The Sims 3: World Adventures First Impressions - Returning Home

Since the release of Sims 3: World Adventures on Tuesday, I’ve been taking one of my Sims from place to place to see what each of the three countries included in the expansion pack had to offer. One of the big aspects of The Sims for me is everyday life for my Sims. So while watching Celia travelling the globe was enjoyable, I wanted to know how the EP was going to impact the game when the novelty of adventures and traveling wears off. So in this final installment, I’m going to show you a little bit of the aftermath of what Celia’s adventures have brought to her life in Sunset Valley.

Having met two loves and one good friend while overseas, Celia decided that one of them should be her husband. But which one? She had some thinking to do, so she meditated. This is something she’s been able to do since she reached level five with her martial arts skill. That practice dummy has really come in handy!

She decided that while she really liked Gerard, she was impressed with Ho Sung and his knowledge of martial arts. So she decided to try to brush up on her block-breaking skills. Feeling ambitious, she attempted to karate-chop a space rock (she didn’t have on in her inventory but when she selected the option, one magically appeared).

While she had enough skill to practice on the block-breaking tool, she did not have enough skill to break the space rock without injuring her hand…

It really hurt!

She returned to China briefly and did an adventure that involved getting her butt kicked by an old lady…

And then she went to visit Ho Sung at the shop where he works.

Maybe he was just tired but he didn’t respond well to her flirtation, so she decided to wait until she got home before confessing her true feelings for him. She invited him to visit and asked him to move in with her.

Now, I would’ve preferred to have the chance to play Ho Sung before I had Celia bring him into her life permanently. I didn’t know if he was a day away from aging to Elder, what his life goal was, how much money he had, what his skills were or anything. All I knew were the traits Celia had discovered and that he was married. I tried to find a way to change the Active Household to one in China so I could go play the Kim household (Ho Sung, his wife and another woman that he doesn’t appear to be related to) but there was no option to do it. So bringing him into the house, I was eager to get a chance to see what’s going on in that head of his.

As it turned out, while he was close to reaching the max for athletic and martial arts skills, his life goal was to become a movie composer. That seemed odd to me as he didn’t have the music trait. He didn’t even own a guitar. So I got him one…

But as his interests seem to lay more in fitness and martial arts, I decided that once he got enough reward points, I would change his life goal. (I did do that later and one of the new life goals is maxing out the fitness and martial arts skills, so that’s the one he picked.)

Ho Sung was ready to start a new life in Sunset Valley and in order to do that, he had to break up with his wife. Unfortunately, he wasn’t able to do that over the phone and Celia couldn’t ask him to. So rather than shelling out the money to fly back to China, he decided to invite his wife to come visit him at his new house in Sunset Valley (the wait time for the game to load China would’ve probably been the same as the wait for nine in the morning to come… that’s when foreign visitors arrive).

He didn’t beat around the bush. He knew the moment he brought her inside, she was going to see his new girlfriend anyway. So he dumped her right outside the front door.

He tried to see if they could still be friends by apologizing to her…

But her heart was broken and she wanted none of it.

Ho Sung told himself as his ex-wife left on the next flight back to China, that it was for the best. With the tourist industry booming in his home country, it was probably only a matter of time before she fell for a tourist just like he did…

When he went back in, he proposed to Celia…

Newly engaged, Celia and Ho Sung decided one thing. They needed a new place to live. Celia had decorated her apartment with some of the things she brought back from her adventures but she had a lot in her inventory that had yet to be displayed. Plus, the place she was living in was really only meant for one person…

So she and Ho Sung looked at the available properties at Sunset Valley and decided that the lot near the waterfall was to be the spot where they’d build their dream home.

This EP offers quite a few new objects and home-improvement tools, including a basement tool, new floors and wallpapers and some cool, international décor. So Celia and Ho Sung decided that their new home would be a reflection of the culture Celia came to see in China, France and Egypt. As their savings didn’t cover the cost of building this dwelling, I had to help them out there with a cheat code to boost their funds.

