With The Sims 2 becoming fully 3D, we had a lot more expectations with expansion packs than we did with The Sims and with The Sims 3 giving us the Create A Style Tool and our sims having fleshed out personalities and life wishes, those expectations are even higher.

There are various new hairstyles and outfits, although most of them are themed around the different worlds that our sims can now visit. As this is an EP about travel, I suppose this is not unexpected. I would have liked to have seen more that were not location-related and also more styles overall, especially for the men, but at least there is something new to keep us entertained and that can be fine tuned to a player's preferences with the Create-A-Style Tool.

There are some minor variants on the styles but not like the developers in the past claiming that there were twelve new hairstyles, whereas it was only two new hairstyles with six different coloured hairbands. Now, there are only three different variations with some of them. Still a bit of a cheat in my opinion, but not enough to go crying about. There are new styles of footwear, but nothing that I find to be fashionable with my sims, although someone might find sims wearing rubber boots (or wellies over here) to be very chic. I honestly can't say I've seen Lara Croft wearing Wellington Boots.

This EP introduces us to three new skills, which are Martial Arts (Sim Fu), Photography & Nectar Making. It is only inevitable that this happened. I am still waiting for skills for the other musical instruments, though, and perhaps pottery. As a bit of enlightenment, for those who think that Nectar Making refers to the "Amber Nectar" that many of us know as lager, it actually means wine-making. In order to get skill-related equipment, you need to travel abroad.

There are new personality traits that relate in some cases to some of the new skills or the adventuring that is the bulk of this expansion pack. Again, I am not surprised although I would have liked to see more traits that were not specifically related to adventuring. Adventurous sims do not have to spend as much time at home after a trip and finance permitting, they can soon be on their way again.

In a similar vein, there are some new lifetime wishes that mainly relate to the the new lifestyle or skills that this expansion pack offers and as all new skills require a sim to go abroad in order to learn the basics, travelling is mandatory if you want one of these wishes.

There are also some new lifetime rewards, especially those that only cost 5,000 points. I am pleased with the changes here in that the rewards do not all relate to the changes brought about by the expansion pack. I was very pleased to see one that relates to changing the favourites. This might be a small complaint, but I was somewhat peeved that these could never be changed. Now they can. No more complaining ... about that anyway.

For the regular traveller, I recommend the 5,000 point Jetsetter reward, which gives you a 30% reduction in personal travelling costs.

Illustrated on the right is Meditative Trance Sleep. It is one of the more expensive rewards at 30,000 points but does mean your sim does not have to spend as much time asleep in order to be fully rested. This has advantages at home and abroad for those who want to burn that metaphorical candle at both ends.

For those sims of yours who do not want to get off their backsides but want to get the feel of having been abroad, there are additions in almost all of the buy and build mode classes. It is only to be expected that there new architectural features.

There is plenty of material for us to build houses and lots in the three themes or even edit our existing homes, gardens and other lots with a little bit of continental elegance. I am actually very impressed with the amount that has been added in the landscaping area. There are over twenty new terrain paints and I am pleased to see that this section has now been overhauled to have the different paints categorised in a similar way to that of the other more traditional floor coverings.

There are some changes that have not been made that I would have liked to see. That would have been the introduction to The Sims 3 of half walls and stages, which would help the architects with their creations without having to use some complicated cheat codes. Not here. Therefore, I still have that to grumble about.

There are some changes that have been made that I did expect or had been hoping to see.

With one of the new destinations being China, it was to be expected that pagoda-type roofs were included. However, these have been added into the base game following a recent patch. For those of us who have been avid players of The Sims 2, this is nothing new but it is good to see it so early in the series. These are accompanied with new roof decorations, both for oriental and occidental lots, and new roof patterns.

I was pleased to see that doors can now be lockable. This is also familiar to The Sims 2 players. Now your sims can lock away the family computers to stop any visitors just calling over and then spending their time playing on the computer. Now if there was only a way to stop them hogging the TV remote.

On the subject of doors, sims can now dictate which external door is the front door of a house. I really like this idea, especially if you want to dicate where your newspapers are dropped off. Incidentally, one phonecall and the newspaper deliveries can be cancelled or restarted again. My sims frequently forget to pick up their newspaper and there is a large pile regularly building up.

There are new doors, windows, arches, columns and one new fireplace. There are new wall and floor coverings as well as new fences and gates. Some of the new fences and gates as well as some of the old ones can now be recoloured. I would have liked to see the option to apply the CASt to all of them, but some are better than none.

One major change to building does deserve a section of its own.

Building basements has been the subject of numerous tutorials back from the days of The Sims 2 and even for The Sims 3. However, things are going to be a lot easier from now on. On the left, we can see a fairly simple area of catacombs found on one of the adventures in France and an idea of what adventuring underground can entail.

As adventuring in this expansion includes a fair bit of tomb raiding or relic hunting, it is natural that there is a new tool to let us create our own basements, bunkers, catacombs, dungeons, tombs or any other subterranean levels and it is simple. You orthogonally and/or diagonally drag out the area you require and there you have it, ready for you to decorate in whatever way you see fit.

For the those out there who remember D&D when it was just a pencil and paper game and a player's most treasured possession was his character stats, you can dig out those notes for fiendishly planned dungeons and adapt them for World Adventures. With a bit of patience and planning, you can place treasure, traps, switches and other puzzles around your underground lair. I will be looking more at basement building in one of my later reports.

For those who do not want to build a complex dungeon, there is nothing stopping you building a small cellar or basement under your home. These are very good places for letting those vintage bottles of "Chateau Goth" nectar mature even further or in this case here, just a good place to store those relics, trophies and mementoes of a successful trip.