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I have been various levels of disappointed in every Sims 3 expansion and stuff pack that has come out. They all have bugs, and there is never enough content to feel like you really got your money’s worth.

The only bug I have gotten after playing almost a full day is my sim occasionally popping out of a cave onto the nearest island for no apparent reason.

Now for the good stuff:
There’s more *stuff* in this EP than EA usually gives us. The stuff looks nice, and I had fun designing my home and resort. I have not spent much time looking in depth at clothing or hair, but the ones I have seen on townies have looked pretty decent.

The snorkeling is okay, but the scuba diving is awesome! You meet other sims down there, and a mermaid or two. Sharks are not as scary as you think. I have gotten away fairly quickly, but none have tried to bite me yet. I even “watched” one for a few minutes.

The uncharted islands are fun to discover. You can swim up to a couple of them, but most seem to require maps assembled from messages in bottles. There are rare chests with map fragments and gems, too. When you discover one, it is yours. You can move there or build a resort, and you can have more than one home in your town.

At first glance, the town looks like a mess. You have to take taxi boats from one part to the next, and there are trails just like World Adventures. Once you spend a little time going from place to place, it’s not so bad.

If it is possible to create a dive location yourself, I have not figured it out. I would like to be able to add scuba spots to other towns, or to have more land available for things like nightclubs and venues. One thing this game seems to be sorely lacking is an all-in-one town. They’ve done a good job of incorporating most of the EP venues into Sunset Valley, but I can’t see any evidence of that this time around. I think they just expect you to move your families to the island, have a little fun, and then move back home.

Overall, MUCH better than the other EPs have been.