Sims who play around with pesticide a little too much may experience quite a radical make-over. Although it's cureable through a potion (Plantophic-C) from the Gypsy Matchmaker or the Gardening club, there are also some reasons to not cure it. Not only will your Sims get green fingers when they make the transition, they'll in fact become complete Plant Sims: the new odd creature in this expansion pack.
Plant Sims don't have the usual motives, but will live from sunlight, water and love. Unlike the vampires the Plant Sims should be outside in the sun to stay active. During the night there's a large chance of your Sim just passing out and staying put down until the sun rises above the earth's surface again.
Although the green Sims won't be able to turn others in creatures alike, they will be able to reproduce. They can spawn a plant baby, which will make a new toddler come to life straight away, skipping the pregnancy. There's no child or teen life stage for them though, but they'll become adults immediately after their toddler stage. They will also grow up to be elder one day. Although I forgot to check, I assume the length of each stage will be as long as that for normal Sims.
Besides the easy reproduction of Plant Sims, there's another advantage to them. With the green fingers their gardening skills are exceptional, and even without badges they'll have all the skills they need to plant, water, tend and harvest any type of plant. These Sims might just be the perfect ones to run a home business selling fruit, as long as they stay outside in the Sun. Plant Sims can also do "Spores of Happiness" and pick flowers, but I'm not sure what either of those interactions does, as I forgot to check them out in the short time we had.
When you play the new neighborhood, Riverblossom Hills, you'll find a family with a plant Sim ready to be played in there. This way you have the opportunity to play with the new creature right from the start, without having to go through a lot of trouble trying to find it. And if you don't like them, just cure the Greenman Sim and her baby using the Plantophic-C.
The original Sims 2 game introduced a bunch of careers for Sims, but after that no new careers for Sims have been added for regular Sims without a university degree. The wish for new careers from many fans will be granted with this fifth expansion though. Six new careers will be introduced, along with the chance cards and also wants to get into one of these careers. There are also new uniforms and more for your Sims to wear, and of course the career rewards. Your Sims can now get into the Journalism, Music, Gamer, Adventure, Lawyer or the Education tracks.
Besides all the seasonal gameplay, there are a few more things new in this EP that will improve the gameplay. The inventory of a Sim is no longer limited to a specific Sim. A new interaction allows you to give a gift from one Sim to another. Only items in the inventory are available to give away.
Also, the plant Sims aren't the only strange creature in Seasons. In the winter time, when the snow is on the floor, there's a random chance of a penguin coming by. It'll be attracted by plaques earned by fishing and put up on the wall.
There's also a small change in the Create a Family mode. Until now, when creating Sims, you give them one haircut and that's what they'll stick with no matter what they wear. With the new Create a Sim you can assign a different haircut to each type of clothing. The option of using one haircut all the time will also still be there. The interface for this feature wasn't quite finalized yet, so no pictures of it yet.
Finally, for those who like some easy cash, there's a new wishing well too. Now I don't know exactly how to get it except through cheating, but Sims can use it to wish for money, friends or romance. A wish for money will result in a bag with 1,000 simoleons dropping from the sky, and your Sim can take the money and put it in their pockets. Whether there may be negative side-effects or anything of wishing for something, I don't know.
Besides all the gameplay, the pools have received quite an upgrade. When building them you'll have new curved corners available for you to create pools which aren't in the usual rectangular shape. Redecorating the pools can also be done now, by throwing in a wallpaper or floor covering, just like you're used to for regular houses. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. There's a visual update too: the reflection of the house can now be seen in the water of the pool.
That's not all though: there's also a new slide that Sims can use to slide into the water. Once there, Sims will be able to interact with each other by playing Marco Polo in the pool. Altogether the pools have received more enhancements than ever before, making it a more social and fun environment for your Sims to enjoy themselves in.
Every expansion also adds some options in the build and buy modes. The pools were already mentioned, but there are a few new things in the objects as well. As usual a new set of furniture has been added, and this time it's a range of country furniture to decorate all your rooms with. There are also some objects that have to do with the seasons or gardening, like a weather forecaster and a scarecrow.
When getting this pack you should also try heading over to the Decorative/Sculpture catalog. Put up the roof, and start putting flamingos on the top. Or any other sculpture for that matter. Some new sculptures have been made for this purpose.
For those who like playing with the neighborhood decorations there are some new ploppables including barns and silos. Some more might possibly be introduced in the final version of the pack too.
A few things from previous expansion packs will be carried over, meaning they will be available in Seasons even if you don't have those expansions. From University there are the Lifetime wants, and you have the Turn-ons and Turns-offs from Nightlife as well. Open for Business came with badges, which are used again for gardening and fishing. The previous expansion pack, Pets, introduced some build tools like the sledgehammer and flatten land, and they will be available in Seasons as well. The Game Tip Encyclopedia has also made it to EP5.
Seasons is about much more than just weather and seasons. There are many enhancements to the family gameplay. For those who prefer playing at home, this expansion in combination with Pets will make a great addition to the daily Sims' lives. A new area for this pack would be pretty useless, as those added with previous expansions will suffice if your Sims need more space to live in the neighborhood. Nightlife or Open for Business will do that trick with their Downtown and Shopping town areas. Pets didn't add an area at all, but just a few families in the bin with pets to show the new features of that pack. This time there's the great addition of a completely new neighborhood, decorated and all.
There's a ton of new gameplay to experience, but it's scattered all over the place in the game. You can find new things everywhere, and there's something for all ages too. The gardening features are a big thing in this EP too, and it's better than it was in Unleashed for the Sims 1.
Visually this pack adds a lot, as every season looks and feels different. A lot has been done with lighting, some things have been improved (the pool reflection), and especially the weather looks impressive. Hail or snow will remain on any object, on some a little heavier than on others. Unfortunately I didn't see any lightning while playing, but otherwise all the weather effects look good. The only somewhat disturbing feature was that if the camera is just outside the house, you would still see the clouds falling down.
Some people might not like the weather, and although you can have a neighborhood running in Summer only, there are a few things that you can't turn off. I'm not sure if you can opt out of weather, though I have my doubts, and other effects like the quicker building of relationships will not be turned off. Hence if you buy this expansion pack just for the gardening features, expect a lot more than that, including sunburns.
Unfortunately for the builders out there, there's not much new to enjoy. There are the pools, as well as the ability to put decorative items on the roofs, but that's about as far as it goes. Storytellers will probably have a lot more fun with this pack, just like the more tactical players who can use the season effects to their advantage. The new outer wear clothing category should also provide a new base for creators of clothing, even though it's not very well filled for a section that will probably not be expanded in future expansions.
The time we had was just too short to see everything in the new pack, and I'm sure there's enough that I've missed in this preview. It's also a bit of a bummer that not everything was working correctly yet, especially the weather machine. There are still a couple of weeks before the pack will get its gold status, which should be enough to get everything tuned properly. Once it's out there will be enough for everybody to explore. Until then, which is 27 February 2007 (US) or 23 February 2007 (Europe), you'll see all the latest news and info of this pack. Thanks to The Sims Division for organising the event, my girlfriend Rosana for helping with some of the game's details and pictures for this article, and everybody else who attended for a fun day at EA.
