use them to get cash, and experimentation is the whole reason The Sims exists.And speaking of experimentation, the absolute best feature of The Sims 3: Pets is the coat design options. While the game's default breeds are all normal and realistic, you can create pretty much anything you can think of with the easy-to-use tools as long as you understand what the graphical concept of 'layering' is.
You can even save a custom coat, and later breed it with something else. Like with human Sims, DNA is at play, so your markings and colors may transfer over to the kittens and puppies.
Im pretty sure doing this to a cat is against ASPCA regulations.Despite all the control you have over pets and their skills, any given pet's impact in the world is minor. Frankly, this is the way I prefer it: The Sims has always been a life simulator of sorts, and if the pets were able to take the spotlight away from the humans, it would be getting away from the point.All the animations for all the animals are spot-on, from a kitten sleeping on the floor to a deer loping across your front lawn. You'll need a lot of room on your lot to take advantage of larger animals, but a new neighborhood called Appaloosa Plains features large, roomy lots. New traits, lifetime goals, and objects round out the experience. Sadly, there are very few new clothing options and absolutely nothing new in Build Mode, but much of your time will be spent tinkering with the pets themselves, and you probably won't notice.
It’s hard being a Sim. Stuck in the same old boring dead-end job, you have a few kids and you fall dead after you discover your architect put walls around your pool. That’s why we have Expansion Packs. So your Sims can discover so much more to life and end up dying by an enchanted jellybean instead.The Sims 3: Supernatural is the seventh expansion pack in the game’s third incarnation as a life simulation game.
The new pre-made town is situated in Moonlight Falls, a town in the centre of a mountainous area and a wide ocean, like all the M. Night Shyamalan towns before it. All the residents are normal, friendly people. Or at least they appear normal.No, they may just belong to one of the supernatural life states that includes Fairy, Witch, Ghost, Zombie and Werewolf. With appearances in earlier expansion packs, Vampires and Genies are also featured in the expansion, although the latter requires the Showtime expansion pack to be installed. Except for zombies, the remaining 7 of these life states are selectable on the Create-A-Sim (CAS) menu so you can start off a new witch family of your own.Fairies and Witches are the two supernatural beings tied to magic, with a magic meter attached to their active UI. Fairies can cast auras and play tricks on others while Witches can cast spells and charms.
Fairies have the ability to float themselves to places while Witches can use a broomstick as a mode of transport, as well as go on joyrides and perform stunts in a special arena.Werewolves can choose to appear human or take on their werewolf form at any time (though they are forced to on a full moon, see below). They can follow their animal instincts by going hunting, scratching furniture and scampering on all-fours. Vampires are still the blood-sucking beasts you know from the Late Night expansion. They still burn in the sun, bite other Sims and go to vampire nightclubs.For this review, I also had a copy of the Late Night expansion pack installed, just to see the enhancements done to the vampire life state. None of Moonlight Falls’ bars, lounges or hangouts would really be complete without the Late Night expansion, really. The lack of bouncers and bartenders makes the joint soulless, and it’s just nice to see a fairy tending the bar.The Ghosts in the Sims 3: Supernatural are the usual ones you saw since the base game.
They appear from their graves or surface from the timely/untimely/intentional death of your sim and are colour-coded in accordance to their mode of death, be it starvation, electrocution or just by old age. Because of this new CAS feature, playable ghosts are now possible without having to go through the trouble with the science laboratory opportunity from the base game.The new major feature are moon phases, which will directly affect gameplay, especially for werewolves during a full moon, who are forced to transform into one and ditch their human form. Humans also undergo a period of “Lunacy” when under a full moon, and may slap others, even when on good terms, for no good reason and get a thrill out of doing romantic things under a full moon.Zombies also appear during a full moon, roam the streets and attack the homes of Sims, or their plants, if they’re not in. And here’s the caveat: You can’t get rid of the zombies eating away at your crops. This, of course, is the most irritating and frustrating part of the expansion pack, and a missed opportunity for EA to allow your Sims to zap zombies for fun.
