The Sims 3 Fans Prepare for 'Ambitions' Expansion Pack Release

With a shipping date of June 1^st, 2010, The Sims 3 fans are eagerly awaiting one of the most anticipated expansions in the The Sims franchise history. One explanation of this surge in popularity is the ever-increasing representation of The Sims 3 on social networking sites, such as Twitter and Facebook. A clever method the folks at EA Games continuously employ to gain fan attention is giveaways; several times a week someone on the Facebook or Twitter profiles will request followers update their "wish list" on the EASims 3 website with a specific theme. A random winner receives one of the exclusive items, which cost "SimPoints" in the official store.

"Ambitions," which is also known as Expansion Pack 2 (EP2), promises to give Sims 3 players more in-game control of their Sims characters, namely through expanded career opportunities and realistic cause-and-effect outcomes in the Sims' neighborhood. The Sims 3 original game added numerous updates to the highly popular Sims 2 series, but it also reduced a variety of features back to a minimal amount of options, much like the base Sims 2 game. One of the casualties was the amount of jobs available to Sims characters.

In "Ambitions," EA promises to allow players an increased amount of direct influence in their Sims' daily career, including added many unique and exciting job options. One fan favorite is the "Ghost Hunter" profession, followed closely by "Tattoo Artist." As with the other Sims 3 careers, these new employment alternatives rely heavily on the built-in Sims attribute system. For example, "Ghost Hunting" is rumored to use the Logic Skill, and benefits from the personality traits "genius" and "computer whiz," according to the preview by Gamespot.

The Gamespot preview, which features imbedded videos from the EA 2010 demo, mentions that "Ambitions" will also include a new town called "Twinbook." One of the frequent complaints made by Sims 3 players is the limited amount of pre-built towns. Unlike in Sims 2, which allowed players to custom build new towns from the ground up, Sims 3 only allows the duplication of a default map which players may then edit to a limited degree. As someone with a slower PC, adding and subtracting homes from the map makes for a huge delay in my playtime-sometimes as much as 20 minutes to complete a change. Granted, that is a reflection of my outdated PC software, but the technical requirements for the Sims 3 series are rather high. Fortunately, the game allows users to turn-down or remove certain visual effects, such as lighting, shadows, mirror reflections and pixels.

Ultimately, I am eagerly awaiting the heavily promoted and latest addition to the Sims 3 universe. Fans can only hope that EP2 will not be as buggy and glitchy as EP1 "World Adventures" was immediately following release. But the opportunity for more careers-especially those which interest me outside of the game too, like Ghost Hunter and Tattoo Artist-is too tempting a lure to resist.

Pre-order The Sims 3 'Ambitions' on the EA Store website here, available for digital download and physical shipment for $39.95.

Sources:
GameSpot, "The Sims 3: Ambitions Exclusive Hands-On - Ghost Hunting, Inventing, New Career Content,"