The Sims 3 Showtime - Limited Edition (PC DVD)

The Sims 3 Showtime expansion adds a lot of new content to the game.
There's a new neighbourhood "Starlight Shores" which contains new performance venues and of course new sim families.
You can now perform as a D.J, singer, acrobat or magician (personally I think the latter is the most fun). You can use existing venues or build your own - there's a big new range of stage props etc.

There is now a new "Performance" tab in the clothing menu, with new stage outfits & make-up to use for your shows.

Start your career by performing for tips and as your skills and performance abilities improve, you can get gigs at local venues by using the "audition" interaction on the proprietor of the venue, if you impress them they will give you a gig date which will be recorded in the "gig schedule" tab which has been added to the career section of your sim panel.

If you have a gig scheduled you can visit the venue up to two hours before the show to prepare your stage. Just click on the stage & you can choose props, lighting, special effects machines etc for your performance - if you like your set, you can save it for future use (props can be bought & stored in your inventory or just used for the show).

When your performance actually starts (usually lasts 2-3 hours), you can click on the stage and/or your sim to choose which actions they will use to dazzle the audience (bubbles sometime appear above the heads of the audience showing what they'd like to see/hear). You can also change the special effects and background music throughout your performance.

Other new features include, new lifetime wishes & happiness rewards, new skills (golfing & pool) and new character traits. As well as new objects, a few old favourites like the mechanical bull and the D.J booth have returned.

Haven't tried out the much heralded new social features yet, but apparently you can now "simport" your sims into other players games to perform at their venues (earns extra rewards). You can find new "friends" via an internet linked search box that can be accessed in-game via the options menu (look for the simport tab).

No instruction manual is included, but the in-game tips are helpful to newcomers to the game. Finally it's a good idea to make sure that your system meets the spec before you buy the game, you can use the Can You Run it website to check. So many people experience freezes, crashes or distorted graphics with new sims games, and it's often because they don't have enough RAM or their graphics card isn't up to scratch (though I must admit that EA games is notoriously slow to patch glitches & bugs). I've had no problems so far, but the odd crash isn't unusual with sims games so remember to do regular saves.

All in all a worthwhile expansion pack that adds a lot of fun to the original game.

It seems that EA have been trying to revive some of our favourites from previous Sims series and this is just another that many of us couldn't wait to get back. With a bit of a mixture between Makin Magic and Superstar we can re-enter the world of the rich and famous. So here's what I loved, and unfortunately what it's lacking:

I love that we have the opportunity to develop our sims into celebrities now - proper ones, not just the ones we seem to be able to accidentally create now by having lots of friends. There are a number of new careers available including a magician, singer, DJ and acrobat all of which can be accessed using the "Find a Profession" option on the computer (something I wish I'd known before searching the newspaper for jobs everyday!). There are also a few new things to cook, and recipes to read, and there seems to be a bit more focus on the vegetarian options as now we can buy recipes for those too. As with most expansions there are also a number of new traits, although not many, and new lifetime aspirations to purchase with our lifetime points and lifetime wishes to choose for our sims.

What's also great is the new online aspects. Now at first I was a little apprehensive about this option since I'm not really interested in playing online with other users but actually there's a lot more to this. You might be familiar with some of the "Community Pages" on the Sims3 website which allow players to share ideas and so on, well basically some of the ideas being passed around were challenges to try and accomplish within your game (nothing serious, just something to aim for whilst playing). But now, you actually win achievements for completing different things within the game. These achievements show up as badges which you can look at whilst playing on your player profile page (From what I can tell you have to be logged in to look at this but thats no trouble since you log in once the game starts playing - this is optional so you dont have to). I really like these achievements, there are absolutely tons of them and I particularly like having a purpose whilst playing. I'd liken it to the photography skill where you need to take certain photos in order to tick off parts of the photography journal.

So what else can this online feature do? Well if you have friends within the Sims3 community you can now send your sim (via the simport, a new easy to use feature) into their world to perform (as a magician lets say), whilst performing they are said to be "on tour" and can unlock certain achievements which go into your "tour album". This is great if you have a few online buddies but really it's an add on I don't picture many people using.

What else did I like? The new venues are nice. It's a bit like the late night expansion where finally you can enter the venues and control your sim but this time you can also change the stage for your performer to look exactly how you'd like. You also can control, if you want to, the tricks and so on that your performer is enacting at the time. This is a great feature, for so long players have complained that we have limited control of our sims whilst they work and now, the professional sims, we can control whilst they work.

But unfortunately there are a few set backs. Although I like the new costumes we can use for our performers (which we can customise too) I do feel like, considering this is an expansion pack, we haven't been given much new. The new hairstyles really are a let down, with the exception of maybe one or two at a push. As for new outfits, there really aren't any, just the performing ones which you can only access once you've unlocked them within the game as a specific performer.

Overall though, a really nice expansion pack. I'm glad that I've not wasted my money as I have been disappointed with EA a few times now due to boring expansions or stuff packs. I would recommend this as a great career expansion for your sims, hope this has been useful to someone.

This is yet more of the same from the Sims team. There is some interesting stuff here with shows able to be attended and audience participation, some good and interesting new graphics with people performing magic and stage shows, but very quickly the apathy sets in. The game needs a long lasting leg up... the only thing on offer is a quick fix. Very quickly the new material becomes hum drum. A Karaoke machine could have been designed as a television, stereo parts and microphone as interactive elements in their own right that, when combined, give you an experience. Instead you get a single item, one hit animation that repeats over and over. Once again the quality in this expansion is sadly lacking in ideas. EA have proved before that they can think outside the box, they just need to start to do it again.
If you're a fan it's probably a buy. If not, don't bother.