Customer Reviews

The Sims Unleashed Expansion Pack

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Sim-ers have always wanted pets. The additions of fish and hamsters were rather unsatisfying (and sometimes lethal) additions. This new expansion packs will allow your sims to have dogs, cats, parrots, turtles and lizards as well.

Lots of new social interactions have been added, althought the Sims website has not been specific as to what those are. Your neighborhoods are bigger - 30 lots each which you can zone for commerical or residential use. Also there are new homes, new parks, a new cafe, new shops and a farmer's market! Your new dog or cat can be brought to these locales and used to interact with your sim neighbors. Just like in Downtown, time freezes when you're in the community sections.

Each neighborhood will include a pet store, where you can choose from 12 different cats (e.g., black cat and siamese cat), 12 different dogs (e.g., dalmatians, beagles, french bulldogs, spaniels, rotweillers, labs, greyhounds, german shepherds to name a few), 2 different birds (lovebirds and parakeets), or buy a turtle, lizard or fish. The Maxis folks haven't forgotten any of the details of pets, if you buy a male and a female of the same species, they just might have babies, dogs and cats (and dog and cat people) might not get along, and Kitty might take a liking to your bird or fish

Beware - your doggies and kitties (but not the other animals) need to be trained and cared for so they don't go to the bathroom in the house or rip us the trash. Don't worry - Maxis is kind enough to provide a dog trainer if you're feeling lazy. But, your pets are just like a member of your family - they will have needs and skills which can be acquired (through positive and negative reinforcement). Just like people, you have to develop a relationship with them. And just like your people, they can die of neglect, so be careful! Dogs and cats will also misbehave and get grumpy if you don't take care of them. Dogs and cats can also be entered in pet shows with prizes for obedience, tricks and good pet mood. You can't bring your pets downtown (although you can probably pick up a date in the pet park) but your whole family (including your pet) goes on vacation with you.

There's new stuff for your house too - you can can garden! Grow 4 different veggies in your patch (you have to buy seeds), careful gardening will result in a crop which you can sell (at the farmer's market) or store (in your new kitchen pantry). You might appreciate your pets here as you'll need to watch out for rabbits, gophers, mice and, as Maxis says ominously, other "unwelcome animals that come a callin'." (Mice, which your cat can keep away, will join roaches as house pets.) There will be 125 new objects for you and your pets (no details on those yet either), a new decorator set (New Orleans French Quarter), new skins and 5 new career tracks (fashion design, chef, vet, teacher, circus performer). Among the new objects are new chairs, new tables, new fountains, espresso machine, pastry cart, spiral staircase, and pet-oriented objects like food bowls, catnip, dog beds, treats, squeak toys, doghouses, pet gyms, chew toys, and scratching posts.

