Diving
Besides swimming in sea there’s a new option for your Sims to enjoy in the sea/ocean, diving! If you open the Isla Paradiso world map, you’ll see different icons. Diving locations have an icon with two legs with flippers. Your Sim will have to gain skill before they are allowed to dive at the indicated diving spots. You can go to the Science Lab to take ‘diving lessons’. These lessons are 400 Simoleons, but after taking these diving lessons you have an advantage with the diving skill. Though, only one diving lesson won’t do the job. Your Sim will need at least level 2 of the diving skill before they are allowed to go into the deep wild seas. The first location you unlock is at level 2: The Rockreef. You’ll unlock the other diving spots at level 4, 7 and 9.
You don’t want to spend 400 Simoleons on ‘diving lessons’? No problem. You can also gain skill by snorkeling. Snorkeling helps gaining skill and you’ll find fun objects like fish, shells and who knows what other creatures might swim around? You can sell the objects or you can gift them to a friend through the online function. Aren’t your Sims fond of the dirty seawater, there’s always the option to go snorkeling in a swimming pool.
When your Sim is ready to dive, you can click on one of the icons displayed on the world map. At the moment, Isla Paradiso has four diving spots. Other worlds don’t have diving spots, because the seas aren’t deep enough. When underwater, you can collect objects just like with snorkeling. With snorkeling, this goes automatic. With diving you need to click on the object in order to catch it. It’s also possible to have an underwater conversation with other divers. Well, I don’t think you can really call it talking. It’s more gibber and hand signals! If you’re lucky, you may find a treasure chest. If you found one, you can open it and it’s possible to find gems or a piece of a map. You can use the map to find uncharted islands. We’ll tell you more about uncharted islands later on in this review!
Besides fish, other divers and wandering starfish, there are other living creature who can make your life unpleasant, or let’s say, who can take your life! Sharks aren’t your best friend and your Sim can better stay away from them. After peeing yourself, you could better get out of there! Sharks are your biggest underwater-enemies and if you carry fish or meat in your pockets, you better watch yourself. Sharks get attracted by this. If you lose your Sim out of sight for a second, he/she might be fighting with a shark. This can end with your Sim either winning or dying. If your Sim dies, the Grim Reaper will pay a visit. The Grim Reaper has been pimped, instead of carrying around a scythe he now has a trident.
In the beginning, your Sims won’t stay underwater for too long. After some hours of diving they’ve had enough and need some fresh air. After a few hours you can take another dive. The higher you skill level is, the longer your Sim will be able to stay underwater.
MermaidSims
While diving, you may notice your Sim acting weird. Rubbing his eyes and looking around if he did really see a MermaidSim or that his eyes are tricking him. Well, your Sim was right! The MermaidSim is the new creature added to your game with Island Paradise. You have both male and female MermaidSims. MermaidSims don’t have to live their whole life in the ocean. When on land, they’ll have legs with scales on it. When they are in the water, they’ll have a fish tail. When your MermaidSim is on land, you have to watch out that your Sim doesn’t dehydrate. Your Sim can die of dehydration.
You don’t have to be scared that your Sim will drop dead, because you can control your Sims’s needs. The ‘need bars’ of your MermaidSim are blue instead of green and doesn’t have a ‘Hygiene’ bar but a ‘Hydration’ bar. You need to keep your MermaidSim hydrated. You can do this by swimming in the ocean or in a pool. If your MermaidSim doesn’t swim very often, there’s a chance your MermaidSim will turn into a ‘normal’ Sim. To prevent this from happening, you can buy the ‘Permanent Mermaidsim’-lifetime wish.
Unfortunately, you can’t create MermaidSims in Create A Sim, but you can customize them in CAS. You can open CAS by clicking on a mirror. By doing this, you’ll be able to change the colour of the scales of your MermaidSim. Do you want a neon coloured or an ordinary colourd Mermaidsim? It’s all up to you!
Despite the fact that you can’t create a MermaidSim in CAS, there’s always to option to transform your Sim into one. There are two ways to do this, but it won’t be easy. The first option is to buy ‘Mermaid Seaweed’ through the lifetime rewards. This reward will cost your Sim 25.000 points, which is quite a lot. The other option has to do with diving. While diving, you can click on a MermaidSim and ask for his ‘Fish parts’. If you are good friends with the MermaidSim, you have a chance the MermaidSim will give you ‘Mermaid Seaweed’. When your Sim eats this, they’ll turn into a MermaidSim.
Another special thing about MermaidSims is that they master the diving skill from the start, so they don’t have to practice diving with snorkeling or scuba-diving. Just like normal Sims, your MermaidSim can have a shark encounter. Novice divers will pee themselves, but MermaidSims aren’t afraid of sharks. They are used to sharks and leave the sharks alone. The same applies to the Kraken. The Kraken won’t attack your Sim. If you have a MermaidSim who’s a bit scared, there’s absolute no reason to be scared! MermaidSims are faster in the water than normal Sims and can travel to other places in just a few seconds.
If your Sim has ever met a MermaidSim, they can signal them to come to land. It doesn’t matter where you are, if the MermaidSim has time, he’ll pay you a visit. It doesn’t matter if it’s only for a chat, he’ll come. This reminds me of MermaidMan and MusselBoy, they always got their signal with a shell when they were needed to solve crime. A nice detail to see!
