A new way to play with careers
The Sims 3 Ambitions introduces a new way to play with careers, giving us the possibility to follow our Sims at work (for certain careers) and to directly manage them.
The new active careers are the followings: Firefighter, Ghost hunter, Architectural designer, Investigator and Stylist.
Educational career has been added too and it works in the classical way.
Our Sims can also turn their hobbies into a job, registering themselves as a self-employers and becoming painters, gardeners, fishermen, writers, photographers, nectar makers…
The items they produce can be sold at the consignment store.
Medical careers has been upgraded and you can now do some little jobs outside (vaccinations and so on).

The new careers have several levels and the progress is tracked by job experience bar.
You don’t have to reach a certain skill level in order to progress, but you are noticed about what could help your Sim to reach the next level (skills, responsibilities…).
Clients’ satisfaction is also a good help for experience increasing.
Not all the careers have defined working hours.

Firefighters
Firefighters are heroes and it seems that female Sims are quite impressed by them…
They have to stay at the Fire Station in order to hear the alarm for local emergencies.
When a house is set to fire or there’s a earthquake, the firefighter has to go to the affected lot (an icon on the map will show it) and start the job, saving Sims and put out fires.

Architectural designers
Architectural designers’ career is one of the most interesting ones that the game ever had.
As you know, while playing with a family, the other Sims evolve at the same time and sometimes it happens that they get married, have a new job, grow up or have a baby.
They cannot add a new room or a bed by themselves to make space for the new comers, and sometimes it happens to find a family with 3 Sims and 2 beds only or to see a teenager with the same bedroom he had while he was a baby.
Thanks to Ambitions, architectural designers can see on the map the families that need a restyling and would like to offer them a job.
Once the job has been accepted, the designer talks with the client and measures the house.
A window shows us the description of the job we have to do, available budget and the list of the requirements (1 bed, 1 chair, 3 windows, 1 easel…).
When all the requirements are satisfied, we can tell the client that we are done with the job. Job experience bar increases as much as the client is satisfied.
If we did a good job, we can also take a picture for our portfolio or to show in our studio.

 

Stylists
Stylist change the look of other Sims, giving them a new set of clothes, a new hairstyle and a new makeup.
They have access to special clothes and hairstyles, that can be unlocked while gaining job experience.
Like Architectural Designers, they can take a picture for their portfolio.
The Styling station is the item you need to do this job at home or at the community fashion center.

Tattoos
Tattoos can be done both in CAS and inside the game, with the tattoo station. Sims can make tattoos to others or to themselves.
Tattoos system is really well done and you can make tattoos everywhere.
The game gives us tons of pics that we can recolor or resize. Thanks to layers, we can combine different pics and create our own tattoos, that can also be saved for the future.
If you don’t want your skin to be painted anymore, you can remove the tattoo.
Children and teens cannot be tattooed. Grant said that they discussed about it at the beginning, but then they decided to cut it.

Skills
Ambitions improves skill system with Inventing and Sculpture skills.
Inventors can create innovative items, like toys, widgets and robots (Simbots) by using scraps, that can be collected at the Junkyard or after exploding old items.
Sculptors can use different medium, like metal, wood, ice… and can also make a sculpture of another Sim. This is a great feature for the ones that would like to put the sculpture of the most famous Sims of the city in the local museum.

 

SimBots
Simsbots are the new creatures of the game. They can be created by inventors (but it’s quite tricky and it takes a lot) or bought with lifetime happiness points.
If no one wanna talk with them, they can fill up their social needs by talking with microwaves.
They like to destroy objects, so then they can obtain scraps, their favorite food. As they are metallic, they cannot have a shower.

The time machine
Inventors can create a time machine, that will let them to travel in the future or in the past.
When a Sim use it, you cannot follow him, but some messages tell you what he is doing. Once back, he can get something special, like medieval or primitive clothes & hairstyle. You can whoohoo in it and also have a child… but he/she can be older than you or a teenager or adult already.

 

Traits
The new traits are the followings: born salesman, dramatic, eccentric, eco-friendly, perceptive and savvy sculptor.
Born salesmen can sell their items for a better price.
Dramatic Sims react in a exaggerate way to everyday events.
Eccentrics are good inventors.
Perceptive Sims are perfect for Investigator career.
Savvy sculptors have a natural talent for sculpting skill.
Eco-friendly Sims care about the environment and don’t want to waste water. They prefer to use the bicycle and they dry the clothes with the clothesline and not the electric dryer.
I really appreciate this attention for ecology, it’s a great idea in order to make players more sensible to this issue.

Laundry system
In The Sims 3 Ambitions you can now use the washing machine.
Players asked for that for many years, and this is another proof of the fact that EA listens to us.
How the laundry system work? Our Sims will start to leave dirty clothes on the floor, that can be washed with the washing machine and then dried on the clothesline or with the dryer.
Wearing clean clothes gives our Sims positive moodlets, increasing lifetime happiness.
Do you hate washing clothes in real life and you don’t like the idea to do it also The Sims 3?
No problem, you don’t have to use the laundry system if you don’t want to! Sims leave dirty clothes around the house only if you have a washing machine in it.
This is a great design solution, since it lets the player to decide if he wants to use this feature or not.

The new city
Ambitions introduces a new city: Twinbrook. That’s one of the best cities The Sims 3 ever had, with a nice pond and amazing places.
His city hall, school, hospital and venues are new (they don’t look like the ones in Sunset Valley) and you can also find a fashion center (for tattoos and stylists), a fire station, a laundromat and a consignment shop.
Those places can be added to Sunset valley or other cities without any problem, so you are not forced to play in Twinbrook if you want to use the fire station or the other new lots.
Lots (empty ones included) can now be moved where we want. That’s great, because we can organize the city how we want and we don’t have to stick to fixed positions anymore. Landscape decorations, like trees, landmarks and rocks can now be placed in the city, outside the lots.
Thanks to build mode upgrades, we can change the high of the roof sections and columns.

New dialogue interface
All the messages that use to pop up up on the right of the screen are now organized into a new dialogue interface. There you can see the messages divided into categories, read the previous or the next one,
keep the ones that you want to read again and delete the ones you are not interested about.

Conclusion
While at the beginning Will Wright was the “mind” of the game, starting from The Sims 2 and especially with The Sims 3, players are the ones that decide the topic of the expansion packs, like game designers.
EA is listening to players needs a lot and every time there’s a new expansion pack they always include something we asked for.
How long were the players asking to follow Sims at work and have a washing machine? Now they have it and the best thing is that you can decide to use those features or not (classical careers are still there and if you don’t put a washing machine in your house, you don’t have to wash clothes).
And what to tell about Architectural designer career? During the presentation we were all excited about it, and I’m sure that everybody will love it, as decorating houses is what players like most. This is an expansion pack you must have! 

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