*mechanical keyboard typing*
You know, ever since I started reviewing all of these some years ago,
I have gotten one question about The Sims 3 more than any other
and that is which expansion pack is the best?
Which one's the crappiest?
How does this one compare to this other one?
And, you know, until they were all out I had no way of really answering that properly
but now that they're all here
and it's done
and The Sims 4 is on its way
I figured it's as good a time as any to take a look back
at all the Sims 3 expansion packs
and Stuff Packs
and put them in some sort of arbitrary subjective list
that I would put together if I were to do so, and I just did,
so let's watch it.
First we're gonna start at my Expansion Pack list
and we're gonna go from the very worst to the best
and then we'll do the Stuff Packs after that
So, let's get straight to
#11 Showtime
The pack at the very bottom of my list is here for good reason:
It was completely unnecessary!
Not just because of the Katy Perry connection, I don't give two craps about her being on the cover or not,
w hat bothered me was that we already had Late Night before this
and Showtime was basically the same thing with a slightly different coat of paint.
I didn't find the new careers fun,
didn't care for the online social features,
Simport was a mess,
and the genie was just kind of there.
This was just completely forgettable
and was the first expansion I uninstalled immediately after reviewing it.
#10 Supernatural
All right, I know several are going to send me hate mail for this, but whatever!
As I said in my review, I just don't care for these creepy and kooky mysterious and spooky paranormal Packs.
I did like some of the outfits and the goth-infused items
but the rest of it, I never played with ever again.
My style of play is more grounded in reality
and whenever you start tossing in fantasy elements, you lose me.
Give me a spin-off game if you're going to do that!
And, holy crap, where those zombies annoying or what?
Maybe they were after brains so much
because whoever made it so that you couldn't initially disable them needed a brain,
badly.
#9 Into the Future
Freakin' time travel!
OK, Sims team, you done jumped the shark on this one.
It's silly, over-the-top, and downright sub-par
as far as things it adds that I actually find fun.
Traveling to utopian and dystopian futures and messing with sci-fi fantasy objects
can be a fun gimmick, but for me the charm wore off quickly
and it became more of a nuisance than a really compelling way to play.
Building your own androids is easily the best part of the Pack
but the fact that you can then bring these overpowered superbeings into the main game totally broke my immersion.
#8 World Adventures
When this first came out, I was not impressed at all
because it made The Sims 3 feel like more of a spin-off of the life simulator it should have been.
It added objectives, progression, and adventure end goals
that, to me, didn't belong in this type of sandbox game.
However, as time went on I really started to appreciate the fact
that it provided three distinct new areas to explore that differend from the rest of the game
and it broke up the monotony of living a normal life
and let me explore tombs like some sort of Indiana Jones with bladder control problems.
It's not a bad pack at all, actually,
it's just not my cup of tea 100% of the time.
#7 Pets
The only reason this is not higher on my list
is the fact that I am not a huge pets person.
I love my pets in real life, but I just don't have much fun keeping up with them in The Sims.
I'd rather just make Duke Nukem and attempt to woo-hoo the entire town
instead of spending all my time training Fido to not take a million dumps on everything.
Unicorns were pretty cool I guess, if only because they were Hell's minions in disguise,
but I just don't care much for this one otherwise.
The only thing that kept it installed on my hard drive was the town itself,
which had this cool neverending fall aesthetic.
Also, that ice cream truck still creeps me out
and I wish it would just crash into a telephone pole and explode.
#6 Island Paradise
I've gotta be honest, the only reason this isn't closer to the bottom of the list
is because of my own life experiences.
Having lived on an island in the Caribbean myself in real life,
the fact that you could finally have a bit of that lifestyle in The Sims 3 was just awesome to me.
Otherwise this Pack is kind of forgettable
with only houseboats, SCUBA diving, and running your own hotel being the highlights
and all of them can be lived without in your game quite easily.
It also broke the playability of the game after extended use for some people,
myself included,
so use with caution.
#5 Ambitions
If you think about how much time your Sim spends at work,
or messing around with random hobbies and skill-building at home,
it makes sense that an Expansion adding to both of these would come highly recommended.
New careers, expanded base game careers, new hobbies and skills,
tattooing, thrift shops, and freaking detonation
made for quite the enjoyable Expansion Pack in my eyes.
And it came with a whole new town that I felt was nicely designed
and I used it quite a bit.
It's all the kind of stuff I think of when I think "Expansion Pack"
without delving into the territory of fantasy or paranormal silliness
and that makes it well worth it to me.
#4 Generations
I am well aware that some people don't like this one much,
and I can see why.
You only get the most bang for your buck from this if you play with families and Sims of all ages
and several of the new additions seem minor or were added to the base game through a free patch anyway.
But while I can certainly live without a lot of the stuff it adds,
it just fleshes out so much of the game and adds so many new interactions and options
that it feels like a very worthwhile addition.
Basically, Generations is all stuff that should have been in the base game to begin with,
and that's either a good or a bad thing depending on how cynical you are.
#3 University Life
As you might have understood by now, I really enjoy the opportunity to do something a little different
from the normal routine in The Sims,
provided it's also pretty realistic and doesn't go overboard.
And University Life is the best example of that in my opinion for The Sims 3.
Your Sims aged young adult and older can attend college and enjoy all that that entails
including copious amounts of streaking
and experimenting with mood-altering substances.
It's chock-full of new activities, items, and skills,
and the pace is just different enough from the normal gameplay
that it's a great distraction from the virtual rat race of the rest of the game.
