Winter is one of the most interesting seasons visually, as the snow varies in severity, and can pile up pretty high, forcing Sims to trudge through knee deep snow that blankets the town. During Spooky Day, a Sim version of Halloween, Sims can dress up and go trick or treating house to house. At the festival for fall, Sims can bob for apples, take part in a pie eating contest, or pick a pumpkin to carve. Sims can rake up fallen leaves and jump in the piles as the season winds down, heading into winter. If a Sim heads out on a warm fall day in a t-shirt and shorts, but doesn\’t change by dusk, they can start to feel a chill from the drop in temperature. There is also rain during this season, and every other season if the temperature is above freezing, although the bulk of the rainstorms come during spring. Foliage is accurate to real life, meaning, only deciduous trees will change color. Throughout the fall season, the temperature begins to drop and the leaves begin to change, eventually falling to the ground. The summer holiday is Leisure Day, loosely based off the 4th of July, complete with fireworks. Alternatively, Sims can spend too much time in the sun, causing them to get a sun burn or even death by spontaneous combustion.ĭaylight is longer in the summer and heat waves can set Ways to avoid heat exhaustion are by holding a parasol while outside, eating ice cream, and having the trait or using lifetime reward points to buy the trait \”Immune to heat\”. The quality of the spray tan isn\’t always perfect, and other Sims can meddle with it, causing the Sim to get an uneven cover. Sims can sit in the sun to develop a natural tan, or they can make use of the tanning booths, which gives them a spray tan. Sims now have the ability to swim in the ocean, have pool parties, and go tanning. When launching a town with seasons for the first time, the default season is summer. Aliens can make a visit to a Sim town, and Sims can befriend them, leading to the possibility of being abducted or going for a joy ride in a spaceship. The occult figure added into seasons, is Aliens, which was originally introduced in The Sims 3. Generally, each expansion pack for The Sims 3 includes a new occult Sim, and more often than not, it is a nod to previous versions of The Sims and The Sims 2. The weather animation is impressive, clouds will darken to forewarn a storm, snow will gradually melt away, the wind will howl and blow trees around, among other effects.
A main park has been designed by developers that will work best with each town, and when the player loads the town for the first time, it prompts them with the option to update the town with the new lot now or to do it later. Each season has a specific holiday, which is celebrated with a festival in the town\’s main park. Alternatively, one season can be permanently set for a town in a save file. The automatic setting for each season is 7 days long, but it can be adjusted, and certain seasons can be omitted, as well as certain weather patterns. After playing with Seasons, it\’s hard to imagine how I could stand a perfectly sunny day, every day. Each season is well thought out, and is incredibly detailed and realistic. It might seem disappointing, but once the seasons are put into play, it makes sense why developers focused on updating previous towns. While some players were disappointed by the lack of a new town, developers have stood by their choice, claiming that it came down to enabling all towns from previous expansion packs to be compatible with Seasons, or creating a new town and leaving the other towns without seasons. Seasons is an exception, as it did not come with a new town. Traditionally, with The Sims 3 expansion packs, there will be a new town or world included, which maximizes the new elements of the expansion pack. The additions are clever and often revealed only with exhaustive gameplay or time, as evident by the ever-evolving wikis and walkthroughs, which grow slowly as new features are discovered. That being said, each expansion pack introduces subtle nuances to the game, in addition to new character traits and objects, and The Sims 3 Seasons is no exception. Between the mix of personality traits available for a Sim, life goals, jobs, careers, age, the random generated NPC characters, and the personality of the player most anything is possible. It starts with the player, they create a traditional Sim working a 9-5 at the local bookstore, or one whose ambition is to become a rock star, or a criminal, or a politician, or an athlete, or a world-renowned surgeon, and much more. There are so many variables that affect gameplay, which increase with each expansion pack. One of the greatest aspects of playing The Sims, from the first Sims to The Sims 3, is that the game is really what you make of it. EA has released The Sims 3 Seasons, the eighth expansion pack for The Sims 3 franchise, which launched in 2009.