The Sims 3 Store Review: Surf's Up Sun and Fun Collection

I never expected this! I love it!

The Sims 3 Store Review - Business as Usual Bistro

This is a pretty cool venue. Finally open restaurants in The Sims 3! Well, sort of. The chefs are the waiters. Actually in my case the bouncer was the chef waiter.

SimGuruCopeland's Pyramid of Doom Gym

Hey everyone, here's a quick overview of a bonus venue SimGuruCopeland uploaded to the exchange, the "Pyramid of Doom Gym." Love that name. This is meant to go with the Skylight Studio of the Performing Arts (Click here to watch my video review).

The exterior. First thought was "Whoa, this is really bright!"

Here's what you see when you first come in. Interesting use of blue, I like it.

This is the second floor. Orange lockers! :D

Third floor. Very bright green. Not sure what to think :P

Fourth floor, easily my favourite. Nice view up here! Perfect place to be at peace with oneself.

Hope you enjoyed this post, leave a comment letting me know what you think of this lot. Thank you SimGuruCopeland for sharing it with us!

Let's Play! With A Twist!

It was a very long time coming, but I managed to start work on a Let's Play for The Sims 3! I was first inspired by the likes of HeadbuttArcade and Quxxn, but at the time I didn't have a decent computer or software to record. Now in 2013 I finally have both.

In the past couple of years, several simmers have started their own Let's Plays. As time went on, I realized I wouldn't be happy if I followed the single household/generational gameplay/no mods/no cheats format everyone else seems to be following. Being unique is a big part of my personality. I rarely  play past generation 2 anyhow, because I get too caught up in my sims "having to" do this or that before I contemplate aging them up. While the "conventional" LP isn't out of the question for the future, I also wanted to take the opportunity to change things up a bit and doing that in a Sims 3 Store world was the perfect way to do it, rather than in an expansion pack where there's many more features to explore at the same time. With Island Paradise on the horizon I don't know exactly how many parts there will be, but I know I'm not stopping this Rivals LP when that game releases.

This LP focuses on two different sims leading their separate lives. One is the "Hero" character, and one is the "Dark" character, though whether for the right reasons is questionable. Every other part or so I'll switch between them. I'm hoping this keeps things interesting, especially later on when there's less new things to see. I plan to have their paths cross once in a while (hopefully both accidentally and on purpose!), where they'll clash and try to make things miserable for the other.

Up first will be Ladford Hemming, our Hero character!

We'll get to know him better in episodes 1 and 2. Episode 1 should be up tomorrow if all goes well.

Dragon Valley From Another Perspective...

I've been hard at work for the past couple of days on a rather unique way to show off Dragon Valley. It's a Medieval world...so why not explore it on horseback? Really glad about how it turned out! I didn't even get to use everything I recorded. There's so many different locations in this world I couldn't have covered them all here.

The Sims 3 Store - Fowl and Feathers Chicken Coop

...Well, this is interesting. Thanks to the Store team, we have chickens for the first time in the series!

I'll be doing more videos with commentary in the future. There will still be some random videos without it, but we'll see what happens!

And yes, I do have Internet now!

Le Cinema Plumbob (Modified)

I replaced the theater in Sims University with this new venue from The Sims 3 Store! I've modified a bit through adding expansion pack content.

 

With EP content, this venue's pretty great! There are some drawbacks like the movies being recycled clips that are too short, but the turnstile opens up so many possibilities. We essentially got part of Sims 2 Open For Business back. Many including myself have been pleading for EA to do it and we've finally got something! Woo!

I'd like to let you all know that for the next couple of weeks, updates will be few, but I've set up some posts to go up throughout the next week. I will be moving to the province of Alberta on Monday and my dad and I will be driving all the way there. I've landed a full-time job as a commercial writer and producer at a TV station over there. Should be exciting!

Gameplay Gallery: Monte Vista #2

Started playing in Monte Vista again, so the long-awaited follow up is finally here! More after the break, click for larger size!

