Once, video games never received updates, but these days we pretty much expect them. Half a dozen every time you switch on your iPhone, and five minutes of downloading whenever you put a new Xbox 360 game in.
But the mobile platform is pretty much stuck with whatever game is initially released, and while it's good that companies aren't releasing unfinished games like they do on the App Store, it also means that minor upgrades to an existing game - like The Sims 3 - means a whole new purchase.
Same Sims, different world
The third game in the series seemed to come and go, but it was very well received on pretty much all platforms thanks to its distinctly gamey feel - and that includes mobile. It broke away from simulation and brought light relief through arcade, adventure, and RPG mechanics.This new version is very much built on that same system, which works particularly well on handheld platforms where building mansions and carrying out lifestyle management duties are more of a chore.
Only now your Sim is quite the jet setter, with his goals focused around journeys to far distant shores.
An airport has been added to the town, which serves as a gateway to the world. The adage "it's a small world" is particularly relevant, however.After creating your Simand building their psychological profile (a mean spirited psychopath with a good sense of humour, for instance) the usual goals and random life events are offered up at intervals - interspersed with the usual cleaning, feeding, grooming and social management duties.
It's a very small world
You're now required to make a Chinese person laugh, excavate treasure in Egypt, or fall in love with someone French. Trips around the globe are surprisingly affordable, and only take a few moments of your time, so it's easy enough to nip to China and be home in time for tea and medals.
Too easy, in fact. Each country is smaller than your Sim's house, with a few stereotyped artefacts littering the place to really drive home which country you're in (a Pharaoh's sarcophagus poking out of the sand that covers all of Egypt, for example).
A few very basic mini-games are used to represent the goals that come your way, but nothing that adds any depth to the overall game.
The remainder of play boils down to point and click mechanics as you attempt to meet the strange challenges a Sim faces in everyday life, which loses much of its charm now that the locations dotted around town have been replaced by semi-offensive trivialisations of real world cultures.
It's very hard to justify The Sims 3: World Adventures, as it's nothing more than the exact same game with a few graphics swapped out (and not that many) and goals involving a quick jaunt to the other side of the world before coming home in the afternoon for tea and medals.
At least the original game placed you in a living, breathing community of Sims, upon whom you enacted your strange, devious, loving or friendly ways. That community gameplay is gone in World Adventures, and this leaves a significant gap.
