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This downloadable world is one of my favorite EA-made Sims 3 worlds. Of all the worlds, it has the dreamiest, fairy-tale atmosphere, and it's obvious that a lot of love went into the art and modeling. I play it on both my Mac and PC, and don't notice a ton of difference between them.
It is a complete base-game-compatible world, meaning that you shouldn't need expansion packs to run it--though you'll likely appreciate their presence. Generations particularly would be lovely with this world, since it really touches on how kids function, but then so would Ambitions since a lot of Hidden Springs lends itself to self-employment. The obvious tie-in to Pets also suggests itself for the Unicorns and other animal aspects. But none of these are strictly necessary, nor is any Store investment unless you just like that idea. This world will grow as your Sims 3 collection grows.
On the down side, it is really not easy to cram all the expansion-pack venues into this world. If you have a lot of larger-sized houses and community lots/venues that you like to have ingame, be ready to really work on tweaking this world. I had to use a lot of ingenuity to fit everything, and had to custom-made some smaller things to make everything fit. Also, as usual, the gorgeous mailboxes are not able to be placed from scratch, and not all the houses have them. Its premium content object, the Fountain of Youth, is to my eyes a little kludgy in operation, though it's gorgeous and is expensive for its footprint size(helLO higher payout on owned venues). Some users report that their FoY doesn't show its animations correctly if the Spellbook from the EA Store is also installed, but I haven't noticed any issues at all with either object (I suspect the issue is custom content related, and I don't use CC).
Those are fairly minor quibbles before the breathtaking vistas of Hidden Springs. The objects and clothes provided are really gorgeous and thematically-sound, the houses are well-designed and easy on the eyes, and most of it lacks that "plain Jane generic" feel that EA houses often have. Best of all, the world comes with a slew of pre-made Sims and families that are just awesome to play with. I normally am not thrilled with premades, but these are a real hoot--be a modern-day prince seeking his princess, or a family of forest nymphs, or a host of other amusing storybook character concepts, all of them wandering through a world that kind of looks like a small Irish village for the most part. I'd also have to give major props to the artists responsible for the business lots, the spa especially. There are hardly words for how beautiful some of these business lots look.
In summation, I'd say that if you prefer a more fairy-tale or rural-village feel to your Simming, you may like this world considerably. If you really hate tweaking worlds or prefer the grittier feel of urban life, vampires, etc., this world might not make you happy.
Please do be advised that this game does require an internet connection. The boxes sold in stores usually contain just a download code that'll let you get the world from EA's site. So if you don't have a way to download files to your PC/Mac, you'll be sad. I admit I have no clue why someone would buy a box in the store just to get a download code when it saves a trip to just go directly online to get it, but maybe there'll be some extra content added to the boxed HS over time (just like Barnacle Bay, to the outrage of those who'd already downloaded the set from the site).
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I deliberately bought this from amazon instead of just buying it through the EA store because I thought I was purchasing the software on a disk that I could keep as a back-up. All this disk does is give you the code for going to the EA store to buy the items. I was pretty disappointed by that. I could have just done that without waiting for the disk to arrive.
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