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Company: Electronic Arts
Item Reviewed: The Sims 3 World Adventures Expansion

The Adventure is Near…

Take your Sims on the adventure of their lives with The Sims 3 World Adventures. Guide your Sims to acclaimed fortune—or potential doom. Take your Sims to exotic destinations to hunt for hidden treasures.  Uncover new skills, experience new personality traits and garner rewards, if your Sims succeed.  Explore ancient tombs in the pyramids of Egypt, master martial arts in the Far East, and discover  rich culture and famous landmarks of France.  Adventure is on the horizon — what will your Sims discover?

FEATURES

• Accept challenges, find treasures, discover what’s lurking in hidden caves and more.
• Explore famous landmarks in China, Egypt, and France.
• Learn new skills like photography and pursue new opportunities.
• Meet new Sims from exotic locations and share their cultures.
• Customize your Sims homes with new styles & artifacts from their adventures.
• Get $10 worth of free SimPoints for The Sims 3 Store, and additional online features to be announced.

My Thoughts

I love the Sims and have tried to play every game, every expansion to it’s fullest (see my past Sims 3 review here). The World Adventures expansion is one of the best add-ons I have played. Hey, if I can’t travel the world my Sim should be able to . As you can see above you can see Paris and stomp grapes (my favorite). The World Adventures is one solid expansion and me and my daughter love playing together so we can see where else we can travel to. World Adventures is my favorite by far!

Charm Girls Club™ My Fashion Show challenges girls on exciting fashion design assignments to become the ultimate fashion megastar! Isabella is a world famous fashion designer who is sponsoring a reality fashion show to discover the hottest new design talent. You’ve been selected as one of the finalists and with your BFFs backing you up, you’re ready to work your way to the top! 24 design challenges with 10+ fashion based mini-games including dress up, makeup, hair station, pose practice and more! You can also accessorize and posh up 5 different pets! Earn over 50 virtual charms!

Available at ea.com for $29.95.

My Thoughts

My daughter has become somewhat of a fashionista as of late and Charm Girls Club: My Fashion Show is right up her alley. She has been attached to her DS for the last few days and says that she loves the game. I love the opening song it is really catchy and my daughter knows it by heart now. I borrowed it from her for a little bit and worked through the first challenge and dressed a model for the runway, I did great following the star to get my model to pose right but not so great at taking the pictures at the right time, something my daughter told me to work on. The graphics are good for a kids game, and my tween really enjoys making up different combinations of colorful clothing for each of her shows. She loves it and says any little girl would love this game in their Christmas stocking.

The freedom of The Sims™ 3 will inspire you with endless creative possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief!

Create over a million unique Sims and control their lives. Customize everything from their appearances, to their personalities and even the home of their dreams. Then, send your Sims out to explore new locations around town and to meet other Sims in the neighborhood.

Go online to download exclusive content and show off your own creations to the world. With all-new quick challenges and rewarding game play, The Sims 3 gives you the freedom to choose whether (or not!) to fulfill your Sims’ destinies and make their wishes come true.

Available for PC, PC Download or Mac for $49.95.

My Thoughts

The Sims has been a part of my gaming for awhile now and with each new release the franchise just keeps getting better and better. Not only does it get better but it has become more fun if that is possible. The funny thing is that when I first ever started playing The Sims my thought was, “Why would I want to play something that is life like when I have real life to deal with?”. Boy was I wrong, at times my in game life is better than the real thing! I love creating new characters, picking a place to live and furnishing it with funky items. And learning the language is so much fun…I kid of course, but that’s how involved you get in the Sims. With The Sims 3 you can choose your traits, explore new locations, Customize everything and share your movies and Sims online. I recommend The Sims 3 for everyone for a fun game play experience, and it would make a great Christmas present for the gamers on your list.

Get ready for even more blox-busting action with BOOM BLOX™ Bash Party for Wii™, the sequel to the critically-acclaimed BOOM BLOX™ game for Wii. Developed by EA in collaboration with director and producer Steven Spielberg, BOOM BLOX Bash Party takes destruction to new heights, providing the ultimate social gaming experience! BOOM BLOX Bash Party will get your party started with new Versus, Co-Op and Team Play challenges – twice as many multi-player challenges as the original BOOM BLOX.

Product Features

• Now the all-new cast of characters are part of the destruction! Throw, grab and launch characters for fun, or use them as part of your strategy.
• All-new explosive puzzle action builds upon your BOOM BLOX favorites while delivering tons of levels to explore, conquer and remix.
• More multiplayer action than ever before. Play crazy new levels with or against friends in cooperative, competitive and the all-new team-based action.
• Beautiful themed worlds take you from mysterious planets to pirate coves and beyond. Battle giant squids or bash alien spaceships as you explore these stunning new environments.
• Download new levels quickly and easily. Design your own levels with the expanded Create Mode and share them with friends or submit them to be shared with the world.

Rated E and available at most major stores for $29.95.

My Thoughts

This game is a fast, fun family game that my family enjoys very much! We love all the different game play abilities it offers like Co-Op Play, Competitive Play, Team Multi-player. And with more than 40 levels of game play you are sure to have hours of fun. Of course being a competitive family of gamers this game has provided us with a lot of good times. My sons favorite thing about this game (besides trying to beat his sister at winning) is the fact that he can design his own block puzzle and upload it to let others play it.

I love this game and I recommend it to everyone on your Christmas list as it is a great, fun family game.

