The Sims 3 Seasons Preview

By the dog days of summer.

The Sims 3 fans have much to celebrate, with The Sims 3 Supernatural coming out mid-September and The Sims 3 Seasons announced at the Electronic Arts Summer Showcase. Much like the Seasons expansion pack for The Sims 2, it adds the cycle of the seasons as well as several weather elements to the life of the everyday Sim. The preview of the The Sims 3 Seasons practically writes itself.



The rep handling the station showed me a sneak peek to what the game offers by presenting the unique activities available in spring. Most of the seasonal events take place as festivals held in the town square. For the spring festivals, this entails kissing booths, disco dance floors, horseshoe tossing, and love compatibility booths (will your Sim's relationships be a "dead fish"?). The rep didn't really share much about the other seasons, but you can at least look forward to summer beach parties, apple-bobbing in fall, and half-pipe snowboarding.

Instead of just popping up suddenly, the festivals are gradually constructed and disassembled over time. This seamlessness can also be seen in the transition between seasons, with rain showers and snow gradually building and fading away. It's this attention to detail that makes this expansion's flow of time more believable.



What is also unmistakable is the control that the player will have over the weather and the seasons. If you want it to rain or snow, you can channel your desire to control the elements like Storm from X-Men and use the new Climatron. As for the seasons themselves, while the default setting will have the seasons naturally cycle through as the weeks pass, players can not only alter the speed of the seasonal transitions but also check on and off the seasons they want to activate. It actually makes sense, especially if you've always wanted to create a Sim world near the equator (always summer) or near the poles (always winter). Of course, you can make a mysterious place that's always fall or spring, but that's crazy talk!

The Sims 3 Seasons looks to sweep into the world on November 13 for PC.