thesims3amblogoprimarycmyk_jpg_jpgcopyWhat a day! We knew for awhile that the second expansion pack for The Sims 3 was coming, but to be bombarded with all of the news and images from today is too much to take in! I don’t even know where to begin to start the discussion!

I’d like to answer a comment that was left earlier today on the site regarding why the updates are so short. Usually when I post any sort of news or images, I either write a very brief comment and post what I have. Sometimes I just post what I have without saying a word. There are a few reasons behind that.

  1. I like to keep things short and simple.
  2. I’m a very boring person in real life and I often repeat myself so I’m saving you the trouble of reading it.
  3. Most updates are done at work when I’m scanning documents, thus leaving me with short bursts of free time.
  4. I don’t have that good of an attention span when it comes to writing out long posts unless it is a rant or something on my mind

So there’s my reasons why you see the short updates 🙂 Now that I have a free moment, I’d like to share with you my thoughts on The Sims 3 Ambitions.

ts3_ambitions_ghost_hunterMy thoughts on this expansion has risen to a level like no other. I’m way more excited for this expansion then I ever was for The Sims 3 World Adventures. For the most part, it has to do with the fact that two of my favorite subjects are introduced – time travel (which I’m not sure we’ll actually get to experience) and ghostbusting. For long time followers of this site, you should already know that I have a deep love for both Back to the Future and time-traveling in general as well as Ghostbusters (movies and cartoon show).

The Sims 3 Ambitions in my opinion is an expansion that should of been released first – heck perhaps something that should of been included in the base game. I’m not griping at EA or anything on this, we got what we got…but it appears this will bring a lot more depth to our Sim’s lives. ts3_ambitions_inventor For ages we have been wanting to take our Sims to work – now it is finally happening!

The expansion opens up many new career paths for our Sims to follow: private investigator, firefighter, architect, tattoo artist, inventor, ghost hunter, doctor, sculptor and a stylists. Will there be more? It’s possible, but it’s speculation at most. It’s practically The Sims 2 Open for Business on steroids. To be truthful, that expansion was one of my least favorites of The Sims 2 series…I don’t think I’ll have to worry about this one.

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From the above video, we’ll be getting an actual firehouse for our sims that follow the firefighter career. For starters, this allows us to actually create the Ghostbusters headquarterd and have an actual working firepole to slide down. That alone will keep me entertained for 30 minutes (it doesn’t take much, really). But in all seriousness it will be our job to handle the equipment, the truck, go out on calls and stop fires and gas leaks. The only thing that would make it perfect is to include a Dalmatian with the truck, but we’ll end up seeing that in a future pets expansion more than likely. You want to know the biggest part about firefighting? Earthquakes. Yes, EARTHQUAKES are going to be a part of Sunset Valley if Grant Rodiek is to be believed from the Q&A session. How exactly will it work? Is it visual or do we just get a pop-up ordering our Sims to visit X amount of houses after one has struck? I’m eager to hear more details on this. Oh, and by the way – how many of you plan to re-create the scene with Jack Nicholson from The Shining with the axe? “Heeeeerrrrrreeeee’ssss Johnny!”

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The stylist career…meh not to thrilled. It is pretty funny with how bad you can mess up your Sims but other than giving them bad makeovers, I don’t think I’ll be spending too much time with this career. As for the Tattoo artist, again, not sure if I’ll spend time on this but I do know that I’ll be spending some time trying to create the tattoos for a Francis (Left 4 Dead) sim. I just hope he doesn’t hate them (joke if you ever played the game).

Inventor will be one of my most played careers. I don’t know why but the Sim above looks a lot like my dad did back in the years he served as a marine. For the most part I’ll be blowing crap up along with using the time-traveling machine. If someone could clone that to be a TARDIS from Doctor Who – imagine the stories you can tell! Robots are a bonus in that Servo practically returns – with a little makeover for himself. Other inventions that we can build are toys, a floor hygienator (provides hygiene to sims who walk over it), widgets and personal drilling device! Not only that but for this career we should see the appearance of a Junkyard!

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The detective and sculptor careers are given a thumbs down for me. Again, not really suited for my interests so I don’t know if I’ll be bothered to try them out. The ghost hunting shown at the end will be my main focus. Once this game comes out I’d be willing to PAY to have someone create acceptable Ghostbusters uniforms and an Ecto-1 for the game. I spent hours playing Ghostbusters the Video Game when it came out…but we couldn’t control the storyline, we had to follow a linear path. With it now merging into The Sims universe, we can come up with all sorts of stories regarding the crew! As for the Architect career, I think that gets a pass as well (but my view may change – I just need to see/know more about it).

Other notes I’d like to squeeze in here – we’ll now be able to add/remove and modify lots in the existing game and add neighborhood objects – hopefully it’ll be easier to manage that Create-A-World (actually, it’s not that difficult when it comes to plopping down things). A much needed feature that was missing from The Sims 2. This expansion will also include a motorcycle as well as a trampoline, a new item introduced in The Sims series. Hmmm, I have an idea for the trampoline that may make a good machinima video *hums The Man Show theme music*

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There are still so many questions left to be answered…Will this open up the existing rabbitholes in the community? Can we actually view our Sim traveling through time? What all can be blow up *raises eyebrow*? How exactly are these careers going to work with existing neighborhoods, or are we getting a new world? How many licks does it really take to get the center of a Tootsie Pop?

The Sims 3 Ambitions is scheduled for release on June 1st in the US and throughout the week in other regions. It will retail for $39.95 and more than likely will come with 1000 free SimPoints. Share your thoughts about this expansion in the comments area.

News you may want to catch up on as of March 4, 2010