Sims 3 Store Video - Wood Fire Oven

So last night I got my hands on some free video capture software called MSI Afterburner (or Predator as they say on their website, but it's part of Afterburner). After doing a few test videos (including this one) on different games I ended up pretty satisfied. Looks like this is what I will be using in the future so there will be a huge quality increase going forward with University Life and beyond!

Why a video about the Wood Fire Oven? Well, because it was there! And my sims were hungry. Plus it happens to be one of my favourite premium content items that I hadn't shown in video form yet.

Gameplay Gallery: Monte Vista #1

Another Gameplay Gallery post already? Well...Monte Vista! More after the break!

MOAR Food!

It's almost time for another review to go up...

Here's a little sneak peek!

The Sims 3 Store: Mid-Century Modern Dining and Style Set

Didn't see that one coming! The Mid-Century theme gets yet another expansion and this time it's for both the dining room and Create A Sim. Luckily there was a house in Storybrook County that was perfect for fitting in pretty much all the Mid-Century furniture without any rebuilding. Mid-Century is nearly a complete package, now all we need are furniture for children and toddlers. No premium content this time, but we got 4 (arguably 6) of those in the past month. We're pretty spoiled!

The set is 30 items and is currently on sale for 975 SimPoints. After October 4, the price will be raised to 1,100 SimPoints. $9.00 for 30 items is a pretty darn good deal, can't complain.

Keep in mind for the furniture that I attempt to display it all in a practical way, in an actual game setting rather than going for the showroom style other websites use. I've also used items from the other Mid-Century furniture sets to show off how well they go together, but I note above each screenshot what items are actually new. Without further delay, onto the pictures!

Create A Sim

Clothing

YA/Adult Female:

Teen Female:

Female Child:

YA/Adult Male:

Hair

Female (Teen to Elder):

Male (Teen to Elder)

Furniture

New chair, 1 table, 2 plants, 1 shelf, 1 ceiling light, 1 non-edible cake plate:

New coffee machine, 1 shelf, 1 wall light.

One cute hanging apron :)

The Good:

-Proves a Store set doesn't need a truckload of items or premium to be good
-The price is great (not even in the quadruple digits!)
-Must-have for owners of the other Mid-Century sets
-The hairstyles (personal picks: Beehive Ponytail and Mini-'Fro, Daddy-O)
-Teens and kids aren't completely neglected!

The Bad:

-Male kids and teens get no clothes. Elders completely miss out.

-What do you mean I can't eat that cake?!

The Kind of Ugly:

-A Little Bit Fishy (Teen) only has one of the stencils whereas the adult version has 3 plus a non-stencil. Why is that? 

However...using the Remove stencils mod, you can at least remove the stencil:

Final Score: 8.5/10. Recommended.

What's kind of funny is how in the Store description they remind us of when dinner time used to be family time. Yet in The Sims 3, sims never eat together. They all eat as soon as they sit down and leave as soon as they're finished. There's no guarantee they will even sit at the same table. If someone from The Sims Studio happens to be reading this, please make actual family dinner times happen!

On another note, recently I reinstalled my game on a Windows 7 64-bit Boot Camp partition and the game runs so much better. Not one crash! I'm playing the game much more, meaning I can share a lot more stuff with you guys! Woo!

Back to the...

Cause old fashion is new fashion, man!

Review of the new Mid-Century Modern Dining and Style Set coming soon to a blog near you! And said blog would be this one.

The Sims 3 Store - Level Up Collection

With all the excitement surrounding the release of the Supernatural expansion pack, it seemed like almost everyone forgot that there was a little something else being released the same week.

That little something else is the Level Up Collection, a set in The Sims 3 Store featuring the return of the basketball hoop as well as a basketball arcade game along with 8 other items. Currently the set is on sale for 1,250 SimPoints until September 20th. After that the price will be bumped up to 1,650 SimPoints. Also released was the Man Cave Compilation which includes the Level Up Collection as well as It's Game Time! and Championship Dreams for 3,000 SimPoints but 2,600 from the early bird sale lasting until the 20th.

