Island Living; is it lacking?

"drake_mccarty;c-17143657" wrote:

"simfriend1968;c-17143528" wrote:

"Jadesimmer;c-17143490" wrote:
If you have ever played sims3 Island Paradise before, Island Living cannot call it as expansion pack!

Island Paradise for many (including me) was a buggy, laggy, almost unplayable pack, even with mods. The world was not even as nice as Sunlit Tides. Sulani, in contrast, is gorgeous, immersive and fun to explore, with an ocean that sims can actually interact with, changing sea life, a new culture with related traits and an aspiration, a place where Sims can live a very different lifestyle than they can anywhere else.

Unless I’m mistaken sims can basically do the same things with the ocean in this Ex Pack that they could in Sims 3, unless there’s something I’m missing? They can swim, snorkel, use watercraft, float, .... am I missing something? You could do these things in any Sims 3 world though, not just the EP world.

I didn’t think this EP changed the game very much at all, but that’s just my experience with it. I found my Sims living the same life here that they would in any other world, it’s not that different you can swim in the ocean and that’s about it.

I think Ocean swimming has been improved in several ways over what it was in Sims 3. I was just playing Island Paradise the weekend before the latest pack came out so it is fresh in my mind. In TS3, the ocean was an empty blue swath of sameness as far as the eye could see, while in TS4, the water is clear and you can actually see well some animated fish of different varieties from the pack swimming around at random, as well as seeing dolphins, sea turtles, jellyfish, the occasional shark, water birds and sea gulls etc. These all look very nice, 3D and proportionate, through the first person camera, too. You can also interact with dolphins, whose animations are lovely -- so apart from the absence of the dive lot (which for me is not a big deal), it feels like a much more dynamic experience to swim in the ocean than it was in TS3.

TS3 sims could actually do very little in the ocean, too; they took ages to wade out, they could swim (very slowly using that weird breast stroke) and snorkel (with gear); that was about it. Unlike in TS4, they could not swim around, only swim here, they could not drown (at least I never had a sim drown in the ocean no matter how low their energy dropped), or pee in the ocean. All they could do with other sims in the water was to splash them; they couldn't really talk to each other or do anything else while actually immersed.

Now in TS4, with other sims, they can talk, kiss, splash, skinny dip alone or together, swim here, swim around alone, or swim around together, or back float. As their fitness improves, their swimming speed increases and they use different strokes (really nice animations there). Parents with high fitness can coach their kids at swimming (I love that: it is one of my favourite new things to do in water). They also get a few different new moodlets from swimming -- sims can get a cramp, a sudden chill, swim through something yucky, or feel at peace in the sea.

Since this pack was released, I now prefer swimming in TS4 to TS3; I think they have developed and improved the ability in some fun and realistic ways. (I just hope they eventually add it to a few of the other worlds -- that would icing on the cake).