You can, however, stop the moon from phasing in the settings, but your Sims’s won’t exactly be able to enjoy the full benefits of a full moon.The expansion pack also offers the new alchemy skill for elixir brewing (including brews that you can turn into a zombie with), the fortune-telling career and beekeeping for honey-harvesting, all open to regular human Sims. There also new plants, gems and fish to hunker down and collect all around town.Previous game patches have gradually allowed EA to slowly creep their online presence onto your game and now with Supernatural (and Patch 38) the full Sims 3 Store appears in your Build and Buy modes if you ever feel like wanting to spend some real cash on SimPoints to buy creature comforts for your Sim. Some may not appreciate this level of forced consumerism, however, and the feature is non-optional.I originally play my copy of the base game with the Ambitions and Late Night expansions fine on the Mac and one should not expect any graphical issues and the game comes with a new Dark Wave radio soundtrack. The Sims 3: Supernatural is still a fine addition to a Simmer’s collection who will no longer have to ask what life would be if their Sims were werewolves in the Sims 3. SCORESHEET (out of 10)OVERALL7.5GoodThe Good. Witches, Fairies, Werewolves and Zombies make their return to the third game.
Elixers, spells and charms add spice to gameplay. Towns glow during a spooky full moon for that “thrilling” night feel. It’s funny to watch your Sim scream at a Zombie.The Bad. Zombies ruins plants, lives and gameplay.
Semi-intrusive in-game store may turn off some who just want a free gaming experience.The Sims 3: Supernatural is an expansion pack for The Sims 3 life simulation game developed by The Sims Studio for Electronic Arts on Windows PC and Mac OS X. Origin Windows Download Version reviewed.
For the purposes of review and story-telling, a family was imported from the reviewer’s old save game and converted into Supernaturals by force.
The biggest thing that stands out about The Sims 4 Get Together expansion is the new ability to create and join Clubs. Special menus let you choose what age and what personality traits a sim should have for them to join your group, letting you fashion hangouts for nerds, hipsters, free-spirits, jocks, and whatever archetype you could think of.Special icons appear over the included sim’s head while in a group, with the group leader having a crown and being in charge of what the group gets up to. You can select what activities the group can participate in, and also make limitations to how they act, like never being mean to each other or never being able to start a romance within the group. The more you interact with your Club, the more point you will receive to get social bonuses or unlock special things for your group like secret handshakes or set a vibe so your sims feel certain emotions whenever they are together.Besides this new ability, not much else of Get Together has a lot of substance.
There is a new neighborhood Widenburg that is one of the prettiest maps for The Sims 4 so far with European aesthetic on an island setting. However, the layout of the environment focuses on encouraging club house building for your sims, when this activity can be done on any neighborhood in The Sims 4.As for new items, there a few special ones to mention like walk-in closets and natural pools, but all the other cosmetics and building items are pretty basic and center around themes like pub, arcade, and dance club decor. The expansion also offers a new DJ Mixing and Dance skill, but there is not much you can use those skills for besides showing off to other sims at a party.Get Toegther is by no means a bad expansion, it just happens to be the weakest in terms of gameplay variability and cosmetic item inclusion of all the five currently released.
The best part of City Living is by far the new map that comes along with it. San Myshuno offers so much gameplay-wise besides just a new city-themed area, and playing in the new neighborhood can sometimes make The Sims 4 feel like a brand new game.In City Living, you can build your dream apartment anywhere in four different areas each with their own vibes, including Spice Market, Arts Quarter, Fashion District, and Uptown.
The costs in rent differs according to location, and the new cosmetic items for decorating apartments are some of the nicest items The Sims 4 has to offer when creating colorful, and unique rooms. You can even refurbish a warehouse into a trendy, hipster hangout as if you’re in your very own 90s New York sitcom.City Living also offers festivals, Social Media and Political career tracks, a singing skill, basketball, street art, fireworks, and more. Another great inclusion in this expansion is new small shops and events change daily right outside your apartment, making it so you don’t have to wait for a loading screen to see what the city has to offer.While it is a great expansion, a few more beat out City Living for being the very best expansion The Sims 4 has to offer. If focusing on your sim’s career paths as they climb the corporate ladder is your favorite part of The Sims, then you should definitely invest in the Get to Work expansion.Get to Work has several new, fleshed out career paths with tons of new items to help your sims succeed in them.
