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The Sims 3 Island Paradise is an incredible expansion pack, filled with a so many new things for your Sims to do and explore. The new town, Isla Paradiso is actually a group of islands in the ocean, each one with different buildings and homes on it. Instead of traveling everywhere by car, now you hop on a speed boat to get from island to island. The whole ocean is there for you to explore, and there’s stuff everywhere!

Homes can now be built right on the water. Instead of driveways and garages, you now have docks and slots to park your boats (speed boats, row boats, sail boats, and more). Homes sit right on the beautiful blue ocean water, with fish and huge sharks swimming right around them. Your sim can fish and skip stones right off the dock, or jump in and do a bit of swimming or snorkeling for seashells and gems.

When your ready to venture out even farther, head out to one of the marked scuba diving locations for an adventure under the waters surface. Your sim needs to have spent some time working on their snorkeling skills first, before they will be allowed to take an underwater trip. When they’re ready, they will switch into their scuba gear and dive down quite a ways, checking out all the fish and plant life that dwells on the ocean floor. Each dive location is completely different from the others, some having more things to explore than other. While under water you can catch fish, open treasure chests, explore caves (in the same way your sim can explore the catacombs in the graveyards) and even meet and socialize with other sims underwater. You never know who you will run into while swimming or scuba diving. Regular people, ghosts and even mermaids all are around and exploring the dive locations.

You’ll find everything from money to pieces of maps in the treasure chests. Gems, shells and other items can also be found while your searching underwater. But you’ll need to be wary of sitting in one spot too long. Linger around, floating in the same location for a while, and one of the large sharks swimming by may try and make a meal of you. Even if they don’t attack, you may find just the sight of one of them makes your sim have an accident in their wetsuit!

When you’re ready to spend some time on land, there’s resorts you can kick back and relax at. Make sand castles on the beach, take in the view from one of the new balconies in the build menu, or for a shark-free swim, play on some of the new slides and waterfalls at the resort pools. Lifeguards patrol the beaches, and you can even take a job as one, with it being a new sim career choice.

For those wanting to build their own homes and resorts, there lots of new things in the build and buy menus. Tables and chairs, new lighting options, bright tropical decor, fountains, new plants, trees, flower and rocks, hot tubs, fire pits, a few walk for your sims to walk across, and so much more. There’s a new All-In-One-Bathroom that is about the size of a shower for your sims to use on their houseboats, where space in minimal. They go in and all “bathroom needs” are filled at the same time. Your sim can even buy a wind-surf board or a “Aqua Sled” jet-ski to play around on out in the water.

There are a several new pieces of clothing added for sims to wear, including some new swimsuit options (finally!) and lots of warm weather clothing, like shorts, dresses and tank tops. There are also a few new hair styles added. New sim traits and lifetime wishes have also been added to the game.

But the focus in this expansion pack is definitely the water fun, both on the surface and under water. Everything is about life on or in the ocean. Much like the Sims 3 World Adventures pack focused a lot on exploring hidden tombs and such, this pack is all about exploring the sea. It’s almost like an Island Paradise version of World Adventures. There is so much in this pack to do and explore, it’s definitely one of the best Sims expansion packs made to date!