The Sims 4.
Man, this and Skyrim are like the cockroaches of games in recent years.
I keep forgetting it exists, then every so often it scurries out from the darkness and
people are either excited or confused.
Sometimes both, like how you can dress up in Sims 4
llama costumes in Final Fantasy XV now.
Mmkay.
And then there’s the topic of the day, Jungle Adventure,
the sixth game pack for The Sims 4.
Once again it costs $20 and once again it’s bringing back a slice of gameplay from The
Sims 3, specifically the world adventuring from World Adventures.
But as you might guess from the title, it’s no longer a world you’re adventuring within,
but a single jungle and a single adventure.
As is Sims 4 tradition, this pack snatches an idea that players enjoyed in the past and
whittles it down until it fits into the game’s more limited framework.
And I don’t exactly blame them either, since the cutting-down approach certainly worked
for Cats & Dogs if the crazy sales numbers are any indication, currently being the highest-selling
expansion pack to date.
So let’s see how the approach works for Jungle Adventure!
As always you get some new clothing and hair straight away.
And it’s about what you’d expect for a pack geared towards hacking your way through
dense plant life and getting tourist-wasted in cantinas: pith helmets, colorful shirts,
vests, and pants, a new tattoo, a few new hairstyles, and some hiking shoes.
Well, at least when it comes to adults.
Kids and toddlers don’t get much of anything, beyond a hat and a couple shirts.
Whatever though it’s time to take a trip to some jungles, and to do that you whip out
your phone and opt to take a vacation.
This can be from one to seven days, or even longer if you
choose to extend your stay once you’re there.
The land you’ll be exploring is Selvadorada, a fictional mishmash of Central and South
American cultures that’s blended together to make a new
world divided into two main sections.
There’s the Puerto Llamante Marketplace and the Belomisia Jungle, the latter of which
contains several hidden lots that are only accessible if you go “adventuring!”
Your adventure commences by renting a place to stay and then
trekking out to visit the Belomisia Trailhead park.
Once you’re there you’ll see a sign that warns you some bad crap might happen and you
may want to take precautions, but this is The Sims so there’s nothing stopping you
from clawing at thorny vines with your bare hands.
This is not advised however, so it’s a good idea to wander into town and visit the marketplace.
This is a small collection of food and vendor stands that pop up every so often during certain
hours, much like the festivals in the City Living pack.
So you’ve got a food truck for trying out some local cuisine, and a few tables with
various items for sale that will be vital to surviving the jungle.
Be sure to check both the vendor items menu and the objects laid out on the tables, because
while the former stays the same the latter will change each time you visit.
With a machete in-hand you can start slicing into the overgrowth.
Oh and it might also help to use a sim with the new Jungle Explorer aspiration, because
why not get some extra reward points with your jungling.
After you’ve killed more vines than Twitter in 2016 you can pass through the newly-cleared
gateway, which provides you with one of those little “choose your own adventure” type
pop-ups that The Sims 4 likes to use in place of having
something awesome play out with your actual sims.
Depending on your choice and whether or not you have a specific item or skill, you’ll
get a reward or a punishment like an item or a emotional buff, and you’re teleported
to a new part of the map.
Welcome to the jungle!
We’ve got fun and games.
We’ve got everything you want, as long as what you want is to methodically whip the
camera around looking for something shiny to click on.
There are trees and plants with fruit and berries, including avocados, black beans,
and a tree that grows berries to instantly change your
sims’ emotions because of course there is.
After all, what’s a new Sims 4 pack without another slightly-different way to directly
make sims confident or angry or horny or whatever.
You’ll also find some conspicuous piles of dirt.
These work exactly the same as collecting metals and crystals and all that kind of stuff
that’s already in the game, but as you level up you’ll glean an increasing number of
interactions for each dirt hole.
Like eventually you’ll unlock the ability to start an excavation, which lets other sims
join in the fun and dig up everything from old statues, to ceremonial knives, to crystal
skulls, fossilized mustaches and more.
After this, your sims can ship them off to be cleaned and authenticated, or you can just
do it yourself if you’ve got the skills and an archaeologist’s table.
It’s a lot of busy work, but I actually kind of like it in this case since there’s
something enjoyable about cleaning up old items and putting them on display.
Not only does it provide more art to place around your house, but it also gives you some
valuable artifacts that, surprise surprise, affect the emotions of nearby sims.
Or sometimes you’ll uncover a fake that doesn’t have any real value but is still
pretty amusing in and of itself.
Then there are relics, some of the most powerful new items in the pack.
These provide the ability to place blessings and curses on sims once you’ve assembled
the requisite components, and we’ll get to what these can do in a bit.
But yeah, back to exploring the jungle, which really does look pretty nice.
There may only be one environment, but it’s a decently varied one with waterfalls, bridges,
cliff sides, and all sorts of lush vegetation.