In MySims Agents players take on the role of a special agent on a mission to uncover and foil the sinister plans of Morcubus, the corrupt CEO of MorcuCorp. Players will search for clues and solve cases across the city and far beyond as they piece together his nefarious plans.

Armed with a set of increasingly sophisticated gadgets, players will track footprints, pick locks, hack into computers and do molecular forensics.

They will jump, climb, balance and build their way to follow cases no matter where they lead, even taking a private jet to reach an ancient temple, a spooky mansion and an icy mountaintop chalet. Along the way they meet MySims they can recruit to build up their own team of agents, and unlock rare items they can use to deck out their headquarters.

Rated E and available at most major stores for $49.95.

My Thoughts

I recently received a copy of My Sims Agents for the Wii to review and I am hooked. I was going to give it to my tween daughter to play but now she has to get in line.  I love this game! It is so cool to run around the town finding clues and interviewing people to find out if they had an alibi or not. But wait I am getting ahead of myself here, let me back up a bit.

I love that they let you choose the gender of your agent and dress them, change their hairstyles and name them. Any game that allows you to customize will always get props from me on that point. This is a very cute, engaging game and it really gets you thinking. I will have to say (and I am embarrassed to be saying) that some of the hardest puzzles come in the form of molecular forensics and the hacking where you have to keep a steady hand, which I don’t have at all. But that only makes the game more enjoyable and you get a great feeling of actually accomplishing something.

I have also enjoyed having my kids sit on the couch and watch me play and see if they can help out with the clues as I have actually been stuck before, and of course when I figured it out I say, “It was right under my nose!” My kids shook their heads and laughed. This is a great family game too!

The MySims Agents is a very fun game, and I enjoy playing it daily. I recommend this game for the Nintendo Wii to everyone, especially for the kids on your list, even if it’s really for the parents

I have had the awesome chance of reviewing the Brain Quest games from EA for the Nintendo DS. I was pleasantly surprised by these games. They are great teaching tools for your children, and I as a homeschooler rely on these games to make my 4th grader really use her brain.

This game has over 6,000 questions which means your child can be tested in a lot of different areas. The categories range from English to Math and Geography. The 3rd & 4th grade Brain Quest is set up like a jungle safari type adventure. In the Quest Mode you move from location to location with people to meet and quests to fulfill your child will be constantly learning. Puzzle are solved in unique ways using the stylus. Some have you crossing out an added letter to a word, some have you placing things in alphabetical or chronological order, and for not wanting to spoil the rest for you I will keep it at that. Trust me when I say your child can play this for hours.

My daughter started out going through the 3rd grade things just to be sure she knew it and then moved on to the 4th grade stuff. Now let me also say that times have changed since I was a kid. 3rd and 4th graders need to know things that I myself didn’t learn until 5th and 6th grade. When I picked this game up a few of the 4th grade questions stumped me. Of course it has been a long time since I have been in school, but all I can say is wow. At least my daughter knew it!

The only differences in the 3/4 grade and the 5/6 grade is the level of difficulty and the theme of the game is more surfer/skater type atmosphere. My daughter tried this game and struggled some questions in the 5th grade arena, which is fine seeing as she is only in 4th grade and some of these topics have not been touched on yet. BUT, this is a great tool to teaching those topics and introducing some new things that she is interested in learning about.

I am so very pleased at EA for offering a standout educational series for the DS. There are so many others out there and I have tried most of them, but none compare to the level of learning for these grade levels as these two games do. I am happy I got the chance to review them and will use them everyday in my daughter’s homeschool environment.

Anyone who follows this blog know that I love to sing (karaoke style of course, I am NOT the next AI) and  I love to shake my hips and dance all over the place. Well Electronic Arts Boogie SuperStar has joined both of those favorites together to create a very enjoyable game.

First you start out creating your character, and from the different styles of clothing and hair you can come up with some great looking characters. Next you move on to the Academy where you will prepare yourself to become a Boogie SuperStar. You can create dance routines and learn new moves at the Academy as well. Then it is on to the Star Show, the big time moment.

The singing portion of this game is great and the music selection is some of the best songs from today like Don’t Stop The Music, Toxic, Potential Breakup Song, and more. My daughter and I really got into the music list, and guess what they even have Jonas Brothers songs……ah my daughter was in heaven. This portion is run like most other karaoke type games in that the lyrics come across the screen with tone lines that you have to match (usually mine are all over the place lol).

Now the boogie dancing part, is to me a new concept and it is a great one at that! The Beat Ball is here and is ready to get you moving. As you dance, 2 circles appear on screen. The beat ball bounces between the two circles in time to the music so you can get the rhythm down. When the beat ball is green you are moving the right way. When the ball is orange you are off tempo, a gray ball means your moves are not detectable, when it’s red you are doing things all sorts of wrong. I did surprising well on this and my daughter rocked!!!

There is a dance icon that is onscreen that tells you what moves to do and what is coming up next. The fun thing about this is you start off with 4 basic moves and as you progress through the game you can unlock more fun moves. My daughter can really shake her hips and she loves this game. And ever since we got it she has been working feverishly to unlock more moves.

The great thing about this game is the multi-player mode. It allows 2 people to play (or in this case dance) at the same time. This adds to the fun that you can have. My daughter and I play this all the time and usually she wins (I plead getting older lol) but I tell you we have so many laughs while playing this game.

You can make this a solely singing game or solely a dancing game or you can get the full fun and mix it up. You have the option to choose before the game starts. But I highly recommend mixing it all up because you and everyone playing will have a night of fun. I really recommend this game to everyone and it is the perfect game to incorporate into Family Game Night.