The Sims 2 Bon Voyage

Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Maxis
Genre: Virtual Life
Release Date: Sep 4, 2007 (more)
ESRB: TEEN

The Sims series' unique formula of simulating the lives of little computer people as they live, love, and go to the bathroom has been successful more or less from the start. Both the original game and the solid sequel, The Sims 2, have consistently stayed interesting, thanks to a never-ending stream of expansion packs. And Bon Voyage, the latest expansion for The Sims 2, adds a good amount of variety and some handy new options that make managing your computerized families' lives even easier.

The focus of this expansion is vacations--specifically, moving your family of "sims" out of the house and checking them into a fabulous resort hotel, then hitting one of three different vacation spots: sunny beaches, tea gardens, or ancient ruins. At these vacation spots, your sims try out leisure activities, collect souvenirs, and interact with the locals, who may teach your sims new "social" gestures specific to the area.

Even through three vacation venues may not sound like much, each setting offers multiple hotels with different price ranges, but all of them have enough in the way of basic services to help your sims survive their off-time. The better resort hotels have swimming pools, hot tubs, and other relaxing activities, but they all have handy, round-the-clock room service to feed your hungry sims; beds, showers, and TV sets to take care of their fatigue, hygiene, and entertainment needs; as well as plenty of other guests to socialize with. Since going on vacation suspends the regular flow of time from their home and professional lives (so they don't have to worry about missing a day of work), staying in a hotel makes life much easier for your in-game family.

Once you're settled in a hotel, you can take a cab (or hoof it) to a nearby tourist lot. There's a decent variety of tourist areas for each venue, including shopping and recreation areas where your characters can collect many different items, such as fresh fruit from the local market, or hidden treasure from rummaging through the cabin of an abandoned pirate ship. There are plenty of new social interactions and new activities to try at these venues as well, such as building sand castles or swimming in the oceans, which make excellent group activities. This helps shift the game's focus away from always worrying about your sims' needs (making sure they aren't hungry, tired, or bored) and makes it easier to focus on getting your virtual family into a fun-filled group activity quicker. And the ample population of other sims at both resorts and tourist areas provide plenty of opportunities for characters to network, make new friends, and learn new social gestures (such as bowing, which the kimono-wearing locals at the tea garden can teach you).

When your vacation is over, your sims check out of the hotel and can return home with plenty of mementos. Aside from purchased or scrounged souvenirs, which may appeal to pack rat players who simply must collect everything, your sims may have photos taken with the game's new photo camera, which lets you snap family photos (or ask a kind passerby to get a group shot for you). In addition, if your sims had a great time on their vacation, they'll be able to choose useful bonuses to their abilities on returning home, such as increased productivity at work, faster skill learning, and, perhaps most useful, an additional slot for their immediate "wants"--the short-term personal goals each sim carries around that, when fulfilled, can lead them to true happiness.

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS
1.3 Ghz processor (2.0 for Vista)
512 MB RAM (1GB for Vista)
Windows(R) Vista, Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98 or Windows 2000 Operating System.
8x or faster CD/DVD drive
At least 1.5 GB of additional hard drive space (5.0 GB total is required if installing both The Sims 2 and The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack at the same time.)
A T&L-capable video card with at least 32 MB of video RAM.

Supported video cards:
ATI Radeon(TM) series 8500 or better (9600 or greater required for Vista)
8500, All-In-Wonder 8500
9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
X300, X600, x700, X800, x850
X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950 NVIDIA(R) Quadro(TM) seriesQuadro, Quadro2, Quadro4

NVIDIA GeForce series GeForce2 GTS and better (GeForce 6200 or greater required for Vista)
GeForce 2, 2 GTS
GeForce 3, 3 Ti
GeForce 4, 4 Ti, 4200, 4600, 4800, MX 420, 440, 460
GeForce FX 5200, 5500, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, 5950
GeForce PCX 5300, 5900
GeForce 6200, 6600, 6800
GeForce 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
S3 GammaChrome
S18 Pro
S18 Ultra
Intel(R) Extreme Graphics (see note below)82865, 82915 and aboveNOTE: If you have a non-T&L capable video card, such as Intel Extreme Graphics, then you need at least a 2.4 GHz processor.

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