Based on my previous experiences with The Sims and the expansions to follow, The Sims Unleashed will be one hell of a game! Give your little simmies a vast array of new chalanges - Pets, Gardening (Pets will help keep away the little nasties)totally new career paths, (A first in an expansion since Livin Large) an expanded neighbourhood, with re-zoneable lots, and..... (Bet you didnt think there could be anything else!) Over 125 new objects, featuring a spiral staircase, cat posts, dog bowls and more!! Also, based on your sims cleanlieness, mice might come around (like the cockroaches from LL) but if you decide you sim wants a cat, the little kitties can help keep the mice under control. Watch out though, these little animals,(That your sims have now purchased from the local pet store) have needs of their own, like fun, bathroom, hunger and so on, and if you neglet Fluffy's needs, then her ghost will hang around the house, daunting your simmie and reminding him of the time he forgot to feed her, or play with her to keep her company. Your sim will also have to housebreak and train their new pet, praising it for good things and punishing for the bad. But the pets have a massive good side, all those bacholour sims out their looking for love, take Fido for a walk down at the park, and woo in those females with your adorable pooch, and err, you too I guess. (".) Pets can keep social scored sky high, or they can make 'em drop, for instance: If your simmie's mate Mortiamer Goth came around to see and pet Rover for the first time, and Rover didnt like Mortimer, your simmie's relationship with Mortimer would drop, and vica versa. Or on the other hand, if Mortimer also owned a dog, and your sim and Mortimer had a conversation about dogs, then both your sim and Mortimer would be very happy, and score brownie points with each other. However, as you might have guessed, a dog and a cat owner wont click so easily. Oh, and your sims pets aren't just for show, well actually thats all they are. Local pet shows open up the oppertunity for your sim to show of his or her well groomed pooch or adorable kitten, or maybe even their bird, lizard or turtle. (Oh and there's some little fishies too!!)
Enough about the pets, we still havnt discussed gardening, jobs and the new neighbourhood!
*Ehem* Jobs! In The Sims Unleashed there's gonna be a first since Livin Large (a.k.a LL) 5 New career paths! Each career with 10 levels as normal, so 50 new jobs! :) Your simmie can take up and hold (or not hold, depending on their attidute) a career in Education, Fashion, Animal Care, Culinary (The food industry) and even run away (well run away within the working hours) with the Circus!
*Moving on quickley* The new neibourhood! The 'normal' neighbourhood will be expanded into 40 residential and commuinty lots, which you can re-zone to your choice. You can create parks, cafes, shops and markets, and then have your sim call for a shuttle to be taken around to explore the new areas. Unlike Downtown in Hot Date,(HD)the areas wont be full of complete strangers, instead, will be populated by the people of that neighbourhood (its much bigger now so dont worry about the areas being empty!)
*Almost done!!* Gardening now, is the last leg of this review/preview... Now your sims can litterally 'live off the land' by buying vegie seeds at the local market and harvesting crops, to eat and/or sell, and by using their new pets to help shoo off the gofers and rabbits. Theres a new pantry which will store the simmies seeds and vegies when they're ready, and will act a bit like a fridge, as in the sims can grab out a healthy snack whenever they please.
Hope you enjoyed reading about the new Sims game, The Sims Unleased. Written by Meghan M, age 13

I know as a fact that any true Sim Gamer is constantly begging for more in "The Sims". I have all of the current 4 exp. packs, and knew I needed something new. Ah, how me and my friends have longed for gardens that aren't cheesy little "build mode" flowers, owning shops, cool cafes, and most of all-Pets. Well, a gift from god has been "unleashed" upon us puny mortals that satisfies all those needs! I give you, "Unleashed"!

Take a little stroll ito a new place called "Community", sort of like "Downtown Mode"or "Vacation Mode". As in Downtown, the time at home freezes when you go to Community. Once you're there, skip on over to the pet store, where you will find 12 different kinds of dogs, 12 different kinds of cats, around 3 kinds of birds, or a lizard, turtle, or fish. And there's even more--train your new friend to do tricks! But that's not all you have to train them to do. You'll also be required to train them things like, where to go to the bathroom. Too lazy? That's fine. You just need to reach the nearest phone to call a trainer. If you neglect your pet, however, It will wreak havoc. It will tear up your precious garden, drink from the toilet, and if it's ticked enough, get into the trash can and fill your house with litter.

Maxis didn't forget the nature of pets, though. If you have a cat and a dog, don't expect them to be best friends. If you get a male and female cats or dogs, expect kittens or puppies. Your pet could scare away unwanted pests from your garden. A cat will keep the mice away, but would probably be very interested in your fish or bird (Heh heh).

Take 'em to the park to find a new friend, encounter new enemies, or locate a new lover. You heard me--your pets will help you with new relationships! (Think "101 Dalmatians"!) If you touch another person's pet and the pet doesn't like you, the owner will slap you.

You can get your pet an assortment of stuff like toys, beds, scratching posts, exercise stations, chew toys, catnip, and tons of other things.

