The Sims 3: Ambitions

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The Sims Wiki's Featured Article for July 2010

The Sims 3: Ambitions

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Developer(s)	The Sims Studio
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Series	The Sims series
Engine	The Sims 3 Engine
Version	4.10.1
Platform(s)	Windows, macOS
Release date(s)	^NA June 1, 2010 ^EU June 4, 2010 ^[1]
Ratings	ESRB: Teen PEGI: 12
System requirements	Minimum Hardware Requirements on TheSims3.com
Themes	Hobbies and Professions
Creature	SimBot
Neighborhood	Twinbrook

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The Sims 3: Ambitions is the second expansion pack for The Sims 3 released on June 1, 2010. It allows players to become "fearless heroes and ace entrepreneurs". In other words, it's a career oriented expansion pack, a spiritual remake of The Sims 2: Open for Business, but with added activities. Ambitions also appears to be somewhat related to The Sims 2: FreeTime.

EA Games confirmed Ambitions on March 4, 2010.^[2]

The Sims 3: Ambitions is also available for feature phones, iPhone and iPod touch.^[3] There are new features such as babies and being able to fully edit your home.

A free patch for The Sims 3 was released on May 28, 2010. It introduced tattoos and other updates to the base game.^[4] The new Create a Pattern tool is a free download just like the Create a World tool, and was released on June 23, 2010.^[5]

Description

Imagine a world where you can make your Sim anything they want to be. Widen your Sim's horizons with a bunch of killer career opportunities. With The Sims 3: Ambitions, decide whether your Sim will be the brave town hero, cause loads of mischief among their neighbors, or give some style advice. Make your Sim save the day as a brave firefighter, change your town as a leading architect, or live on the edge as a tattoo artist. Will your Sim find success as a billionaire high-tech inventor or eke out a living as a bumbling mad scientist? Will they uncover secrets as a private investigator by dusting for prints or roughing up a suspect for information? Will they walk the runways as a fashion diva with exhilarating and swanky style? Their future is entirely in your hands!

Game Summary

The Sims 3: Ambitions allows players to pursue a variety of exciting paths and careers in their Sims’ lives that in turn affect their overall gameplay experience and neighborhood. While on the job, the player has direct control over their Sims’ work and can choose how to spend their days. Players can opt to make house calls and save lives as a doctor or choose the devious route and test experimental medicine on patients. Be the heroic firefighter tackling raging infernos or smashing everything in sight at the victim’s home with an axe; take a shot at solving cases as an investigator, nicely convincing sources to divulge secrets or roughing up perpetrators in a dark alley to get information.

Players can now experience some of the most exciting and varied jobs. In The Sims 3: Ambitions, players can choose to hunt down vengeful spirits as the ghost hunter, invent brilliant and potentially destructive gadgets as an inventor, craft glorious masterpieces as a sculptor, and solve riveting cases by any means necessary as an investigator with dozens of cases to solve and numerous clues to find. Additionally, players will be able to change the look and feel of their town by becoming an architect and directly affecting the neighborhood around them leveraging Build and Buy mode. The stylist career and new tattoo system allow players to make over their Sim neighbors in fashionable or catastrophic ways. For the first time, players will be in charge of how their Sims’ career progresses and decide if they will work for good or evil, pursue creative endeavors or technical affairs, climb to the top quickly, or be a slacker. The future of a Sims’ success or failure is entirely in the hands of the player.

