Archive for May 2010

You’ll never guess who guardian.co.uk has interviewed about The Sims 3 Ambitions for their games blog. Grant Rodiek you say? I can’t believe you knew! I was so sure you wouldn’t get it…

What was the thinking behind the new “career” focus? Is it purely to attract more hardcore gamers to a brand that they may have previously discounted?

Ambitions should actually have a little bit of something for everyone. Firefighter and Ghost Hunter may skew more towards your “hardcore gamer,” while Stylist and Architectural Designer are for players who love the creative tools of the Sims. Private Investigator and Doctor are perfect for Sims storytellers.

Seriously though, Grant does confirm that the free base game update will include a “completely revised user interface to make the experience easier and more enjoyable”.
> “Sims 3 Ambition interview” at guardian.co.uk

GameInformer.com and GameSpot have both posted new previews of The Sims 3 Ambitions. Here’s a quote from GameInformer.com’s one first:

In Ambitions, performing tasks related to your job grants job XP, which is how you get promotions in the new careers. As an investigator, any time Columbo spent improving his logic skill granted job XP, as did his stakeout and the case he solved. The more time you spend working, the more XP you receive, and the faster you advance.

Their preview is quite short, but was accompanied by four new screenshots which you can also view on the Screenshots tab.
 > “The Sims 3: Ambitions – Sims Work Hard For Their Money” at GameInformer.com
 > The Sims 3 Ambitions screenshots

GameSpot’s ”Spotlight”, posted on their Work in Progress blog, revealed some new details. The expansion will come with a new town called “Twin Brook”, which the preview describes as a ”bayou town not unlike a backwoods suburb of Louisiana”. It also expanded on the “more options with customizing a neighborhood” that IGN mentioned – saying that “you’ll now be able to add, remove, and edit lots in the neighborhood view, just like in the Sims 2″. Here’s a quote from it:

There’s also a time machine that lets your sims travel back in time to have past-tense “woohoo” (The Sims’ euphemism for getting to know someone in the biblical sense) and even have your children come visit you in the future. And, there’s a live-in robot that will not only do your chores but can also pursue its own career path and even have relationships with other sims.

 > “Spotlight On – The Sims 3: Ambitions” at GameSpot

IGN has posted the first (as far as I’m aware) hands-on preview of The Sims 3 Ambitions, but its biggest revelations will be free. As with World Adventures, EA will release a new free update for The Sims 3 (base game) adding new features, including the option for Sims to declare themselves as self-employed, so those that create paintings for a living (for example) can stop having their job as “unemployed”, plus “more options with customizing a neighborhood, and increased build/buy features”, both of which aren’t really elaborated on. The ability to give Sims tattoos will also be made available in the base game via the update, but the tattoos available this way will be “limited” compared to in Ambitions. EA will also release a “Create a Pattern” tool, which, as the name suggests, will allow users to create patterns for use in the game though the Create a Style tool using custom imported images. This will be made available as a free download on TheSims3.com for registered users on 28th July.

Anyway, even having read my “summary” above, the preview itself is still worth a read, so check it out:
 > “The Sims 3: Ambitions Hands-on” at IGN