Buy seeds for a variety of crops and GROW WHAT YOU EAT!!! :) It looks different than the traditional plate of food in The Sims! If you have a worthy crop, you can also sell it at a farmer's market for some profit. Heck, you can own a store! Take your pets into a cafe and talk to others there with new interactions. or, go back home and use one of the new 125+ items that come in the Expansion Pack.

don't forget the New Orleans French spiral staircase! Since the dawn of The Sims, gamers wanted it.

Thank you Maxis! Thank you EA Entertainment! You have never let me down!
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Okay, by now, we all know what The Sims is. The perfect people simulator that lets you take total control of an actual family. You have to build their house, buy their necesseities and wants, make sure they have skills so they don't fall on their face, or, in worst cases, die, etc. There are a ton of things that you can do in The Sims. The Sims have been also expanded alot. Instead of a full-blown sequal, the people at Maxis have decided to expand their original Sims with more than 4 expansion packs, each giving the Sims even more to do.

Enter Sims Unleashed. Now the Sims have pets, or can have pets, and your Sim has to keep them happy, or they can actually leave your Sim for good. Cats, dogs, iguanas, snakes, birds. You name it, it's probably in here. The Sims can now have a garden, growing their own root vegetables. And where can they get all this stuff? The Old Town. Unleashed expands in your neighborhoods again, letting you have a mixture of community and residential lots. Instead of adding neighborhoods, though, they expand on the ones that are in the more core games of the Sims. Thus, now a full 41 lots are avaliable.

All of this is very good, and I recommnend it to anyone who has loved the Simulation genre for awhile. However, while playing, you will run smack dab into the same problem that has plagued the core Sims for two years. First, it seems like your Sims never get a day to relax. They are always needing to go to work, or make friends, and you only have one day to skip work (two days in a row, and you get your walking papers). It would be nice if the employer gave you a few days where you didn't have to come to work, or for the kids to have a few days off from school.

However, that's not a key issue to many. The issues starts when the Sims take FOREVER to do a simple action when trying to get TO what you want them to preform the action on. If something is in their way, then they will either try to find another way, or, even worse, the action will be forgotten altogether. All this time, and the Sims still haven't had the chance to learn how to move things out of their way, or tell someone to move (if someone is in their way, a Sim may just sit there and wait until nightfall until deciding to just give up waiting). This is the most annoying thing in the Sims, and it's even more fustrating when Maxis doesn't even acknowledge the problem and address it. The other main problem from the core game: the graphics. It's aging, FAST. Either Maxis should buckle down and just make a full-blown sequal, or find some way, in the next expansion, to improve the graphics engine for the original one.

Now to the key problems in Unleashed, all of which can be ignored, but still will loom a black spot over it. First, why can't I control the pet myself? The pet is totally free will, and the only thing you can do with your pet that it doesn't do itself is to say for it to go to a certain spot in the house. It would've been nice to be able to tell your pet to take a nap, or to play, or to hunt, or something. Secondly, is it me or are making friends unecessarily harder in this expansion that it was with all the others? Even if you are best friends with someone, it'll take several tries before you can even do simple actions such as hug them in Unleased, whereas it was very easy in Hot Date and Vacation (which had the exact same social engine). Sure, we love a challenge, but was this really necessary to do?

And then, the one thing that may really turn people away completly: this thing is a hardware HOG. First, if you don't have a good video card, and a good amount of space on your hard drive (say, 1.6 Gigs with Unleashed ALONE), then Maxis says too bad, so sad to you. It'll run awfully slow (this was the same thing that people understandably complained about with the recent expansions), and even on higher-end systems, it'll STILL take a toll on it. Especially in the Downtown, Old Town, and Vacation Island lots. And maybe 600 MB for Hot Date and Vacation was necessary to get all of what it had in it to your Sims game, but 1.6 GB for Unleashed, which really doesn't expand that much more than the former two expansions, sounds just plain ridiculous, and, in many cases, it is, and unnecessary. Also, Unleashed has it's glitches, as with the other expansions, but every computer game is bound to have it's missed bugs, no matter how hard the testing guys try to catch all of them. Maxis does a good job, though, at addresses these glitches (such as memory leaks, not sitting down to watch TV, floods going beneath objects), and release a patch to fix alot of these problems.

