The Sims 3 Ambitions review

At the same time, though, some of the most potentially exciting jobs can also be the most automated. We found our Sims to be pretty good at automatically firefighting and ghost hunting without our help, except when Giles Ghosthunter would occasionally stop to play videogames in the client's house instead of dealing with his spirit problem.

Above: Only the coolest Sims fight fire in shades

Your Sim can work from home as a sculptor or inventor as well, and these options reap decent rewards in the form of usable in-game objects that get pretty cool as your sim gets better at making them. Inventions in particular are fun to mess with, especially as the skill improves.

One problem people will have with this expansion is the limited number of professions. They are a fantastic addition to the experience if you want a Sim who's a stylist, but players who prefer other careers are forced to miss out. We guess it's too hard to give the journalist profession exciting gameplay? Then again, if you pursue every profession until you master it, there's quite a bit of gameplay here. It's just that not all of it will appeal to everybody. The stylist profession will probably be divisive in that regard, especially when dealing with picky makeover clients.

Above: This woman wanted clothes that would entertain her children. We gave her hoop earrings

All told, Ambitions makes a lot of sense as an expansion, and it does a ton of things right. It's certainly one of the meatier expansions in the franchise's history in terms of sheer gameplay benefits, but it may segment its audience a bit too much, as not every profession will be enjoyable for every player.

Jun 25, 2010