Features

New town: Twinbrook^[6]
New creature: SimBot ^[7] A SimBot is created by Sims with a high Inventing skill with an opportunity. As well as Inventing SimBots, players can purchase them with 40,000 Lifetime Happiness points.^[8]
New mode: Renovation Mode is a variation of Build and Buy Modes and used by the architect to remodel for clients^[9]
New Build mode abilities: modify the pitch of individual roof sections and add multistory columns.^[7]
New CAS clothes and hairstyles for female and male sims.
3 new skills:
- Sculpting: Sims can create sculptures out of ice, metal, clay and wood with another Sim posing for them^[7] (Previously seen in The Sims: Bustin' Out).
- Inventing: There seems to be a wide variety of inventions. Servos are back as SimBots, along with a time machine. Sims get scraps for inventions from junkyards, a new type of lot, or by blowing things up, or simply just buying scrap.^[7]
- Tattooing: Players are taken to the tattoo editor where they can choose tattoos with up to five layers, modify their colors, change the size, modify the opacity, and select where to place it: upper, lower, or full back, neck, ankle, chest, stomach, wrist, shoulder, bicep, or forearm.^[9] (Previously seen in The Urbz: Sims in the City and The Sims 2 for PS2/Xbox and Gamecube). Tattooing is a hidden skill.
Careers & professions
- 5 new professions: Architectural Designer, Firefighter, Ghost Hunter, Investigator, and Stylist.
- New career track, education^[8] and new features added to the existing medicine career track
- Sims can become self-employed by going to the city hall after gaining one skill point in a skill career.
- Control Sim’s actions and interactions while they’re on the job. According to a member of The Sims 3 staff, Sims will even be able to manage their careers to an extent while the player is not controlling them. "Every career has responsibilities and its own active jobs. Each active job will require [the player's] full attention, but there are still options that allow [the player's] Sim to progress and level up while not controlling them."^[10]
- On-the-job choices now change the town and affect other Sims as well. Players modify the town’s structure as an architect or set neighborhood fashions as a stylist.
New lifetime wishes:
- Home Design Hotshot (Earn 100 top scores for jobs in the Architectural Design profession)
- Descendant of da Vinci (master painting, sculpting and inventing)
- Fashion Phenomenon (Reach level 10 in the Stylist profession)^[11]
- Firefighter Super Hero (Save 30 lives on the job)
- Paranormal Profiteer (Reach level 10 in the Ghost Hunter profession)
- Pervasive Private Eye (Solve 35 cases on the job)
- Monster Maker (Create 3 Monsters)^[12]

New Lifetime rewards:
- Fireproof your home,
- Career cash booster^[12],
- Artisan crafter (boosts value of invented/sculpted items) ^[11]
- Professional Simolean Booster
- Efficient Inventor
- Entrepreneurial Mindset, Suave Seller
- Fireproof Homestead
- My Best Friend

Earthquakes have been added to the game.

Child sims can run bake sales to make money.^[13]
New objects: fire engine vehicle, personal fire extinguisher,^[14] detonation packs, tattoo chair,^[7] lockpicking kit,^[12] trampoline and Gnubb set.
Collect scrap from the junkyard, and broken objects for inventing^[7]
New upgrades^[14]
Six new traits: Savvy Sculptor, Eccentric, Dramatic, Eco-Friendly,^[15] Perceptive,^[12] and Born Salesman/Saleswoman.^[8]
Addition of the consignment shop as a place for Sims to sell their own items (collectibles, sculptures, etc.)^[16]
Ability to register at City Hall to be self employed in a "Skill Career" for the following skills: writing, painting, sculpting, inventing, photography, nectar making, gardening and fishing.^[16]
Overhauled real-estate system that lets the player purchase and upgrade any community lot building.^[16]
New laundry system. It gives Sims a good moodlet. There are washers and dryers available including one dryer that has a special "surprise."^[6]
New Death: death by meteor.^[17]^[5]
New vehicle type: Motorcycle
Messages that appear on the right side of the screen are more organized.
New lots including the consignment store, junkyard, hangout, laundromat, and fire station.^[18]
New songs

Leaked images of The Sims 3 Ambitions

In May 2010, leaked images of Ambitions surfaced, allegedly through a Russian journalist breaching disclosure policies. These images were distributed more widely by the Brazilian fan website, O Sim BR.net.^[19] The legal ramifications of republishing these images is currently unknown. The images show a clear overhead view of Twinbrook, confirming it as the town in the second trailer (Iron Man parody). They also show an explosion at a junkyard, the inside of a salon, a secret agent in 'disguise', a Sim at a drafting board, several new hair styles, applying tattoos, a clothes line, and a new motorbike.