The exterior of the house is decorated mostly with Chinese and other Asian décor (the lamps, pond plants, sculptures and many of the trees and plans are all additions offered with the EP)…

Out back, I plotted out a small piece of the property for a garden and an area for Ho Sung to practice martial arts (the practice dummy is over on the right).

I used the basement tool to give them a place to store nectar and other relics they didn’t want to display up in the house. It took me a little while to figure out the situation with the basement tool. Building the basement is easy (so much easier than the way we used to have to do it! No more digging!) but I didn’t realize the entrance had to be on the ground floor. So their cellar stairs lead up to the backyard rather than inside the house.

The first level of their home has been decked out in Egyptian décor. I especially love the pillars and archway that leads into the kitchen. Some of what’s in these rooms is stuff Celia brought back from Egypt, while others are offered as decorations to anyone in the game. The things Celia collected over in Egypt are not available to purchase in build mode (I believe there might be a cheat code that lets you buy those things in build mode but I don’t know what it is).

The second floor has mostly French décor, particularly the master bedroom. I also found a new section in the table-area of buy-mode for displays! So right now they’re using one of the bedrooms to display their gems and other things…

I also found that there’s a new door that’s like the hidden, revolving doors you find in tombs. I decided to use one of these in the master bedroom, making the door that leads to the balcony outside hidden…

While this is a cool feature, I don’t recommend using this door for rooms your Sims will want to get into regularly. Ho Sung’s pretty strong and it took him a little while to get the thing to open.

Also, I had it set to shut automatically (you can also set it to stay open) and I left him out on the balcony. I didn’t realize he’d be stuck out there and he ended up having an accident because he didn’t automatically try to re-open the door so he could get to the bathroom.

Back to the story… Ho Sung and Celia got married out back by the pool. It was a beautiful setting for their nuptials as the big waterfall was clearly within view. All of the guests were Celia’s friends (there was no option to invite overseas people to the party. I guess you have to already have them visiting to do that) but they had a nice time... The second time around. The first wedding party I attempted to throw for them resulted in all of the guests standing around the back door while the first few clustered in the kitchen and refused to move. They all started to leave and Celia and Ho Sung didn’t get married. I removed the backdoor before throwing the next wedding party. Sidenote: I’d love it if (in addition to fixing the random clustering of guests, as this is not the first time I’ve seen this happen), EA could give home-builders the option to select the main entrance to the house. I’ve built houses before and found that the Sims choose the back or side door as the default.

Wedding… right… so they got married…

And then left the party (mid-party) and headed off to France for their honeymoon…

Pretty much right away, Gerard started calling Celia to chat but she refused him every time he did. Celia hadn’t gotten around to telling Gerard that she married a man she met in China.

While there doesn’t seem to be a way to play the NPC’s in the other countries, I was able to go to France and “Edit Town.” Before sending Celia and Ho Sung on their honeymoon, I went to France and converted the abandoned nectary into a community lot. (Not the actual nectary. I don’t even think you can edit that lot. Certain lots are unavailable to be edited, most likely because doing so would mess up the adventures). It was originally an empty residential lot with only bathroom and kitchen furnishings. I turned it into a community lot that’s “open for visitors” and furnished the bedrooms. Base Camp is nice but it’s not very romantic.

They enjoyed their first night as a married couple in this lovely little suite.

They tried for a baby and while they got the lullabye music, I was curious to see if Celia would actually start to show her pregnancy. They were set for six nights in France and that was more than enough time for her to get pregnant and have the baby. The thing is, from what I know, babies and toddlers don’t travel in this game. So I didn’t know how that was going to work. Apparently, pregnancy… like everything else in the real world when it comes to this game… gets put on hold. Celia did not show even the slightest sign or symptom (nausea, fatigue, etc) while on her honeymoon.

