Sunday, June 8, 2014

Review of The Sims 3 Island Paradise - PC/Mac

The Sims 3 Island Paradise - PC/Mac
Customer Ratings: 4.5 stars
List Price: $39.99
Sale Price: $29.96
Today's Bonus: 25% Off
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The Sims 3 Island Paradise is an incredible expansion pack, filled with a so many new things for your Sims to do and explore. The new town, Isla Paradiso is actually a group of islands in the ocean, each one with different buildings and homes on it. Instead of traveling everywhere by car, now you hop on a speed boat to get from island to island. The whole ocean is there for you to explore, and there's stuff everywhere!

Homes can now be built right on the water. Instead of driveways and garages, you now have docks and slots to park your boats (speed boats, row boats, sail boats, and more). Homes sit right on the beautiful blue ocean water, with fish and huge sharks swimming right around them. Your sim can fish and skip stones right off the dock, or jump in and do a bit of swimming or snorkeling for seashells and gems.

When your ready to venture out even farther, head out to one of the marked scuba diving locations for an adventure under the waters surface. Your sim needs to have spent some time working on their snorkeling skills first, before they will be allowed to take an underwater trip. When they're ready, they will switch into their scuba gear and dive down quite a ways, checking out all the fish and plant life that dwells on the ocean floor. Each dive location is completely different from the others, some having more things to explore than other. While under water you can catch fish, open treasure chests, explore caves (in the same way your sim can explore the catacombs in the graveyards) and even meet and socialize with other sims underwater. You never know who you will run into while swimming or scuba diving. Regular people, ghosts and even mermaids all are around and exploring the dive locations.

You'll find everything from money to pieces of maps in the treasure chests. Gems, shells and other items can also be found while your searching underwater. But you'll need to be wary of sitting in one spot too long. Linger around, floating in the same location for a while, and one of the large sharks swimming by may try and make a meal of you. Even if they don't attack, you may find just the sight of one of them makes your sim have an accident in their wetsuit!

When you're ready to spend some time on land, there's resorts you can kick back and relax at. Make sand castles on the beach, take in the view from one of the new balconies in the build menu, or for a shark-free swim, play on some of the new slides and waterfalls at the resort pools. Lifeguards patrol the beaches, and you can even take a job as one, with it being a new sim career choice.

For those wanting to build their own homes and resorts, there lots of new things in the build and buy menus. Tables and chairs, new lighting options, bright tropical decor, fountains, new plants, trees, flower and rocks, hot tubs, fire pits, a few walk for your sims to walk across, and so much more. There's a new All-In-One-Bathroom that is about the size of a shower for your sims to use on their houseboats, where space in minimal. They go in and all "bathroom needs" are filled at the same time. Your sim can even buy a wind-surf board or a "Aqua Sled" jet-ski to play around on out in the water.

There are a several new pieces of clothing added for sims to wear, including some new swimsuit options (finally!) and lots of warm weather clothing, like shorts, dresses and tank tops. There are also a few new hair styles added. New sim traits and lifetime wishes have also been added to the game.

But the focus in this expansion pack is definitely the water fun, both on the surface and under water. Everything is about life on or in the ocean. Much like the Sims 3 World Adventures pack focused a lot on exploring hidden tombs and such, this pack is all about exploring the sea. It's almost like an Island Paradise version of World Adventures. There is so much in this pack to do and explore, it's definitely one of the best Sims expansion packs made to date!

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PLEASE NOTE: THE SIMS 3: ISLAND PARADISE REQUIRES THE BASE SIMS 3 GAME TO PLAY!!!!!!!

This game is amazing. You can cruise over the ocean, discover hidden islands, live on a houseboat, run a resort, become a mermaid, and so much more.

There are 2 wonderful new traits:

Sailor -

"Your Sim loves being on boats. Cruising around the ocean gives them a mood boost!

Your Sim has better luck fishing from a boat!

Your Sim's stomach doesn't have much of a problem with the rocking of a boat!" http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Sailor

Loves to Swim -

"Your Sim loves to swim. Being in the water gives them a mood boost!

Your Sim builds Scuba Diving Skill at a faster rate!

