The Sims 3: Into the future is the newest expansion for the Sims 3 which allows players to travel to the future and back, visit their Sims descendants, build Plumbots (Sims version of robots) and even bring their knowledge of the future back to to the present. Into the future is a very fun expansion with a lot to look at and explore and a lot of new items to play with. It’s a very impressive expansion for the Sims 3 and one players should definitely consider checking out.
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Overwhelmingly I very much enjoyed Into the future and the way this expansion brought you to the future, it’s not overly complicated to travel to the future. Once you install the game a mysterious portal will appear outside your Sims house and a traveler arrives. He instructed my Sim about some basics and then let them travel. Although I wouldn’t take any advice from him, he’s absent minded…..
Not always was travelling to the future a breeze though, I mean the first time it was for me, I got in and went strait to Oasis Landing. But when I tried with another Sim family the traveler’s machine broke and I had to wander around my house picking up pieces before I went. I liked this because it meant the game was mixing it up a bit, although it doesn’t help me in thinking the time traveler is a bit lost.
Once you travel to the future you will find that it’s either a beautifully lit wonderful Oasis Landing utopia or a desolate dystopian dark future. The utopia was by far my favourite, it has all the technology to check out and discover and it has a lot to explore in it. I just loved waking up and sleeping in that future world, everything was so bright in the morning and it’s a lot of fun to live in.
When you travel to the future you end up in a futuristic community lot where your Sim will live. It has everything your Sim would need like food, bathrooms, shower’s, entertainment and future Sims to talk to. When you arrive a notification will come up telling you where your descendants live, visiting the descendants was very interesting at Oasis landing. They seem to be a reflection of how well you are doing, some are well off, others are not.
I liked the first batch of descendants that I went and visited, they had a really awesome house and everything felt so well set up. They had all the big screen TV’s, all the tech, heeps of bathrooms and bedrooms and so many guests kept coming to visit. I felt like I had done really well by my Sims life and ended up with a good family tree. I was impressed with the way they lived and their lifestyle and how nice they were when I visited them.
Unfortunately I lost these awesome descendants when I decided to reset the future after I traveled back to the present to see what it does to the world there. When I went back I also had well off descendants, but their house seemed much more cold and lacking life. Also their conversations were about complaints towards my Sim and I didn’t understand why. They seemed much more ungrateful and selfish than the first family I visited. I guess I must have done something for them to end up that way. For me this makes the game interesting and challenging, I want much better descendants!
Another great game mechanic added with Into The Future was the addition of Plumbots. Plumbots are playable like Sims, except they are robots. Their needs are about power consumption and maintenance to keep them going in the game. You must travel to the future with your Sim to build one and depending on your skill in building them you can upgrade them to be more efficient and give them skills like cleaning or cooking. I really liked the Plumbot’s and I enjoyed listening to them talk, so much different to the sound of a Sims voice!
When you build a Plumbot they have all the customisation options you would expect when you make a Sim and how they look. You can pick their body shape and size, their gender, the sound of their voice, their colours and their name. It’s fun to create them and it’s fun to play as them. They are not like Sims and don’t need to sleep, they can recharge quickly off appliances and they can explore Oasis Landing much quicker than a Sim can.
Plumbot’s can also be upgraded and given skills so they can perform different duties. I’m not sure if the expansion did the best job explaining how these upgrades work or how to best apply them though and I found it difficult to know which upgrade I was choosing in the upgrade screen. Once you make an upgrade, you then have to make your Sim go to the Plumbot and insert the upgrade into them. Then the upgrades take place. I put cleaning ones in both my Plumbot’s, however, I never saw any of them ever clean anything up!
Travelling to the future and back also has its advantages. One such advantage is the lottery. If you’re smart, you can look up the lottery numbers in the future. Go back home to the present, enter the winning numbers in the lottery and win the jackpot! I won $52,000 the first time, it was great! Although a crazy thing happened to me, not 30 seconds after I had won this lottery did my house catch on fire!! Not only that, but I found out that Plumbot’s scream like crazy around a fire and have no idea what to do. Their voices are very funny and I’ll always remember the great lottery fire that occurred in my house. It burnt down my whole kitchen and freaked out my Plumbot so much they just screamed forever. For some tips on the exact process to winning the lotto, or anything else in this expansion check it out in this great guide by Sims VIP.
Plumbot’s also have their own type of personality and things they do. They seem to constantly look for places to recharge themselves, but you can purchase a unit to do that for them in the bed section of the buy mode. They are always looking at their pet that they carry around that hover’s up, it’s very interesting that they do that with their pets. I like it, and like the design and look of these things when the Plumbot looks at it. It’s the one time I look at a Plumbot and they seem happy. It’s the small details like this that make playing Into the future a good expansion to own.
Plumbots need to be tuned up constantly by your Sim or other Plumbot’s to keep them going. They are fun things to have around, although I’m not sure they like playing games with my Sim. I forced Bruce to play a game with me and if you look at his expression, I’m not sure he was enjoying it as much as I was.
The interaction between Sims and Plumbot’s is definitely an interesting part of this expansion. Mixing this with the exploration of the new world and visiting the descendant’s makes Into the future an expansion that is full of new content for Sims player to enjoy themselves. There’s also the added benefit of when you travel back to your main house you can purchase the future technology in buy mode, like the massive TV or the arcade machines. I liked this as it didn’t restrict the items to only being able to use them in Oasis Landing.
Into the future was such a different experience. When I first went to Oasis Landing I didn’t know what to touch, or what was for me. I drank some drink that wasn’t for my Sim and and nearly died strait away! All the items seemed so foreign at first and for me this is what travelling to the future should be like. Through trial and error I figured out the new technologies and explored Oasis Landing more and more each Sim day and really began to enjoy the world that was created for this expansion.
My only gripe with the game is that at times when I wanted to travel between the future and the present frequently I had to go through the dreaded loading screen in the game. It really slowed down the gameplay for me. I guess that is why with this expansion a mini game was added into the load screen where you try to find the items on the screen while you wait. But honestly it got a bit boring quick, even though you get points doing it. I found myself leaving the room while I wait for the game to load.
Overall The Sims 3 Into the Future was an excellent expansion for the Sims 3. So much content was added to the game with this expansion and so much for the player to do and explore. I found all the new items to be excellent and the television was fantastic, it was by far my favourite item. Playing as a Plumbot is great fun and there is a lot of little things to do and see in Oasis Landing. There is a lot to keep the player interested and the different outcomes with the future world and the state of your descendant’s is very interesting to see. The Sims 3 Into the future is a lot of fun and definitely worth checking out for any fan of the Sims series or someone looking to get into the Sims 3.
