Ambitions: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

[Ellatrue]

I don't see a thread on this yet, so I thought I'd ask--for those of you with Ambitions, what do you like or dislike thus far about the EP? What is done well, and what is terrible? What works and what doesn't? Are there new objects/rabbitholes/templates/patterns? In short, is it worth the disk space?

Report!

[dragoness]

You could try reading the umpteen threads where people have shared their opinions?

[myskaal]

Reports of this nature seem to have been divided into 2 separate ongoing threads (Ambitions: What's Fixed Ambitions: What's borked) already in this forum, though not entirely encompassing of the discussion Ellatrue is attempting to start here.

Myself? I love the Twinbrook neighborhood. Down south swamp squeeall lahkapigboy creepidom! Though the sims included bring a new level of fugly to the game and I feel EA really halfassed the storyline. The hood itself, though, fucking love it.

Also the in game world editor. While a little more fickle about placement than I prefer it's still awesome to be able to make those minor adjustments in order to make existing hoods more personal.

The professions? Meh. The idea was good in theory and I'm glad there are more career options but they're really only fun to run through once and some of them require too much micromanagement for my tastes.

[Ellatrue]

@myskaal: Yes, I've reviewed those threads, and while there are a few opinions in them, they don't cover the intended purpose of this thread. I think it's better to have a dedicated discussion of the actual features rather than a comparison of bug reports. Also, you are getting my hopes up -- is there an actual swamp in Twinbrook?

I know, I know. It are not a bug, it are a feature!

[J. M. Pescado]

More importantly, is there a SEXY ROBE for you?

[Claeric]

I haven't done any landscaping pictures so I don't have any good swamp referneces, but here's some kinda-good ones.





The swamp IS gorgeous. The fog, too. The fog in these shots is actually heavy- some days there will be less and you can see the ocean just past it, some days you can't even see across the lake.

[myskaal]

Those screen caps do a pretty good job of getting the point across and as Claeric noted the atmosphere changes. One day can be clear and sunny and the next dark and gloomy.
There's one particular lot in the swamp that just screams for Aikea/Gelydh/Skeletal type deco (creepy basement and all).

Here's a couple more shots of the fog effects at night:






The new neighborhood deco is inspiring. There's tons of stuff that would fit perfectly in a spooky or post apocalyptic world. I'm hoping they're going to make it available when/if they ever fix CAW.

[Claeric]

There's one road corner where there's at least 6 old rusty junked up cars falling down the hill into the water. They look ridiculous being identical cars, but it's a cute detail.

The huge train track broken up across the swamp is great, too. Plus they have two different elevations of water.

[Marq]

Again, I have to recognize the ambient effects they used in this expansion pack.  I've observed the houses in the swamp go through foggy stages while the houses at higher elevations tend to stay clear and sunny.  This distinction definitely helps set the mood for the type of family you're playing.  EA also applied ambient affects to ghost hauntings.  Lights change to different colors (I've seen red, green, and blue so far), fog appears, and music starts to play.  Fight fighting gets a special tune too, I believe.

The new careers are also fun to play and it is nice that your sim can take care of his/herself while on the job.  They work more slowly on their own. 

I love Twinbrook but have one gripe about it.  The tattoo shop.  It looks beyond dirty.  I don't know what shops EA has been hanging around, but the one they provided in the game looks like a nice place to get an infection.  Another issue I have with the game are the Simbots.  They act just like regular sims.  I want robots, not sims who eat scraps and break down when they touch water.  Besides those complaints, and the common errors/glitches, the expansion pack is great.  I'm quite surprised.  The houseplans they used actually look livable, they executed laundry in a way that makes me want to do it, and made careers more exciting.

I feel like a fan-girl for saying this but EA did a lot of things right with this expansion and I'm happy I got it.  If the next expansion packs are of this caliber, I won't mind the $40 price tag as much.

[MaximilianPS]

the graphics is good because this game is new
.. but what's new ?
did they put a discotheque ?.. is there a TS2 like restaurant ? ... is there any entertainment around the city or it's the same game, where I've MUST to make missions to give a reason to my life ?

[sewinglady]

I actually haven't played all that much with Ambitions - real life has kept me quite busy of late...

But so far:
The Good:  Twinbrook is a nice addition to the game. The new hairs that came with Ambitions are pretty nice for a change. I love that you can now change the opacity of make-up!  new careers...yay.
The Bad and Ugly: I reserve judgement until I've had more time to play. But, is it my imagination or are the new traits pretty much just window dressing when they could have been so much more?

[snapzit]

The Good: I like Twinbrook in general. I tend to play a few lots that are grungy anyway, with questionable Sims, and Twinbrook comes loaded with them. I also like the new jobs that you can follow and direct your Sims either to fuck up completely or advance to the highest level pretty quickly.

The Bad: I've only played a few hours so far, but I've noticed the running bug others have talked about, with mixed feelings. I only have one Sim that does it, so It's not overwhelming, but really, what's the point of it? I also haven't yet figured out why my firefighter Sim can't cook at the firehouse. All he can do is have a quick meal. There was a large house fire that my Sim worked on, but one person was in the garage that he initially didn't convince to run, and by the time I noticed her he had put the fire out. She wasn't anywhere near the blaze, but he got a D on his performance. He was near energy failure and all he would do was look at the family's artwork. He absolutely would not ask the woman to leave. He only asked her to pose, then wouldn't take a picture. It was funny until it became annoying.

The Ugly: Many of the new pre-made Sims.

Without AwesomeMod installed yet, it's only a matter of time until I get bored, but I wanted to test the EP on its own for a while. I'm going to try out some other careers, then install AwesomeMod to preserve my sanity.

[tea_and_blues]

Good

I like the expansion. Or will like it, when they unbreak my Create-a-Crap and I can play with the new features. Twinbrook is well done, and raises the benchmark for worlds substantially.

Bad and ugly

I maintain the careers were designed by toddlers with no friggin experience of the world outside their door, let alone in game design.

Wouldn't you expect success in a career to provide some rewards in terms of gameplay? Cos right now players get a decoration or two, and more money to add to the piles and piles of numerals stacking up in that damned money box at the bottom of the screen to the point where they're practically worthless. There's a sense of progress through the careers, but nothing at the top of any of them. Well... ...stylists get a perma-moodlet. These professions feel all stick and no carrot.

It seems fundamentally borked that the two new skills provide a more rewarding and compelling feature than any of the careers themselves.

But I may be alone in my opinions.