Referred to as active career paths, you actually take control during a sim’s time at work, when usually they simply disappear for a few hours off-screen with a few vague choices available as to how they spend their time on the job. The three new active careers include Doctor, Detective, and Scientist. At work, you will have several tasks to compete during the day and the more you compete them, the more promotions you will get.However, the best part of Get to Work is the ability to open storefronts and sell whatever you wish to eager customers. You can simply increase the price of items from the Buy Mode, or make your own items yourself to sell them for a higher profit. Seasons is the newest expansion for The Sims 4, releasing in June 2018 and offering one of the meatiest content DLC inclusions to date.All four seasons are cycled through as your sims age, with tons of new activities, items, interactions, and more for each specific one. The temperature and weather changes outside, with a thermostat available to keep things comfy indoors.
Just the inclusion of changing weather makes The Sims 4 feel so much more eventful and the passage of time will have more meaning for both you and your sims as well.A ton of other fun stuff is included as well, such as Patchy the Straw Man who is a scarecrow who can come to life and help in your garden, weather machines to make nature do your bidding, and special weather dependent clothing. Another big part of this update is the inclusion of holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s. Each holiday has special decorations, characters (for example, Santa and Easter Bunny), and themed parties.There is also a new Gardening career with beekeeping activities, a new flower arranging skill, and several new deaths linked to a sim dying due to seasonal affects like overheating, freezing, or getting hit by lightning.Seasons feels like it should be included in the base Sims 4 game all along, as almost every other element of the base game is elevated when you include the variability of seasons and weather along with them.
Of all the five expansions currently released for The Sims 4, you’d really feel like you were missing out the most if you didn’t pick up our top pick Cats and Dogs.As the name of the expansion indicates, in Cats and Dogs your sim can create or adopt their own pets who age alongside their owners with their own customizable appearances, personalities, traits, and more. They can be trained to learn skills and can develop relationships with sims in the process, and sims that train animals will also increase the new Pet Training skill.Along with the animal inclusion, Cats and Dogs also gives players a new Vet career path who can even open their own vet clinics from their homes with special equipment to look after the animals like a vet podium and exam table.
The more pets you look after, the higher your vet skill will become, making helping animals easier.Another inclusion in Cats and Dogs is a beautiful new neighborhood called Brindleton Bay. In it are tons of new areas related to pet ownership, such as dog training parks, cat parks, and more.While this expansion doesn’t offer as much content as some of the others, you really do notice the lack of pets in the main game, almost to the point where Cats and Dogs should be considered a necessity for the base Sims games.
There is still more that could have been added, such as horses, birds, snakes, and mice that are included in The Sims 3 Pets expansion, but Cats and Dogs still takes number one spot due to how much the simple act of owning a pet can add to the game itself.
The Sims 3 Showtime offers your Sims the chance to live out their dreams as performers on stage. The expansion also introduces a host of new online features that you may enjoy, as well as an achievement system to give you something more to work towards. There’s plenty on offer here, most of which has never really been included in any previous Sims expansion pack.The main focus of this expansion pack is three new performance professions: Singer, Magician and Acrobat. They are basically the same in terms of their mechanics.
As it is a profession, you have direct control of your Sim at all times (except when you send him to a friend’s game using SimPort). All three can perform for tips to earn money and increase their job experience, as well as audition for gigs at the various venues in town. Some more exclusive venues might reject your Sim if he isn’t experienced enough yet, but by the time he gets to the top of his career path, they’ll be begging him to perform at their venues.Beyond that, each type of performer has more specific things that they can do to level up. For wannabe Singers, this includes delivering Sing-a-Grams to Sims around town; for Acrobats, they need to level their athletic skill; and for Magicians, they need to perform illusions. With a little hard work, your Sim will be on his way to stardom in no time.