An interesting thing to point out is that the number of premium content included is misleading...ish. There's an object called The Galactic Simball Arcade that's a redesign of the Atomic Jack Planet Attack Pinball Machine we got with the Fun for Kids of All Ages set we got about a year ago. So really there's three premium content items. Man, we've been really spoiled lately between the three in this set and the three that came with Sunlit Tides (if you bought the Gold Edition).

So here's the first of the three premium items, the Rim Rockin' Basketball Hoop.

An old favourite returns! Man, did I miss the basketball hoop. I wasn't sure it would return but I'm so glad it did. It works very similar to the one in The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 Free Time so don't expect full on b-ball games or anything like that. When sims use this object, whether they practice dunking or hoops they switch into their athletic wear and eventually get fatigued just like a regular workout. The paint lines on the ground are attached to the object. However, you can put flooring underneath and recolour the paint to match the ground better. Or you can give the paint a cow print pattern if you really want to. Going to pass on posting those pictures to save you guys throwing up. :P

There's three new moodlets:

-Burnin’ Up the Hoops
-King of the Court
-Rim Wrecker

Here's the description for the Rim Wrecker (lasts 4 hrs with +25 mood):

"What happens when an unstoppable force meets a movable object? Apparently you shatter the backboard. Well done!"

As you can see in the beginning of the video Ethan threw his ball with a trail of fire. That's the only time I've seen that so far and I'm not sure if there's anything special about it since he still missed the shot anyway.

Thanks to matrix54 I got the idea of trying to fit the basketball hoop into the wall of a garage using the moveobjects on cheat for the typical suburban driveway look.

Since it's obviously made to stand on its own this doesn't work too well. Practicing hoops seems to work okay, but when Cade practiced dunking he scored but landed halfway through the garage door and got stuck, throwing route failure tantrums. Taking away the garage door didn't change things since when Cade shattered the backboard (which almost instantly repairs itself) he went straight through the wall. Not to mention the back of the hoop sticks through the wall.

If you have a long driveway you could still try having the hoop stand on its own as long as there's still room for cars. One thing I'm not so sure about is that the net briefly glows when sims make a slam dunk. Kind of treads on the realism line personally. Also, only two sims can use it at once. So even though I was doing a family outing with four sims, only two could go at a time.

The second premium content item is the Buzzer Beater Free Throw Machine.

And I'm free! FREE THROWIN'! 

Huh..where was I? Oh right. The Buzzer Beater Free Throw Machine costs 400 SimPoints individually if bought through shop mode in-game. This object is another athletic skill-building activity. Put two of them next to each other and two sims can play against each other to see who gets the better score! With all the arcade objects EA has been adding over the past few expansion packs, this is a great addition. I added them to a sports bar where they fit in pretty well.

Of course I can't forget the rest of the objects that came with this set! There aren't many but what's there is pretty nice.

The Galactic Simball Arcade:

The new big screen TV (almost as big as the Showtime one), sectional seating, coffee table, painting with 3 stencils (first one looks like Tiny Tower characters?), and video game console.

Big screen TV in action:

The new foosball table. Goes well with the Futureshock sets!

Overall I'm in love with this set. If you know me from Mod The Sims I'm always in favour of adding more sports to the game. The athletic department was sorely lacking but with this set, the rock wall, the chin up bar from Showtime, and the return of the Free Time soccer net with Seasons it's filling up nicely. If sports or hobbies in general are a big part of your gameplay I highly recommend it, at the early bird sale price of 1,250 SimPoints it's a steal. However, I agree with Aznsensei's review on the point that there should have been some new clothes to go with the set too. Seems to be the way the store's going recently, either all objects or all clothes. If you already own Town Life Stuff or Diesel Stuff, the clothes from those packs do go nicely.

Final score: 9/10. Highly recommended!

If there's any other store sets, or even expansion or stuff packs (own all except Katy Perry Sweet Treats and Supernatural) you'd like me to review, let me know in the comments section below and I'll see what I can do.