In the first part, we looked at the new neighborhood of Desiderata Valley, some of the new decorations that can be added to a neighborhood and ways in which the ground can be modified. In the second part of our review, we are going to move a new family into the Valley, looking at the new features in character generation.

This is Julian and Tamara Harper and they are some of our test subjects for this review and we will first meet them in Character Creation. Following there, we will see them in their new home, see them as their new careers take off, see what hobbies that they become interested in and how the lifestyle of a sim has changed with the introduction of this EP.

As expected, there are new hairstyles for both men and women. To be more precise, it is mainly headgear rather than hairstyles and many of these are featured in the new careers that we will be mentioning later. Personally, I would have liked to see more hairstyles instead of what may make the sims look like should be performing YMCA but I cannot complain. There is a place for these somewhere.

Also, there are some clothes. Again, a lot of these look as though they are from the new career tracks. There are a lot of additions to the athletic category of clothing. I have found this to be quite lacking and finally it has taken this long to do it. Football (soccer) kits came out in 2006 as addons from the official site to coincide with the World Cup and some of these have made their official debut and quite appropriately too, as will be revealed later. There are also a lot of leotards, which again are quite appropriately introduced.

There were more direct changes in character creation with "Bon Voyage" especially with the addition of jewelry and the extra Turn Ons and Turn Offs. However, FreeTime has completely overhauled the aspiration system by adding a completely new tier to it.

What was the original Aspiration Score is now considered to be a Daily Aspiration Score (DAS). Every hour, the DAS is assessed and points are added to or reduced from the Lifetime Aspiration Score (LAS) depending upon the state of the Daily Score. It the DAS is Platinum, Gold or Green, points are added to the LAS. If it is in the Red, points are reduced and the lower the meter is, the more that is reduced. One bad realised fear and no suitable needs to quickly cover it and the Lifetime Aspiration starts going down.

This makes it more important for sims to have to be more attentive to satisfying their needs and avoiding their fears. At the end of every week, your sim will comment how he felt his week went, which refers also how whether the LAS has gone up, remained the same or gone down.

With a rising LAS, there are Lifetime Aspiration Benefits which can be redeemed for powerful rewards. Starting adult sims usually begin with about 5 or 6 of these benefit points and existing sims will also have benefit points that can be applied.

In order to see the benefits window, there is a new icon on the Aspiration Rewards section in the sim bar. It reminds me somewhat of the same window used for the business rewards. There are four columns in this window. The first two columns are Needs and Work, which are the same for all sims. The third column depends upon which motive Motive a sim has - Knowledge, Romance, Fortune and so forth and each has a unique set of benefits. The fourth column is for an optional Secondary Motive which can be picked. This adds three of the four benefits from that other motive. It can also affect what needs and fears a sim will get.

On the left, we have Julian's chosen benefits.

He has six points to apply and has used them all up. As he chose the Knowledge motive, that becomes the name of the third column. He has picked Fortune as a secondary aspiration but is yet to get any of the benefits. He has chosen no benefits in the Motives column. They are focussed on the rate of decay of certain needs.

In the Works column, he has picked "Life of Luxury" which means he picks up vacation days at a higher right and the very powerful "Business Instinct" which means the chance card success rate increases to 80%.

In the Knowledge column, Julian's social and fun needs decay at a slower rate. He has the "Impart Knowledge" benefit, which allows him to teach his skills to those of a lower rating. He also has the "Eureka" benefit that can give him random flashes of insight into a subject he is studying and give him an automatic boost in his skill level.

On the right, we have Tamara's benefit window.

She has not made all of her choices. So far, she has made no choices in the Motives and Work ladders. She has Family as her primary aspiration and has that aspiration's benefits in the ladder. She has firstly chosen "Grandma's Comfort Soup". If she serves up some of this, it will cure all illnesses. Her second choice is to reduce decay of fun and comfort. If she took the third choice, she would be allowed to plead with a social worker if they took her children away. As she hasn't got any yet, there is no mad rush.

She has not chosen a secondary.aspiration but the option is there if she chooses to use up a point, as is "Life of Luxury" and reduced social and comfort decay in motives.

All points do not need to be spent immediately. A sim can wait if they please until they have a better idea how they wish to apply them.

There have been quite a few under-the-hood changes that have been made to the base game with this EP and I will come to them later. However, this overhaul is something that I did not expect so near to the end of the series. I have found some of the benefits to be very useful and others to be perhaps too powerful. Nevertheless, this overhaul is making me feel more positive about this expansion.

In the next part of this review, we will be visiting the Harpers who will be helping us to look at some of those under-the-hood changes and how they affect their lives in positive and in one case a very annoying way.