Once again, an excellent job has been done on the atmospheric feel of Al Simhara. The basecamp is even more spartan than the monastery-type camp in Shang Simla being just a row of tents, a basic washroom and very limited cooking facilities with no means of cooking hot food apart from roasting things over a fire pit. Although the market has the same store types as there are in Shang Simla and as we will find in Champs Les Sims, the appearance of the market and its stores leaves us without any doubt that we are supposed to be in North Africa. The pyramids and other landmarks then narrow that down to our being in a simmified Egypt.

As an entry level tomb, I find the Tomb of Discovery to be even more basic than those in the other countries of adventure. Admittedly, it is convenient being sited next to the base camp, but for sims who have already done some adventuring in the other countries, it is a bit of a yawn. Nevertheless, I did find it was also atmospheric and a good taster for those larger adventures in Al Simhara that lie ahead.

A criticism I have had of The Sims 3 and has not changed with World Adventures is that all ceilings in The Sims 3 look the same. This especially stands out when adventuring in foreign countries, especially those where you are exploring tombs that contain artefacts supposed to be thousands of years old. To look up and find the ceiling above to be a pristine white does slightly mar the atmospheric feel. In certain cases, there are no ceilings at all, which is disappointing. I suppose the lesson to be learnt here is don't take snapshots when looking up. I hope at some point, EAxis change this so we can have different ceiling colours. Actually, I'd love to see transparent ceilings and roofs at some point.

Let us go back to Tim Beckett and find out how his first adventuring continued.

When I woke up in that pyramid, I felt it was too great an opportunity to miss out on. I packed up my tent but instead of leaving and going to run around the countryside, I chose to explore the pyramid that I found myself in. After all, you don't come to Egypt just to hunt for bits of rock.

One thing I learnt. If you have to travel through water, wear your swimwear. Otherwise, you will be soaked for hours on end and that is definitely not good for an adventurer's feeling of wellbeing.

I had only expected to explore for a few hours but I found that I had spent all of the day in the pyramid. I ultimately ended up spending the best part of two days in there. It's a good job I had enough dried food and one of those showers-in-a-can. I camped on the second night on a lower level. I found all of this pyramid to be far more challenging than the Tomb of Discovery.

The lock puzzles were more confounding and also there were traps to be circumvented, deactivated or disabled. I found a few steam traps and fire traps but it was only when I was leaving the pyramid that I found an electricity trap. I got somewhat singed. When I did have to leave, I had only half of the pyramid explored and in one of the elaborate chambers, I found some rocks that I know only the legendary axe of Pangu can break.

Hassan did get his turquoise as I had found some cut turqoise in the treasure chests during my relic hunting. My next task was to find the views of some of the locals about MorcuCorp. I was all prepared to go out and get interviewing but my three days had come to an end. I had made a lot of money from it from money bags I had picked up from the pyramid so I managed to recover somewhat and not go home penniless to face the wife.

I will be going back as soon as I have the money and they are prepared to let me have a new visa.

Adventurers are not confined to taking the adventures that they get from the board or from over the telephone. This is the sims after all and there should be enough free will to allow our sims to do that.

Although it can give sims a head start when it comes to exploring these tombs when they are assigned the appropriate adventure, it does mean that their time is somewhat wasted as they do not earn visa points for going "off script". In Tim Beckett's case, he will be returning to Egypt with only a Level 0 visa as he had not completed enough adventures to get enough visa points to improve it.

However, I have found the odd problems when I have gone off script for some time. One of my previous adventurers ended up with a special relic that nobody would take off his hands. Fortunately, I have not had a repeat of that in my current adventures.

On a positive note, our sims are free to collect as many gems as they can when they stumble across them or see them on the map. Although a patron may want a certain amount, nothing is stopping our sim getting more of them and keeping them or selling them on at a later date. Actually, having a stockpile of rocks and gems can save time when a scavenger hunt assignment comes up and our sim has them already.