Review: The Sims 3: Ambitions

In the new Sims 3: Ambitions expansion, fans of the franchise are finally able to take direct control of their Sim’s careers by experimenting with several professions. The professions offered include being a stylist, an investigator, a ghost hunter, an architectural designer and a firefighter. The expansion also added a new town called Twinbrook and new items including washers and dryers so your Sims can, well, do their laundry.

On the surface, The Sims 3: Ambitions does many things right. You can pick a career track for your sim and actually dictate what they do during their shift rather than wait for them to come home to resume play. The new items added are amusing though nothing earth-shattering including garden gnomes that sims can kick over as well as a trampoline. The new laundry system adds more realism to The Sims, and you can either choose to buy a washer and dryer for home use or visit the town laundromat.

While it’s amusing to take your Sim to different houses in order to zap small ghosts or put out a large house fire, the fun factor wears off quickly once you’ve done the same job repeatedly. I hate to say this, but the ads and trailers for Ambitions made fighting fires seem a lot more intense than they really are when you play it. The excitement of the trailers depicting firefighters running through a burning building in order to save trapped Sims isn’t exactly what happens during gameplay. In fact, I found myself completely confused as to why my Sim wasn’t able to rescue any of the trapped Sims until the fire was put out. Once the fire was put out, my Sim was then able to hack down the doors and convince the trapped Sims to flee… and by that time, there’s no longer a threat anymore of burning to death, so why even bother?

At best, the careers offer a fresh coat of paint onto a great game. At worst, the careers can become downright boring. As your Sim progresses through their career, nothing really changes. The challenges remain the same, and you’ll find yourself doing the same thing over and over until your Sim retires.

Besides the five core career paths your Sim can choose from, you can also register your Sim as self-employed through City Hall. This means that if your Sim was a painter before Ambitions and subsequently went unemployed or is working part-time, you can now choose to have your Sim make a living off their craft. City Hall will periodically award Sims with trophies, medals and keys to the city as they progress and climb the professional ladder.

While EA boasted the tattoo artist profession quite a bit leading up to the expansion’s release, the disappointment set in once it was revealed that it wasn’t a core profession. Your Sim can still become a tattoo artist, but they will need to buy their own chair and the tattoos provided are very limited. Your Sim will be able to tattoo themselves, but they won’t be able to make a living off of it.  I’m assuming that EA will probably put more tattoos up for sale in their store later on.

With the stylist career, your Sim will make over different Sims that visit the studio. If they’re a stylist, your Sim can offer a makeover to pretty much anyone and at any time. They don’t need to be on the clock or at the studio. When you make over a Sim, the Sim customization screen that you use when creating a brand new Sim will pop up and you’re given free reign over how they wear their hair, makeup and clothing. You can buy a drafting table for your Sim to practice their fashion on, but it’s nothing to get excited about – your Sim interacts with it just as they would a painting easel.

If your Sim is a self-employed sculptor, they’ll be able to buy a sculpting station for their home and create works of art with clay, metal, wood and ice. Being a sculptor can be a really great way for a Sim to earn a living, as the work hours are completely open and the sculptures tend to sell for thousands once your Sim has reached the top of the career ladder. Your Sim can either sell their sculptures just like they would unused or unwanted furniture, or they can take them to the town’s brand new consignment shop. If your Sim is an inventor, they’ll be able to dig through scrap metal at select spots in town in order to create their inventions. With the private investigator profession, your Sim will literally run around town attempting to solve mysteries.

The writing in The Sims 3: Ambitions is purely comical and none of it is ever serious, even when cracking a case. One of the first cases my private investigator Sim had to solve was who kicked over some woman’s garden gnome. My firefighter Sim wasn’t just putting out fires, either. Sometimes he’d be called into a building to handle a disaster, like when a man-eating plant attacked everyone at the local grocery store. You aren’t able to see your firefighter in action as he takes on man-eating plants and herds of llamas, of course. You’ll be fed a small bit of text depicting the scene as you wait for your Sim to emerge from the building again.

One of the things that did really impress me with Ambitions was some of the new music you’ll be able to hear over the radio. Lady Antebellum’s “Need You Now” can be heard in Simlish while your Sim does their laundry at the laundromat. Rise Against’s “Saviour” might be playing at someone’s backyard party. It adds another layer of realism, and I really enjoyed that. I was disappointed by the fact that the original core professions of the game weren’t updated. If you want your Sim to go down the journalism or medical career track, it will be business as usual. Send them to work, watch the clock speed up and wait for them to return home. What I absolutely hated about Ambitions was how many glitches and bugs managed to fit into one expansion pack. Some of the bugs already present in The Sims 3 weren’t fixed, and now there are some peculiar new ones that can literally be game-breaking. For example, there is a Sim standing outside of my stylist Sim’s house frozen permanently. Sadly, my private investigator Sim was on their way across town to solve a case when the freezing bug hit her, permanently freezing her mid-stride across the street. She is now rendered completely unplayable. Client crashes aren’t frequent, but they have been happening.

While The Sims 3: Ambitions isn’t a failure, it also isn’t the best expansion the game has seen (many will argue that World Adventures is a much better expansion). While the town of Twinbook is lovely and a lot of fun to explore, there isn’t much fun to be had by playing the careers for more than an hour or two. It’s definitely worth playing if you are already a huge Sims fan, but there is a certain amount of much-needed depth missing.

The Sims 3: Ambitions
PC (Reviewed), Macintosh
	Publisher: EA Developer: The Sims Studios Genre: Simulation Release Date: June 1st, 2010 MSRP: $39.99 ESRB Rating: T for Teen

Doin’ It RIGHT: - New professions allows you to take your Sim to work for the very first time. - New music by real bands added, and new items to play around with. - Offers a new and beautiful town.	Doin’ It RONG: - After the first hour or so, the professions become repetitive and boring. - Core professions remain unchanged. - We’re supposed to get excited by a laundry system? A bit lacking and not enough depth.
FINAL SCORE: 6.5 / 10