Project Thursday

Ah, a soft breeze, warm sand between your toes, and the gentle lapping of the ocean. Wait, not really your thing? How about the crisp mountain air and the cozy feeling of a roaring fire? Still nothing? Fine, let’s go to the Orient. The silk kimonos, ethnic cuisine…and teleporting ninjas.

Whatever your poison, the Sims 2: Bon Voyage expansion pack aims to deliver. Not only does the game offer three new locations for your Sims to travel to, it also gives you all new social interactions and objects. Hell, your Sim can even own a personal vacation home.

Let’s start off with the positives, shall we? Despite there only being three vacation spots (Tikkiwikki Island, Far Far East, and Moutain Are), there are a plethora of things for your Sims to do. Each location boasts at least three hotels, all with differing price ranges and amenities. Get a massage, use the sauna, talk to the locals, or veg out in the hotel room. Depending on the community lot you go to, you can eat, buy souvenirs (including the newly added jewelry), clothes, or swim in the ocean; pretty standard.

A nice addition with this expansion pack is the tour guide who hangs out around the telephone booth of both your hotel and community lots. The guide offers your Sims three vacation options to choose from, each with differing prices. Whichever vacation package you pick, a chance card will usually appear (similar to the Sims’ job system). The chance card you pick will either end the tour on a happy note or have the whole thing come crashing down around you.

Your Sims now also carry cameras, allowing them to take pictures or have someone take your picture anytime you want. This goes hand in hand with the new "Pose" action, in which your Sim will perform various poses and hold them for the camera. When you are ready for your pictures, just sit at a computer or pick up a phone and order the prints.

Bon Voyage also allows you to invite a Sim friend on vacation with you without having them be part of the household. Much like the Sims 2: Pets, you can see your guest’s status, but can’t directly control their actions.

Of course, this expansion brings plenty of other additions to the table, including traveler titles, secret locations to discover, treasure to dig up, honeymoons, and weddings. But we can’t go into every little detail now, can we?

That being said, from what I’ve noticed, Bon Voyage has its fair share of glitches (but what PC game doesn’t come out in beta-quality condition these days). Bringing an NPC guest with you, while fun in theory, is also a pain in the ass, as you have to constantly make sure they are eating, peeing, and surviving in general while keeping track of your own Sims. Not only that, but when a tour happens to go wrong with the chance cards, your guest Sim will glitch out and get stuck in a single spot, never moving. The issue got so bad that it required me to resort to cheating to continue playing.

Another thing that really hurts the game (at least on my rig) is that it’s a resource hog. I have a beast of a machine, and the vacation spots really started dragging ass and dropping frames when I tried to run in triple speed.

It also would have been nice to have more pre-made vacation spots, since I (and I’m sure the rest of you) are too lazy to make them from scratch. That said though, I’ve visited the areas more than once already and I’ve yet to get terribly bored of them.

Conclusion

All in all, the Sims 2: Bon Voyage is a nice addition to the already massive Sims 2 expansion pack lineup. It does the one thing I expect my expansions to do: add depth to the core gameplay. It really is the break you and your Sims may need to cure any boredom the series may have been causing you. If you’re a Sims fan, I highly recommend it.