Your Sim can swim for a longer period of time before getting tired!" http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/Loves_To_Swim

Houseboats in sizes of 10x8, 15x10, 20x15, 14x6, curved bow 14x6, and curved bow 12x8

Scuba diving and the underwater

3 new WooHoo locations (underwater caves, all-in-one bathroom, and resort tower)

Mermaids who can stay underwater without running out of air and must keep wet to live

Lifeguard profession

Building over the water

Resorts to run and visit

Several related lifetime rewards and wishes

Island Life and Beach Party radio

TONS and I mean TONS of new objects and Create-A-Sim options

For a full list of add-ons, go here: http://sims.wikia.com/wiki/The_Sims_3:_Island_Paradise

As with most expansions, there are several minor glitches and bugs but they will soon probably be fixed. I would say what bugs there are but different people get different bugs.

This games is absolutely amazing in all possible ways. Now, STOP READING MY REVIEW AND BUY IT!!!!!!!!!!!

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Do not waste your money if you intend to play Island Paradise on a MAC. EA has been aware of problems with many of the Sims expansion packs that they claim work on a MAC for quite some time now and they never bother to address and or fix the problems. Once this game is installed you would be lucky if you have 2 minutes to create a Sim. If your lucky enough to eventually get into the game itself, it's just a matter of minutes before it crashes to the desktop due to routing issues and cider issues.

EA does not specifically make this game for MAC. They rely on a wrapper called Cider to run Sims on a MAC. Cider is a wrapper that is used to run PC games or applications on a MAC. Until they fix Cider issues to run the game properly on a MAC, you'll have continuous crashes.

Before you purchase this for MAC playing, do a little homework and search the internet and/or check out EA's Mac forums. Searching for Cider issues/Mac issues with Sims3 will give you plenty to read.

I loved playing Sims 3 when it first came out but all the latest expansions have turned this game into a chore trying to get it to play instead of being enjoyable. You'll spend more time uninstalling, reinstalling and looking for ways to make it work on your MAC than playing.

Honest reviews on The Sims 3 Island Paradise - PC/Mac

Pre-ordered the game because I wanted the survival pack! I was pretty excited about downloading it. Some of the Sims Game allow you to directly download from Amazon, while others refer to you download from Origin (like with Island Paradise). I am hoping they will soon be consistent about the downloading process.

The download was quick and easy, and within twenty minutes I was loading it. First thing I wanted to do was to try the snorkeling. That's where I noticed my first glitch. My sim kept switching in and out of her snorkeling gear. Then I decided to have her go scuba diving, and while talking to a mermaid, the game glitched again and everyone who was swimming near me, including the mermaid, was transferred to shore. Pretty weird, don't know why that happened.

Other than the minor swimming glitches which I'm sure will be fixed at a later date, the game is awesome! I am loving all the new hair styles and clothes for my female sims. I tend to only make girls, not really sure why. Probably cause they're more attractive to look at, heyyyyy. I also like that you can run your own resort. Reminds me of when you got to make your own restaurant in Sims 2! That was so much fun, I hope they bring that back.

There are also new foods and new entertainment for your sims. All the new content truly makes this game worth while.

Find helpful customer reviews and review ratings for The Sims 3 Island Paradise - PC/Mac

I think out of all the expansions put out, this one is probably my favorite. It matches my minimalist play style more so than the other expansions. With houseboats you are forced to see what you can build & decorate within a limited amount of space, and I enjoy the challenge.

Things I love about this expansion:

-houseboats and the freedom they bring

-the mermaids

-the underwater fishing (I find it a lot more engaging than that boring ol' fishing pole that's been around since the base game.)

-collecting sea shells

-letting my sims stay in a resort and and watching them interact with other resort guests

-the fruity beverages in pineapple cups

The biggest setback to this expansion is lag, but there are ways to minimalize it.

Tip #1: Play a user-created world (CAW) that has been developed to use the features of Island Paradise...one with hopefully lots of ocean, ports, and perhaps a descent dive lot or two. The world that comes with this expansion (Isla Paradiso) is full of laggy elements. It was poorly made.

Tip #2: If you just have to play Isla Paradiso, then use the advanced cheat to discover all the islands. It gets rid of the particle clouds that spam the game. (Control + Shift + C THEN TestingCheatsEnabled True AND THEN DiscoverAllUnchartedIslands) Also, delete/relocate the Scott family and then bulldoze their houseboat. They have been causing a lot of people problems, myself included.

Tip #3: Clear your cache files, and make sure that all your mods (if you use them) are up-to-date. (Never EVER update the game with mods still installed.) I highly recommend the mod known as "Overwatch"; it fixed a few EA-created bugs for me and is routinely updated by its creator.

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