Even though you will get tired of the Sim world after awhile, WHEN you will is a good question. Despite it's key problems which Maxis fails to even see, The Sims is still a solid, addictive game which will worm into the hearts of many gamers, and Unleashed will just add to the fun. If you can excuse the problems, you'll find a wonderful expansion in Unleashed.

For all of you who think it's a waist of money or says "you could get the pets on the internet":

After viewing all the interviews and looking at all the latest photos, I would have to give this game a "5". Why? There are sooo many reasons!! First of all, for all of you who think pets can be downloaded off the Internet and be just as fun, you're WRONG! The pets on the Internet stink! I personally looove animals, but the ones on the Internet are boring and far from realistic! When they fall asleep (every hour), they'll make a loud and irritating snore! Also, they pee every ten minutes, all over the floor! Your Sims have to spend half the day cleaning up after their pets! At least you could potty train your animals on The Sims Unleashed! You can't even do anything with the downloaded animals! Ok, ok, you could play with them... Get real! It doesn't even look like the Sim is playing with the animal! He just kneels down, touches it, and gets back up! On The Sims Unleashed you could bring your pets places, train them to do tricks and put them in contests, buy them toys, talk to your pets, and much more! Can you do any of those things with the downloaded animals? I didn't think so!

Plus, the game isn't just ALL animals! Have you even read any of the reviews? You can go down to a local cafe, buy things at a market, have fun gardening, enjoy over 125 new objects, etc... The new objects are so cool! There is a new play gym for your animals, a neat little waterfall, a spiral staircase, attractive new curtains, a pet-grooming stand, and, of course, over 125 more objects! No website has a gardening download like there is on The Sims Unleashed! You have to keep animals from getting into them, you can store and eat them when they are fully-grown, and choose from many options on what to grow! Finally, there is an expanded neighborhood with 30 new residential homes and a new tool called "zoning"!

You have a huge selection of animals to choose from! If you wanted a sim who spent most of their time with their animals, you could have a cat or dog (each with 12 breeds). If your sim was always busy at work, you maybe have a bird, parrot, turtle, or lizard! Is that cool or what?! Lastly, you could build your own pet store and sell them there!

Why are people so down on Maxis?! They're just trying to make games, sell them, and make money like any other company! Give them a break and stop being sooo negative about them! Anyways, a lot of people like their games! And their expansion packs aren't some "I'm gonna make cheap games and sell them to people to make myself rich!" They're cool add-ons to make the game more fun!

This preview was made so I could set some of you straight and tell you to stop being so negative toward maxis. Also, thank you for creating such a cool game maxis! I'm gonna get myself the expansion pack right when it comes out! I can't wait 'till The Sims Unleashed is UNLEASHED!

Of the "The Sims" games that have been released so far, I have to say, I love this one the most. Get pets, train them, then show them! Breed them and keep the offspring, or sell them (better than all the kids that keep building up until I ship them off to military school)However...how is it that the strays can just wander in and out of my house open doors, and pee in my bathroom? Can I set a dog trap in the yard?
Gardens. These are a good idea, but just take so much work! A real garden doesn't take nearly as long. They really need a general command "Water garden" that waters all the plants, "Weed Garden" that does them all. Lining up the individuals.....tedious. But nice to not have to pay for food, and to make money. Beware the gophers and bunnies. Point two on gardens...why grow carrots? The rabbits just eat them before they grow all the way. I planted four lots, and only one grew all the way. Even with two cats, the rabbits ate my carrots. And with all the nerve that can be....one walked up to the plot my SIM was weeding and ate the carrots that were in the plot she was weeding. And if you don't have a cat, or two, the rabbits are really prolific and tie up the road. My school bus waited 3 hours while rabbits played in the road. And it honked the whole time.

The biggest problem that I have encountered is that, my housemates have a tendency to not interact. At all, except to "Praise, Scold, Give Treat" Somehow, it is confusing the animal and human interactions when they are at home.