MermaidSims have some powers, but other than that they are just like ‘normal’ Sims. MermaidSims can move in together and live a normal life like any other Sim. This means they can have children. When your Sim is pregnant of a MermaidSim (or the female version of the MermaidSim itself), there’s a fair chance your baby will be a MermaidSim. If both of the parents are MermaidSims, it’s a 100% chance to get a MermaidSim-baby. If the child becomes a toddler, their legs will have scales on it. The younger generations of MermaidSims need water to survive.
Lifeguard
The Sims 3 Island Paradise comes with one new profession, lifeguard! This profession works just like the other professions from The Sims 3 Ambitions expansion pack. Take a look at the world map to see where your Sim has to work for that day. This will take place on a beach where your Sim has to keep an eye on the other Sims in the water and rescue them if they’re drowning! You can recognize a lifeguard by his lifeguard uniform, their flute and awesome sunglasses.
As a lifeguard, you can sit in your chair and overlook the beach, you can walk around the beach or maybe even run. Your Sim will unlock ‘Running as a lifeguard’ at level 8. It will look like your Sim is starring in a Baywatch movie, which means he’ll run in slow motion.
If there’s someone drowning, you better not choose the slow motion-walk. As a lifeguard, you want to get to your victim as quickly as possible. You’ll recognize a drowning Sim by a big orange circle with a red cross in it. Your lifeguard will run into the water, if it doesn’t take him 45 minutes to change his clothes, and throws a red floating shelf in the water for the drowning man. After your Sim has rescued the drowning man, there’s a change the victim will dramatically faint. The lifeguard will give mouth-to-mouth. When the victim regains consciousness, he’s very grateful for everything you’ve done and they may try to flirt with your Sim. Score!
Conclusion
The Sims 3 Exotic Island really gives you more innovation than other expansion packs. A lot of other expanion packs looked like the ones we already got with The Sims 2, but this one doesn’t. The Sims 3 Island Paradise gives you a tropic feeling even though it is -10. There are a lot new things in this pack including a lot of new interactions and items. I give this pack a 9!
We would like to thank EA Benelux for the review copy of The Sims 3 Island Paradise.
Conclusie van ons team:
FranSor
Hoewel De Sims 3 Exotisch Eiland voor mij heel erg aanvoelt als een uitbreiding voor het zomerseizoen van De Sims 3 Jaargetijden, geeft dit pakket wel heel veel nieuwe mogelijkheden en een gehele nieuwe gameplay met de onder waterwereld! Verder kan je uren stoppen in het ontdekken van nieuwe eilanden maar ook in het opzetten van je eigen resort. Eerlijk gezegd vind ik dit pakket geen must voor je De Sims 3 collectie maar uren plezier geeft het wel!
Imme
The Sims 3 Island Paradise is a nice addition to the game. I haven’t really played the game that well, but I’m going to give my opinion anyway. Houseboats are very nice to experiment with. Unfortunately, Sims complain a lot when they’re on a houseboat, especially when they want to use a ladder. Sims don’t like waiting. The new ‘beach-interactions’ are really nice. Especially the ones for toddlers are just too cute! They’ve also added a lot of fun new stuff and clothing to the game. As I said before, I haven’t seen everything of the game, but I think Island Paradise nice expansion pack that will ensure you to have a lot of fun!
Ray
I think The Sims 3 Island is a nice addition to the game. The expansion pack has a lot of new things in it that we haven’t seen before. That makes it kind of exciting! The houseboats they’ve come up with are magnificent, because it’s really something new. I’m still exploring all the new stuff that comes with this expansion pack.
Shevens
I think Island Paradise is one of the biggest expansions for the Sims 3 so far, and I have to tell you I still haven’t discovered everything, it’s a humongous expansion pack and I think I’ll still find new stuff all over the place, I think it’s an amazing expansion pack and it’s very detailed and there’s a lot of time put in the making of the game! The only letdown is that there aren’t any diving spots in other worlds, you’ll have to place them yourself (with cheats!), unfortunately.
Without further or due I think EA and Maxis have done something they really can be proud of, and that’s why I’ll rate this expansion pack an 8.5 out of 10!
Dave.
There is so much to discover in The Sims 3 Island Paradise, I haven’t even ‘finished’ playing yet! The hidden islands are fun to discover and with the other challenges you will discover Island Paradiso. Having your own resort is a nice idea, but I wish it was bigger, like the The Sims 2 Open for Business. It is also a pity that not every world is ready for The Sims 3 Island Paradise, you need to add your own lots. But the many furniture, nice new interactions and to gorgious world make me forget all of that.
Conclusie van onze leden:
SimGandr
This expansion pack deserves an 8!
Not a 10 of a 9 because you have to wait a while for everything to be done loading. If you start off too fast you computer cannot handle this and your game will crash, that’s a pity. But further more, this game is amazing with some really new features that I haven’t seen yet in the The Sims franchise.
I am really pleased.
SimDessy
I am kind of dissapointed up till now. Especially the diving had my high expectations, I played it on my laptop and I am not sure whether that is the problem but I cannot seem to see any fish! Soon I will play it on a desktop computer to see if that will make me happier. However, the resorts are really fun to playa round with.
Charlotte
I think this expansion pack is amazing with a lot of different stuff to do. A 9,5!
Written by: AnsjJ2
Translated by: Imme en FranSor