As your Sim levels up, he can perform new tricks or songs, improving his chances of wowing an audience at the next gig.During gigs, you can choose to set up the stage as you like it, or use the default setup. You also have the option to control your Sim’s every move, or leave him to choose what to do next. The reactions of the audience also help give you an indication of how you’re doing. I found that my interference just made things worse for my performer! Other Sims will perform in your town from time to time, and there’s also the occasional SimFest where many performers can compete for the top honours.If you have a Sim that doesn’t quite have star potential, they can still watch shows that are happening.
They can even react to the show, including chucking a variety of interesting items onto stage. There are also plenty of new outfits and a number of hairstyles for stars and plebs alike. There’s not much for kids, but your adult Sims will look extra stylish or funky in their new outfits.
There are even a couple of new traits, like Diva, to make your Sims feel more like starlets. There are plenty of new items, from stage props to fun activity items like karaoke machines, DJ booths, mechanical bulls and more.As with many other expansion packs, Showtime adds a new playable monster race, the Genie.
Next Sims 3 Expansion
He or she is blue and comes in a dusty old lamp. The lamp can be obtained in a number of ways, but the easiest is to purchase it as a lifetime reward. However you get it, your Sim can clean the lamp to reveal the Genie and naturally, receive three wishes. These are pretty standard fare, like eternal happiness, youth, resurrecting Sims and even wishing for more wishes.
All of these are pretty handy, and the special effects as the Genie grants a wish are rather cool. If you’re feeling sorry for the poor old Genie, you can use one of your wishes to free him/her, at which point he will join your family as a playable Sim. They retain a few magical powers, but can no longer grant wishes.
Still, I thought my Genie was a pretty nifty addition to my Sim family.Showtime works in with other expansion packs fairly well, as your performing stars can also become celebrities, and relevant opportunities do help with this. Unfortunately your Singer Sim won’t be able to join your bands from previous expansions, though they can play guitar and sing when they perform on their own.Starlight Shores is the new town included with Showtime. It has a decidedly Hollywood-esque feel to it, with entirely new buildings and the sound of seagulls in the air. It also includes all the venues you might want your Sims to perform at (you can also add these to existing towns.) It’s a nice town, with some large, modern houses befitting of your super star Sims.Several online features have been added to the game with this expansion. You now have the option to login with your Sims account (the same one you use when registering your games or shopping on the store) within the game and share your experiences immediately, or chat to friends through the system.
You can also have their updates pop up in the corner of your screen like any other notification (though this might get annoying if you have lots of friends). Specifically for Showtime is the SimPort feature, that lets you send your performer to do a show in a friend’s game, or vice versa. By doing this, you unlock badges in a set that will eventually unlock new items in the game.When you send your Sim away, they simply vanish from the game for 12 Sim hours (though you can call them back later), and if your friend logs into their game within the next day or so, your Sim does a show there, and you both get the relevant badges. If your friend doesn’t log in, nothing happens except you miss out on your badges. Similarly, you can agree to host Sims, but I have yet to do this successfully – probably because I don’t have any friends in the same timezone as me!
(Feel free to add me as a friend: ShesVeryNice). The console versions of The Sims already feature achievements, making me rather jealous as I played on my otherwise superior PC version. Showtime has added an achievement system, which grant you badges when you achieve them. These range from Bronze badges for simple things like taking your Sim to the grocery store, all the way to Platinum badges, which represent some really challenging goals that will most likely take you quite a while to achieve.
At the same time, you’ll have something to work towards, which can sometimes be lacking in an open-ended game like The Sims. There are currently only achievements for Showtime and the base game, but it seems more will be added in the future. I absolutely love this long-overdue new feature – I’m already working towards some of the trickier badges!There are a few bugs in the game, like my poor Singer Sim that simply refused to actually perform, well, Sing, and the random pauses that seem like the game has hung until it suddenly returns to life several minutes later. SimPort also feels a bit buggy, though having so many expansion packs installed makes it hard to identify just where the glitches might be coming from. Needless to say, I have had nothing game-breaking so far! One thing I do find odd, is that after all the advertising with her, there don’t seem to be any Simlish Katy Perry songs in the game.Showtime is only available for PC. As with all expansion packs, it requires The Sims 3 base game to play.
