So it’s no surprise to our regular readers that I’m a huge fan of The Sims franchise.  I’ve been playing it since the beginning and was so stoked last year for The Sims 3 to come out.  Since then, we’ve had two major expansions and one ‘stuff’ pack for the game.  Ambitions is the second major expansion for the game, that brings back the entrepenuerial spirit of The Sims 2: Open for Business.

Rating: T for Teen (PEGI 12+)
Genre: Life Simulator
Number of Players: 1
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Release Date: June 1, 2010

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By now, if you’ve tried The Sims 3, you’ve probably got a pretty good idea about whether the game is worth your time and money, or not.  For many people, especially hardcore fans of The Sims 2, the game fell into the “not” category.  Mostly because it might not live up to the same expanded and custom-content filled explosion that was The Sims 2.  Not too mention that expansions for the second game were still coming out just months before the newest game’s release.  However, I’m one of those people that has fallen firmly into the “worthy” category.  I think the 3 addition to the franchise is a worthy successor to the game.  In the beginning I wasn’t a huge fan of the game’s first expansion: World Adventures, but after really giving myself time to explore it’s options, it grew on me.

Take time out from capturing ghosts, to make friends with them.

Now, with Ambitions, we were promised the opportunity to follow our Sims to work – something many of us Sims fans have been dying for since they got jobs in the first place.  The Sims 2: Open for Business gave us a chance to see how our Sims could work, but offering up jobs for those stay-at-home sims, or those with enough money to buy their own shop.  But, we still weren’t really following our Sims to traditional jobs.  They were working, but it was extremely time consuming – more so than your traditional 8 or so hour shift (in sim hours of course).  In fact, most people just wanted the expansion for all the new STUFF their Sims could do at home – the salon chair, the ability to make some money by inviting over friends and charging them an entry fee.

I had hoped with Ambitions that not only would we get some new jobs added to the Sims world (Tattoo Artist?  Yes, please!) but we’d be able to see what happens when our Sims go to work.  Now, is that what you get after you spend all that time installing the newest expansion?  Well, yes and no.  Sorta.  What you still won’t get is the ability to follow your Mayoral candidate to City Hall in order to watch them give speeches and vie for the chance to your Simville.  You don’t get the opportunity to check out what those Sim in the existing career tracks do when they’re “working”.  However, these are the threadbare jobs we’re used to either.  For instance, I took my Sim out for a spin and got her a job as a Ghost Hunter (cool job, right?).  She started off tracking down houses with Spirit Invasions, hunting the spirits down in the house, scooping them up and then selling to the science building for some extra money.  My Sim gets a weekly stipend (so even when she sucks at her job she gets paid a little), money from each job – the amount of  which changes based on the job’s difficulty, and extra money to selling to spirits to researchers.  Pretty hefty clean-up if you can fit in two jobs a night (which is likely).  In the mean time, I’m not necessarily held to that one job either.  As my little Ghost Hunter leveled up at work, she had different job types: Spririt Invasion, Ghost ____ and Paranormal Investigations.  I could also spend time working on her Logic skill in order to improve her work levels.

Now, your Sim can only work during their specific job’s hours, and depending on the job, if you’re late, you might miss it and have to wait for the following shift.  But, shorter jobs you can do easily, and do a few in one shift.  But, here’s the thing: some jobs take far more time than others.  For instance, when I first loaded up the game I thought the Architect career sounded like a good time.  Problem is – the game pauses when you are in shop or build mode.  Which means, each job could take a few minutes or a few hours, in real time, depending on how meticulous you like to be when creating Sim spaces.  Now if each job my Architect does takes me 20 minutes, but only takes my Sim a minute or two, that’s a lot of jobs, and a lot of time.  At that point, it’s far more worth it to me to drop the Architect career and let them take one of the regular career paths that I don’t need to monitor.  Overall, the new career paths are hit and miss, some are fun and pretty quick, others feel like they’re much more trouble than they’re worth.  However, I’m definitely anxious to find out what new professions they might add into the game later.

The junkyard is a good outing for the whole family.

One of the things the game added, aside from the new professions, are two hobbies: Inventing and Sculpting.  These are creator hobbies — like the old flower and toy benches in The Sims 2.  They let your Sims create new items that can be used in the game.  They also open up new opportunities in the neighborhood where your Sim can make some cash each time they complete one.  The Inventing bench eventually lets your Sim create a servo (SimBot) – another old game throwback – that should make old servo fans happy.

Ambitions also has a lot of regular additions that we’ve come to expect from a Sims expansion.  There’s new Lifetime wishes and rewards, new traits, new objects (yay! trampoline) and the new laundry system and objects.  You’d never think that doing laundry might be fun, but it does feel like the house is more complete when it has it’s own little laundry area with hampers around the house.  There’s several new lots available for your town now too including the laundromat, junkyard and consignment shop.

Like I said at the beginning, if you’ve played The Sims 3 by now, you’ve pretty much made up your mind on whether or not it’s going to be worth your time and money.  If you haven’t spent a lot of time in the game but like the upgrade in the franchise: Ambitions is definitely worth checking out, even if you wait for it to come down in price.  But, if you’ve so far thoroughly enjoyed The Sims 3, like World Adventures before it — Ambitions is definitely worth adding to your collection.