#2 Late Night
This was my favorite Pack for a long time for one simple reason:
Cities.
I love cities!
I love tall buildings, I love the city lifestyle,
I love the high-rise apartments you can live in here,
and I really dug the new dive bars and night clubs.
It's a shame that most of the time they were completely empty
and that the celebrity system was more of a pain than fun for very long
largely due to the stupid paparazzi that never went away.
It also had vampires that were less involved than those in Supernatural
but I didn't care. I just wanted to walk around the city
and enjoy the downtown ambience and get fat off of food trucks.
And #1 Seasons
If you saw my review for this, you'll know that this is one of the few Packs that seriously drew me in
right at the beginning and got me excited for The Sims 3 again.
I loved seasons in The Sims 2, and they were even better here.
Rain, snow, summer, autumn, holidays, aliens,
this was just an all-around enjoyable Expansion Pack
and I didn't hate any of it.
In fact, I thought it was the one that changed the absolute most about the game
no matter how you choose to play
because weather is such an intrinsic part of everyday life
in both The Sims and the real world.
Weather changes moods, changes plans, changes smalltalk conversation topics.
It's just something that should always be in a life simulator, and I approve 100%.
And now it's on to the Stuff Packs,
and as you might have guessed if you saw my reviews of those,
I don't particularly care for any one of them too much
mainly because the price is ridiculous for what you get.
But, whatever, here are my best and worst
and this time we're going the opposite direction;
we're starting with my favorite and ending with my least favorite.
Let's get straight to
#1 High-End Loft Stuff
Yeah, go figure that the very first Stuff Pack they released would also end up being the best
and it would all go downhill from here.
Even though I wasn't super psyched about it to begin with,
it added several items that I frequently used
and brought back some from The Sims 1 as well,
which makes this my favorite Stuff Pack.
#2 Fast Lane Stuff
Cars are awesome, garages are awesome,
and rockabilly music is awesome.
And yeah, Sims still teleported inside of these cars
but that's more the fault of the base game, not this pack.
Plus, the Norwegian version of this was called Full Fart
and that still makes me laugh.
#3 70s, 80s, & 90s Stuff
I still don't know why they didn't just call this Decades Stuff, but whatever.
It's three of my favorite decades in one Pack. What's not to love?
Well, other than the fact that it left out a lot of stuff that was super iconic from those decades,
and many items just look generic
but whatever, it still had its place and it came with some really cool music.
#4 Town Life Stuff
This was pretty much just a bunch of prebuilt lots
but nonetheless I had fun making my own phallic town
using it in conjunction with the Create-A-World tool.
And while the lots it came with didn't add anything new to the game,
they still look pretty cool, at least if you're into that type of modern architecture.
#5 Outdoor Living Stuff
All sorts of stuff for living outdoors
and some stuff for the almost-outdoors,
pretty boring as far as premises go,
but I also ended up using several of these items in my houses throughout the years
and farting on non-drinkable lemonade side, it could have been worse.
#6 Master Suite Stuff
My, my, what a Stuff Pack!
Sure, all it added were eye masks and a bunch of stuff for your bedroom,
and the best I can say is, at least most of it looked half-decent.
But honestly the greatest part about this pack were the item names full of innuendo and sexual connotations.
"Glamour Puss" and
"Delicate Dangling Participle"?
Ooh, yeah, talk dirty to me Sims team!
#7 Movie Stuff
Generic cosplay outfits and nonfunctioning decor items, meh!
I can't say I've ever used anything from this pack beyond what I did for the review
except for maybe the Dr. Frank-N-Furter outfit
just to amuse myself when everything else got boring.
#8 Diesel Stuff
Ugh, son of a nutsack, what a waste of hard drive space this was!
I didn't care about the brand
and half the items were downright hideous.
Not only that, but many of them didn't let you change their style
so even if you did like the mesh, you were stuck with some awful texture on top of it.
and finally #9 Katy Perry's Sweet Treats
Ah, yes, the Sweet Treats House of Pain
and me eating the artwork at the end of the review.
Need I say more?
Yes, in fact, I do, because this was an atrocity and represents all of the worst aspects of the Sims series
from the lazy item design
to the stupidly high price
to the hamfisted cash-grab nature
of its half-hearted celebrity endorsement.
Sweet Treats made me fear for the future of a series that I love
and it also makes me shed a malcontent tear
knowing that sealed copies now sell for upwards of $70.
And knowing that even when I bashed this thing to hell and back
that might have actually made some people want it more
which makes me feel like a bad person.
Screw this Pack; I hope I forget about it.
And that is all for my best and worst of the Sims 3 Expansion Packs.
Stay tuned for my full review of The Sims 4
on this channel shortly after it comes out.
All of these are gonna be dirt cheap soon now that The Sims 4 is coming out on September 2nd 2014
so if you've missed any of these and anything that I said sounded intriguing,
maybe it's a good idea to keep a lookout for some sales and grab it
as long as it's not Sweet Treats.
Ah, but whatever, they stop manufacturing that anyway
which is just good for the betterment of humanity.
And if you want more in the meantime, there are plenty of videos on my channel
covering The Sims 3, The Sims 2, 4, and 1, and whatever else I happen to cover
which is a lot of stuff; I make new videos every single week
so subscribing is not only very appreciated, but would help you get more content to hopefully enjoy.
And you can also interact with me and other Simmers on Twitter and Facebook
as well as support LGR on Patreon which lets you not only support the show
but also provides perks like being able to see videos there before anywhere else at all.
And, as always,
I thank you very much for watching.