If you’re perhaps looking for a mouse to enhance your Simming experience, perhaps have a look at the,Scoring:Gameplay: 8/10If the idea of controlling your Sim as they progress through a career (like in Ambitions) appeals to you, Showtime is a winner. The live shows your Sims can put on can be really entertaining, especially if they fail at a particular trick! Assuming you get no glitches, there’s a lot of fun to be had. The other new items and gameplay add even more depth to this expansion pack.Design and Presentation: 8/10The Sims 3 engine still looks and sounds great, and the new stage and magic effects look awesome.Value: 9/10Playing a Sim that is a performer offers you quite a range of things to do, and they will unlock new abilities, items and costumes as they progress.
Add to that the new social features and achievements, and you’ve got an expansion with plenty to keep you busy.Overall: 8.5/10A solid expansion, especially if the performance aspect appeals to you. Even if it doesn’t, there’s lots of cool new stuff to play with. The Genie is a winner, as are the achievements!Last Updated: March 16, 2012.
Original plan was to install and play each expansion one by one, in order, but since 2008 I rarely had time to play games, so after 3 years, in November 2011 I decided to jump to Apartment Life, then in mid-2012 I downloaded all expansions and stuff packs to do an one-day test for each one, I do not have time to play more.EP1 University (played since 2008): useless expansion, the single good thing is that it is adding the cheat sethighestallowedlevel that allow you to build up to 16 floors. University do not change the format of game saves. Lots saved with University expansion pack, can be open and played with base game only or with any other expansions but without University, any University object is deleted rather than crashing the game. University lots in base game will have crazy prices, even negative prices, like $-987,123,456.00, opening lots and saving them again will fix the price.EP2 Nightlife (played since 2009): I love that it added cars and disco/party features.EP3 Open For Business (played June 2012): was this really necessary? It add elevators and modern windows, but these were re-added by Apartment Life. Open for Business and University are the ONLY expansion packs that add the cheat sethighestallowedlevel.EP4 Pets (played June 2012): good expansion for animal lovers like me!
Sims 3 All Expansions Review
Otherwise, having pets in family is annoying.EP5 Seasons (played February 2012): I think that weather in The Sims 2 was necessary, as well as the gardening, too bad that they did not made the weather properly.EP6 Bon Voyage (played July 2012): useless expansion, I do not enjoy sending sims in vacation.EP7 Free Time (played July 2012): useless expansion.EP8 Apartment Life (played since November 2011): definitely the best expansion! Not only that it allows up to 4 families on same lot, but it includes elevators, spiral stairs, ceilings (helpful for making beautiful indoor photos) and advanced decoration features!Additional info: All expansions since Nightlife onward add more lot sizes, from 3×1 and 2×2 to 6×5, remove the restriction of making non-rectangular pools, and add the cheat to change roof slope angle. These are must-have features that shall be included since base game.Stuff Packs: In July 2012 I also tested all stuff packs. Mansion and Garden is the best, but none of them is really useful, so all my houses that I designed in The Sims 2 do not require stuff packs. Stuff packs do not improve the game, these just add more Buy mode items as well as more floors and walls covers. Email me only during my sleep time or if you have files that cannot be send via chat.I reply to EVERY email next morning, but since I rarely hear replies after my reply, I believe that my emails go sometimes to SPAM / JUNK folder.If you email me and do not receive any reply in 12 hours, check your Spam / Junk folder, and visit website again during European daytime to contact me viaI am online 10-14 hours daily except when sleeping or out of homeI hate disappointing people due to email anti-spam filters.
Read More. Image Credit: Recovering Deleted FilesIf you’ve accidentally deleted a file and need to get it back, there are some things you should bear in mind:. Which of the following is commonly used to recover an erased vin. Essentially, data can’t be overwritten onto flash cells – to write new data, the contents of the flash memory must first be erased. Your operating system erases files immediately to speed up write performance in the future – if it didn’t erase the file data immediately, the flash memory would first have to be erased before being written to in the future. This would make writing to an SSD slower over time.