LGR - The Sims 3 Ambitions Review

There's a new Sims expansion out who would have guessed they would come out with another one .

The Sims Three Ambitions .

This is the second expansion pack for the game .

And of course , you'll need the Sims three to play it .

Ambitions , it says .

But what kind of ambitions ?

Well , how about being an entrepreneur , inventor , firefighter , doctor , private investigator , or chainsaw ice sculptor and getting inked ambitions makes this and lots more possible .

If you remember Sims two expansions like open for business and free time , you may be getting a similar vibe but seriously , this is very different .

So let's go ahead and get right into the goodies that has so benevolently blessed us with and tempts us to spend our hard earned cash on .

You can either continue a previous save game or you can start a new game .

If you start a new one , you may as well check out the new neighborhood for Ambitions Twin Brook .

It's another quaint little town , but with all sorts of new additions in the form of occupational and recreational lots .

The whole idea behind ambitions is to have an open ended set of tools to work towards ambitions for your Sims so that you have new areas to visit and explore these opportunities .

Some of these are workplaces and others are just places to visit .

But each of them you can actually enter .

And what I mean is if you remember from the Sims three , there were certain buildings where you could enter , but you couldn't see inside like the grocery store .

For instance , these were known as rabbit holes .

And thankfully , these new buildings are not like that .

You can actually follow your SIM inside these places like a bar .

For instance , the old buildings however , still remain rabbit holes , which sucks .

But hey , what can you do each of the new skills or jobs has a lot or two associated with them .

So we'll get to those as we go along .

The main additions here are the new careers and skills .

The new jobs are architect , doctor firefighter , ghost hunter , private investigator , stylist and self employed and the new skills are sculpting in venting and tattooing .

The architect is one of the paths that uses the new drafting board item .

This is a multi purpose tool for several jobs and it's where you'll gain skills while away from work .

The architect is more of an interior designer , I suppose , mainly going around and redesigning rooms and lots to accommodate a certain requested set of features .

For instance , maybe a SIM will call you up requesting that a new room be designed for their child who has just aged up , this enters you into build by mode .

And from here you can spend and rearrange to your heart's content within a certain budget , all jobs and opportunities will appear on your map .

But also now on the edge of your screen reminding you that there's something to do and you can just choose to do them or not to do them .

There's also a new message center which takes care of all the little messages you normally see in the game and just makes it a whole lot easier to not clutter up the screen .

The doctor is an expansion of the medical career .

While you are a good bit more involved than you were , you're not completely as involved as some of these other ones like going into buildings and such .

Usually you make decisions outside the hospital like going and vaccinating people or making house calls .

And with this , you start getting into one of the more interesting aspects of ambitions , choices between good and evil .

With each career , you have options to do good or bad .

For instance , with the doctor , you can choose to help patients by giving them their correct medication or take the evil route and test bizarre experimental drugs on them .

For sadism , the firefighter is pretty straightforward .

You work at the fire station fighting fires when a fire happens , which is rather often considering sims inability to stand up right without causing a raging inferno .

There are also wilder disasters .

To take care of like meteor strikes and earthquakes , but I've yet to experience them while at the scene , you play a mini game of sorts , dousing the flames and rescuing any trapped Sims before they burn to a crisp .

You can also take the evil route , stealing it or just busting things to bits with your A .

There's also the ghost hunter in which you hunt ghosts .

If you played the Sims three for very long , it's pretty obvious how this could be a very profitable career .

Ghosts are everywhere and these aren't the same old ghosts .

No , these are evil from cemeteries to haunted mansions .

You prance around in your Ghostbusters cosplay and deal with spirits either befriending them or collecting their souls , which can be sold for cash at the science building .

The private investigator is somewhat similar to the police career , I suppose just a lot more involved .

You can use bushes and such to hide and sneak around investigating things privately .

I really like this one .

You'll get clues and search people and places to get the answers you need or you can just jump a Sim and beat the answers out of them , Jack Bauer style or even break into houses and steal everything in sight like cars , just stick it in your pocket .