The following day, Celia and Ho Sung set out to explore France together.

This was the first time I was playing the game with two Sims travelling at once and I quickly realized, this is not the way to play. While they set off together, that was about all they did as a couple. When they got to the nectary, Ho Sung went down below and explored, scoring a stock-pile of valuable nectar.

While Celia got busy plundering the nectary garden. She harvested as much as she could that day, deciding to bring back the special grapes (there are a few different kinds of grapes available in France) to Sunset Valley to start her own garden and home-made nectary.

I found it really annoying trying to play two Sims at once while travelling. Even with the option to visit certain lots together, I found that when Ho Sung chose to visit a lot with Celia, he’d get there ok but somehow she’d end up wandering off mid-journey and I’d have to get her to go to the lot on her own. The same thing happened when Celia chose to visit a lot and take Ho Sung with her. Plus, given how hands-on exploring is, I lost a lot of time jumping back and forth between the two Sims (plus, it’s easy to get caught up doing something with one Sim and then realize you left your other Sim harvesting the huge garden all day and they’re so exhausted, hungry and filthy that it’ll take more than half a day to get them back on track).

So I cut their honeymoon short. In the future, I’m probably going to have my Sims travel alone.

As soon as Celia got home, she started showing signs of pregnancy…

Also, because they left for their honeymoon in the middle of their wedding party and time stands still in Sunset Valley when Sims are travelling, their guests were still there when they got home. One of them was in the bathroom with Ho Sung and refused to leave. He was just standing there doing nothing. I couldn’t get him to go and eventually had to use a cheat code to move him out of the room. The guest wasn’t stuck. He just wasn’t responding to anything and because he was standing in the doorway, Ho Sung wouldn’t go to the bathroom, nor could he leave the room to use another toilet. The guests ended up staying in the house over night, continuing to wander around with no sign of ever leaving. Ho Sung eventually used the option “Ask Everyone to Leave” and they did. There seems to be some issues with the parties that hopefully EA will look into.

Celia and Ho Sung brought a nectar making machine from the nectary and set it up in their basement, along with the new wine rack and all of the nectar Ho Sung found.

Celia planted some of the stuff she harvested in France in the garden in the backyard and hopes to improve her nectar making abilities now that she’s all set up to do it at home (so she doesn’t have to spend all her money flying to France all the time)…

While the nectar stuff is great, their favorite souvenir from their honeymoon is little Carrie. She was born a few days after they got back…

Here she is as a child, playing games on the computer (even though they contradict her “disciplined” trait)…

And here’s Ho Sung teaching her to sing “Ping and his Checkers”…

It makes him happy to hear her sing it back to him as it reminds him of home.

And that’s where the story ends. There are some things I am going to continue to explore, like a quicker way to improve the nectar making skill (I’m thinking a return to France might be in order to see if there are books on it, so Celia doesn’t have to rely on the minimal amount of skill she earns each time she makes nectar). Celia also needs another book on Photography. She got the level-one book in Egypt (where she got the camera) but wasn’t able to purchase level two. Now that she’s done with level one, I’m hoping higher levels will be available for her to purchase.

I also want to see if I can get her to find a foreign magic gnome. I saw a bunch in France and I want one!

There’s also the matter of Ho Sung’s ex-wife. I don’t think her story should end with getting dumped on the front porch of her husband’s new girlfriend’s house. Plus, I’m interested to know what the “AsianCulture” trait means. I saw that in her list of traits when Ho Sung was talking to her. It’s an extra trait (she had one more trait than normal Sims have). Ho Sung doesn’t have it but I’m curious to see what this trait does. So I might just have to have another Sim head off to China and lure her back to Sunset Valley.

So it seems the World Adventures EP is more than just a new distraction for Sims. While travelling to other lands is a fun way to pull them out of their everyday lives, the additions to the game also seem to have a noticeable impact on the game.

CLICK HERE to read about Celia's adventures across the globe from the beginning!