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Welcome to our Island Paradise Coverage based on our experience at the Community Day at EA UK on the 28th May 2013. We are extremely excited to be able to show you the game through writing, pictures and video and give you our full verdict on the game. We will be releasing previews in parts, we have several lined up for today. There are many reasons for this. One is so that we don’t overload you with information in a huge post, and the second is that we haven’t had enough time to actually write a huge post – due to travelling and my exams. Anyway, enough of  that… let’s begin our preview as the embargo has lifted!

 

Overview

During the community day we had a hands-on with Island Paradise. We began with a demo video which featured Graham Nardone (@SimGuruGraham) and Lisa Smith (@SimGuruSmitty) who introduced us to Island Paradise and the new store world, Dragon Valley. This allowed us to have a look at what is in-game and got me extremely excited. This is also the first world I have been extremely excited about and we’ll be uploading a review for that ASAP! I recorded most of the demo video as we watched it, so you can watch it below and begin to get excited about what information you’ll be getting!

As you can see from this demo, both Island Paradise and Dragon Valley look absolutely amazing. The expansion pack teams are having a really good run with expansion packs. Seasons, University and now this. I can guarantee that you will not be able to play The Sims 3 without Island Paradise after you play it (we’ll get into why throughout the previews and in my final verdict post).

Loading Screen

One of the things requested from some of you was to find out what the loading screen looked like. The loading screen for Island Paradise is one of my favourites. While it’s only something that appears for a short period of time, I think it needs to look good – and it does. It resembles being under the ocean with light shining below the surface. I’ve taken a video of it so you can see it in action along with a picture.

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New World Information

As many of you may know, the new world is called Isla Paradiso. It is now my second favourite world with Sunset Valley coming at #1. It’s a decent-sized world with so many new things to do including going underwater! We’ll be showing off more underwater stuff after this preview, but for this section I wanted to quickly focus on the new worlds description found in the main menu.

MainMenu

Isla Paradiso

An archipelago of islands surrounded by tranquil seas, Isla Paradiso is a great place for relaxation, recreation and exploration. Indulge with a stay at a resort, an adventurous boat cruise, or scuba dive into the depths in search of hidden wonders. Where will your adventures take you?

As you can see from the demo video, the loading screen and small preview of the world – it’s clear that a lot of effort has been put into this expansion pack. It’s something completely new for The Sims, which didn’t work out too well in the past (World Adventures, for example, wasn’t well received by some), and I’m extremely excited to be able to show more and more of this ambitious expansion pack.

We will be releasing another small preview soon all about the world. Full with videos, screenshots and information which answer some of your questions that you may have! Make sure you check back regularly as more previews of the game are going live throughout the evening.