The Old Town area is pretty neat. Lots of new shop types. Finally have espresso stands. Just have to have the whole group go. Which is a tad tricky getting everyone all rested, clean, fed, and ready to go. Parents of quadruplets have less problems accomplishing that task. Oh well. At least the pets will sleep anywhere. Home, Old Town, neighbor's house...they don't care. A nice little display cabinet to show off all the awards that your pet has won at various compatitions.

In all, I think it is the best release they have done yet, however, I wish they had worked out a few more things. Especially the bug where my people don't interact. Though "Praise" is an offer, it doesn't do anything when you select it.

First off, I would like to say that this expansion pack is worth buying. You get thirty lots in your neighborhood (some are commercial(grocery stores and farmers' markets) and some are housing lots)and of course you get pets. The only pets worth buying are the cat and the dog, because the other pets stay immobile and don't move around at all or interact very much. The only big difference is that the cat eats rodents. Also, they have put in a little farming minigame which allows you to grow crops and sell them, though I still prefer gnome-making... hehehe... There is also a park where people and their pets are frolicking around all over the grass and having a good time. There are some downsides, however. The dog and the cat count as a family member, so you can't have eight family members and a cat/dog, and, the big one, THERE ARE ALWAYS A BUNCH OF VERY ANNOYING STRAY DOGS WANDERING AROUND, RUNNING THROUGH YOUR HOUSE AND PEEING ON YOUR CARPET AND FLOOR! THEY RUN THROUGH DOORS! I have done EVERYTHING to keep them out(put up fences, barbed wire, furniture...) but they keep getting in and ruining my room score! But, all-in-all, the pros overcome the cons 5-to-1. If you want to hear some unique ideas of putting in a final expansion pack or the sequel, keep reading...
Enough with the expansion packs and on with the sequel!! We are tired of them! Yes, while a lot of ppl do enjoy watching ppl slide down waterslides, have snowball fights, and housetrain dogs, seriously... there are BILLIONS of things to do in this world, and it would take plenty more expansion packs to make them all available. If Maxis wishes to make anymore expansion packs, they should cut to the chase: add weather, let the Sims go to other Sims' houses (and I mean YOUR Sims to OTHER houses, with YOU as the guest), have different landscape surroundings besides green grass, be able to follow your Sims to work, add the ability of the Sims driving THEMSELVES to work, be able to go to horse and dog races and bet on them, be able to go on cruises, fly to different countries (and let the Sims actually go to the airport and buy the tickets and board the planes THEMSELVES...), buy a boat and go fishing in the ocean, be able to buy and sell stock, be able to control the sims with the keyboard while they are driving, skateboarding, skiing, snowboarding, etc. so you can steer, turn, and pull off tricks, allow the kids to earn money by washing cars and mowing lawns around the neighborhood, allow the kids to grow up, be able to go on walks and jogs to increase the Sims' body skill, allow the Sims to go to college to start up on degree-requiring career paths, be able to purchase life insurance for your Sims, have a life span (but allow the Sims to live a long and fruitful life before dying), change from third person to first person and back with the press of a keyboard button, and, because I am tired of writing down ideas, PUT ALL OF THESE IDEAS IN ONE OR TWO FINAL EXPANSION PACKS AND/OR START WORKING ON A SEQUEL!!!

I was probably more excited about the Unleashed expansion than any other Sims expansion, mostly because I am a HUGE animal lover and I had been telling my fiance a few days before I heard about it that I wanted pets for my Sims! It more then exceeded my expectations, though it did have some annoying faults (which have since been fixed).

The Stuff I Liked:
-The Pets!- Besides the fact that you get a TON of pets to choose from (plus if you go to the Sims website, they have more pet skins available to download), it's a lot of fun to play with and train your pets. I couldn't be happier with how the pets themselves work - they are awesome!

-Old Town- Old Town is a fun place to take your Sims! You can shop for seeds to make a garden at home, enter your pet in a show, hang out at the coffee shop.. It's a lot of fun - excellent addition!