It will fit the stylist career is similar to the architect career .

But instead of giving houses a makeover , you give Sims a makeover either at home or in the salon using hair makeup and clothing , you can rejuvenate a SIM making awesome looking or just completely ruin their look , making them hate you shaving people's heads and using tiger makeup has never been so much fun .

Surprisingly , there aren't too many new makeup clothing or hair additions to the game , but there are a few sculpting is pretty much what you would expect .

You have a giant pottery wheel thing to take materials like clay , wood , ice and metal and sculpt them into various objects .

Eventually making sculptures of sims .

Once you're skilled enough inventing is also what you would expect .

You invent things and crazy stuff happens .

Wow .

Bye .

Everything from useless thing in a Bobs to the return of the Servo now called the SIM .

But this guy is just crazy .

He acts just like a normal SIM .

Except he eats scraps instead of food and stuff like that .

You can have romantic relations with him .

He can get a job .

It's just crazy .

I love this guy .

There's even a freaking time machine to use which is pretty similar to the mausoleum .

Just kind of go in there and watch stuff happen outside .

You can invent things by using scraps and you can visit junkyards to scrounge around for scraps or to salvage other items to fix up and sell at the consignment shop for instance .

Or you can do what is probably my favorite new thing .

Detonation .

Yes .

Just attach a bomb to any item .

And blow it to pieces .

Even if the item isn't yours finally acts of terror in the Sims .

The last skill is tattooing kind of like giving the Sims a makeover .

Giving tattoos is pretty straightforward , choosing a specific body area to ink and then choosing from different colors , scales , layers and opacity .

But with no options for moving them around or using wrap around tats .

It's pretty fun just inviting in random passers by and giving them a tattoo or a makeover .

Especially early on when your Sims have no idea what they're doing .

It's a complete disaster and it's hilarious .

There's also an option for tattoo removal , which is strange .

I'd have thought them being permanent would be a little more fun , but whatever and finally , the self employment career is sort of a catch .

All this applies to skill based jobs like writing and inventing as well as photography and nectar collecting .

If you have World Adventures installed , all you need to do is register with the local city hall that you are self employed and then you are officially your own boss .

It doesn't seem to have much of a point other than the give you some specific goals to achieve .

I suppose .

Another thing I don't totally get is the addition of laundry .

Your Sims have never had to worry about washing clothes .

But now after every set of dirty clothes you change out of , you'll need to pick them up and either use your own washer and dryer or go to the local laundromat .

It's kind of odd for the Sims Three to have something added that is unusually mundane and honestly , I don't understand why it could tie into the new traits , I suppose .

And there are several of them , many of them pertaining to jobs like born salesmen and eccentric , but an interesting one is eco friendly .

There are a whole plethora of objects for this one like wind turbines , solar panels , recycling bins and clothes lines , all of which consume less energy and provide lower bills .

You even eat organic food and brag about how low your carbon footprint is increasing the smug over Sim nation .

No doubt .

I like forcing my eco friendly SIM to drive an energy wasting SUV until they vomit in disgust .

You should have bought a Prius and there are also plenty of new items to buy in almost every category and not all of them pertain to jobs or skills either .

So that's nice , especially things like the unnecessary but awesome trampoline and the chopper motorcycle .

The latter of which is no doubt there to compliment your bad boy , bad girl persona with your tattoos and leather .

Like the power glove .

You are so bad .

So is it worth buying suggested price is $40 ?

And really , I feel it's worth that there's no $10 in Sim Points this time around , but you do get a dozen or so free items to download once you register online .

The Sims Three Ambitions expansion pack is one pack to the Brim expansion and it's exactly , I think of when I think an expansion pack , there are so many new items , lots of new things to do and there's really a lot more , I didn't have time to touch on if you're running out of things to occupy yourself with in the main game .

Ambitions is a superb extension to the Sims Three Universe and is sure to provide plenty of fun .