Still, its limitations are apparent pretty quickly since each jungle location is actually
quite small with only a handful of interactive items in it.
But you do get a choice of pathways from time to time, and you can’t explore the entire
jungle in one vacation since it only allows a certain number of gates to be passed through
per trip, providing an artificial incentive to take multiple trips.
And you’ll want to explore enough to find the Hidden Temple, a randomly generated building
that contains a variety of mazes, traps, treasures, and puzzles.
Well, I say puzzles, but what I really mean are things that you click on, let a sim examine
for a minute, then depending on your skills and random chance
you’ll either find out the answer or you won’t.
There’s not much in the way of logic or challenge, it’s a bunch of clicking on pillars,
totems, pressure plates and bowl offerings and seeing if your sims have the attributes
and luck needed to pass to the next section.
Yeah, sticking your hands into dark wall holes is never advised, unless you’re in The Sims
4 and are looking for something fun to happen.
Sometimes it’ll only be a spider or some creepy crawly, other times you’ll be poisoned
and have to seek out an antidote in town, other times you’ll
randomly do something right and you can move on.
And each new room of the temple will provide some treasures in the form of dig sites, simoleons,
relics, and even treasure chests full of, well, treasure.
There are also skeletons.
*air horn!* *skeleton laughter*
Hehe, ah I’ve missed skeletons being in The Sims, and the
fact that they’re back was the single biggest reason I was curious to play this pack.
Unfortunately they’re not a new life state exactly, so you can’t go about making your
own skeletons in Create A Sim or being a skeleton full-time.
But you can at least find and interact with them when you come across them, and even become
one temporarily by way of blessings and curses.
Remember those relics I mentioned earlier?
Well one of them is a death relic that will turn your sims into a skeleton for a few days.
Another one will even summon a service skeleton to take care of chores in your household.
It’s no Bonehilda, but it’ll do in a pinch.
Yah, collecting and assembling all of the relics are one of the main things to accomplish
while adventuring, and again it’s a lot of compulsive busy work
but the results can be enjoyable while it lasts.
Especially when using a relic results in an unexpected death like spontaneous combustion.
*groans of combusting agony*
The other big thing to do while you’re in Selvadorada is to level up your culture skill.
As you increase your Selvadoradian Culture level you’ll be able to partake in more
local activities, like doing a local dance and using local greetings
and playing local songs on the guitar.
And this is accomplished by just... doing things.
Everything from talking to locals to studying artifacts to drinking cocktails results in
an increase in the new Selvadoradian Culture skill.
Yeah that’s right, there’s a culture skill that you can max out
by drinking yourself into oblivion.
It’s a slow way to level up, but hey, if you believe in yourself you can do it.
Now that is the look of a cultured sim.
While this is mostly only useful while visiting Selvadorada, there are of course the expected
new items that are useful everywhere, like the
four new chairs and a new stool that you get.
There are over 170 new items in build mode in general, with a little bit of everything
from surfaces to beds to pillars to plants and wallpapers and a whole bunch of knicknacks,
all fitting in with its stylized faux-Latin American aesthetic.
Good stuff if you’re into building lots in tropical and desert environments,
which I admittedly am.
You even get a barrel grill which makes me happy for some reason.
I don’t know I just like repurposed-looking items like this.
There’s also a handy light-up display box for showing off all the historical artifacts
that you’ve stolen, er plundered, er COLLECTED from the land and people of Selvadorada.
Although, it does seem like sims are oddly attracted to using it
for putting down food they’ve prepared.
I’m not sure why but if they make some food and it goes missing, it’s probably in the
display case next to the cursed skulls.
And yeah, that’s The Sims Jungle Adventure game pack.
It’s $20. Is it worth picking up?
I mean, if you’re looking for something different to do in a pretty environment in
The Sims 4, this certainly provides that.
But I wouldn’t think of it as a long-lasting overhaul to the game.
I mean, I do appreciate all the new collectibles, the new latin radio stations, spicy foods
and drinks, and being able to woohoo in more bushes.
But I felt like I had my fill after only a few hours of playing, having raided all the
jungles I could find, befriended every skeleton, and maxed out my skills in drinking Selvadoradian
liquor and digging up all their priceless artifacts to
plop onto the ground next to my pool.
It’s a fun time and it does some fun things, but whether or not the new stuff is what you
want in your game is obviously up to your own preferences.
For me it’s a neat distraction and I’ll always welcome more ways to make sims perish,
but I also don’t think it’s a vital expansion either.
What it is though is good for a bit of fun and I’m fine with that.
*upbeat outro music plays all upbeatedly*
And if you enjoyed this look at this Sims 4 pack then why not
check out some of my others, I’ve done a bunch of them!
And I do all kinds of videos every Monday and Friday right here on LGR.
And as always thank you very much for watching!