-New Items- You get a TON of new stuff in this pack, mostly related to pets! There are lots of cool dog/cat houses, toys, scratching posts, you name it! There are also some fun new skins and clothes.

-New Neighborhood Design- I like the newer neighborhood design. Old Town is part of the overall neighborhood, giving you more lots to choose from!

Ok, the stuff I didn't like:

-Stray pets!- These guys are super annoying because they constantly pee all over your lot and come in your house and eat your pet food! Luckily, there is a fix to this which you can download from the Sims site, or I believe it comes with some of the newer expansion packs. It's a little "no stray" sign you put on your lot. It fixed all the problems for me!

-Pet Family Members- Dog and cats take up a family member "slot", so you can only have a certain amount. I tend to have huge Sim families, so this was a minus in my opinion.

-Old Town- You have to take your entire family (pets included) whenever you go to Old Town. If one of your family members is at work, no one can go until they get back! This is annoying to me and hasn't been fixed with any of the new packs. I wish there was an option to take only the family members you want to Old Town.

Overall - I give this expansion 5 stars. Bottom line - even with bugs, it's still a lot of fun to play!!

I was disappointed in Unleashed because I was under the impression that it would make the game more fun. While it's great to go get pets and have a veggie garden, the reality is the expansion is not that great. My computer was top-of-the-line last summer, and I own all of the expansion packs. I'm only using half my hard drive and I clear all unnecessary programs before I start the game. It takes four minutes (at least) to load and the game lags during play.
Plus side: You get to choose the breed of your pet(cat/dog), name it, choose the gender, and train it at home (which can be time-consuming). The downtown area is nice, and it's free to get to. The new "call Neighbor" function on the phone lets you access more people than the old flow-chart method. You can grow your own food, but it kills your time, energy, and fun. In order to sell your veggies, you have to take them to town.
Neg. side: Beyond telling the pet where it can go, you can't control the animals. I guess this makes sense if we're sticking to the idea that you can only control people, but then what's the point of including the dogs and cats in the family if you can't control them? Also, added to the roaches and the weird bear that plays with your garbage, we have rabbits galore, gophers, mice, skunks, and the infamous raccoon. Add ten stray dogs and cats and you have a zero yard score. Also, you can't delete or stop actions already in a pet's queue, which can get annoying if your cat wants to chase its tail and your sim wants to give it a bath or pet it or something. The veggie garden was more of a pain that it should have been.

It looks like Maxis just pushed this out and didn't really put a lot of thought in it. I wish their install program would let you pick features you wanted in the game and leave others out (I can live with the roaches and the homeless flies, but mice and rabbits? It's a jungle out there!) On the other hand, there's some fun features and a new decorating theme: French Quarter.

This new expansion sounds great! There are 12 types of dogs ( dalmations, beagles, french bulldogs, french poodles, chocolate labs, rotweilers, cocker spaniels, greyhounds, german shepherds, australian shepherds, I think yellow labs, and the other I don't know) 12 cats(calicos, himalayen, gray and orange tabbys, siamese and black cats) and parrots, lovebirds, goldfish, turtles, parrakeets, lizards and monkeys. You buy them at the petshop (a new feature in downtown) and they can grow up and breed. They are another memeber(s) of the family. You do have to train them, but you can hire a trainer. The petshop sells all the needed things, but also any accessories as well. Pets can help your sims with relationships,you can enter your pets in petshows, and take them on vacation with you.
Sims can also now grow there own vegetables, which they can cook and eat, or sell for cash. They also have a farmers market in town, where you buy seeds and buy vegetables, if you don't feel like growing them. If you are going to grow something, your going to be visited by mice, gophers, and rabbits, but your trusty pets chase them away.
There are 15 new lots, and five new residential lots. Zoning allows you to put houses and families in downtown! There are over 125 new items and five new career tracks: cooking, the circus, education, fasion, and animals, ofcourse! This expansion pack sounds great to me! I wouldn't want to miss it!