LGR – The Sims 3 Outdoor Living Stuff Pack Review
[typing] So your Sim has their ideal house.
They have a garage of awesome, a living room of awesome, an entertainment room of awesome, a freaking bathroom of awesome.
But you know what? It's lame.
Yep, you need to get off your pasty butt and go outside and enjoy the fresh air.
Besides, what real fun is there to have inside anyways? Pffft.
Woohoo is so overrated.
Say hello to the newest Sims 3 Stuff Pack: Outdoor Living Stuff.
Stuff like chairs, hot tubs, refrigerators and things withuselessly curly metal around them.
Being a Stuff Pack, you'll needThe Sims 3 to enjoy the stuff.
Otherwise, you'll just pointlessly stuff thepockets of EA with your money and stuff.
While it may say Outdoor Living on the cover and the sickeningly springtime-y loading screen, that's kind of restricting yourselfto a box that needn't exist.
You can of course use the stuff anywhere, but I guess it makes the most sense to use it outside.
Preferably, you should have a well-manicured, attractive, and socially acceptable backyard to plop all of these random knick-knacks onto.
I don't know what you're going to doif your Sim only has an apartment, because then you don't havean outdoors to stuff with stuff.
That's fine, you can just play make-believe and pretend you're not a complete loser with a tiny loft.
To me, the stuff this time around seemsto be divided into three main groups: Kitchen and Dining, Leisure and Random Crap.
For Kitchen and Dining, you have acontinental vision counter and island, a sink, a combination fridge and wine cooler, a combination oven and stovetop, a rather large grill, a bar, barstool, a dining chair, and a Class-E dining table.
Aren't they clever? In the Leisure section, you have a love seat with uselessly curly metal, an extra-expensive lounge chair a parasol umbrella thing, an end table, an easel, a telescope, a fireplace you can set anywhere, a fireplace that really should be set into walls, not one but two fire pits, which I absolutely do not care for, a stereo inside of a rock, and an obnoxiously large monolith of a TV.
You also get some lights: one that sits on a table, two that mount on a wall, one that's a giant friggin' curly metal hell cuboid, and one that can only hang from the ceiling.
Yeah, well, newsflash: It also comes with a ridiculousFIVE hot tubs with this pack.
So if your Sim had been craving hot tubs, but you didn't have the Late Night expansion installed, I think you're well taken care of now.
And didn't anybody else think this wouldhave been the perfect opportunity to add a diving board or other pool equipment? But no, of course not.
You stillhave the same old boring pools with the same old boring ladders and maybe a fountain or fourteen, if you're feeling really frisky.
And lastly, you have the Random Crap category.
In here, you get some things that serveno real purpose but easily could have, if some effort was put into it.
Things like a fountain you can't use, a serving cart you can't use, barbecue tools you can't use, terrariums you can't use, fruit bowls you can't use, lemonade you can't use, and a Soviet Russian gnome who uses YOU! There's a couple of plants and fences, too, that are at least *supposed* to be non-interactive.
Although honestly, I expectedmore plants and stuff like that, seeing as this is OutDOOR Living Stuff, but whatever.
Now I know clutter objects have been apart of The Sims 3 from the very beginning, but this just feels weak to me.
I don't know why, there's just a lot of it.
You get no new trees, rocks, flowers, or anything like that that would be outdoorsy, you would think.
But, oh, you get a bunch of fake fruit for your fake life that's so fake, you can't even fake eating it.
You may as well just stand thereand direct your farts towards the stuff because then at least you'll be doing something with it.
[fart] You also get the typically negligibleamount of new clothing options in both casual and somewhat dressy styles for both men and women.
It's nothing I find that attractive or appealing at all.
In fact, it's some of the most blandclothing I've seen in the game so far.
I guess if you really want to make yourselflook like Mr.
Rogers, then go right ahead.
Whatever.
I'll just stick to the clothes I've made myself.
Like the official LGR t-shirt, now available for free download for The Sims 3.
No substitutions, exchanges, or refunds.
The link is in the video description below.
There might be some little itemor two that I missed out entirely, but honestly, I have no real way to tell for sure, because guess what? There's no manual included at all anymore.
Not in the box.
Not on the disc that I could find.
Nothing.
Just a couple ads and a slip telling you how to install the game and make a warranty claim.
Freaking stupid.
I like my manuals.
Cheap and black-and-white is better than nothing.
What am I supposed to dowhen I'm taking a dump now, EA? Alright, well is The Sims 3:Outdoor Living Stuff worth buying? As always, the suggested price is $19.
99, so you're paying a little bitless than what you would pay for a similar amount of downloadable stuff from EA's Sims 3 store online.
And considering you get a stripped-to-the-boneplastic package with a disc in it and nothing more, they may as well just release this digital only and forego the retail version entirely.
Plus the content is really just a pile of random stuff that may or may not appeal to you at all.
Personally, I find this Stuff Packto be somewhat of a loser.
It's more of the same and it's nothing yourSims don't already have in another form.
So honestly, unless you just don'thave the Late Night expansion and really want hot tubs, or you just can't live without somelemonade that you can't drink, I have no reason to recommend this one.
[easy-listening jazz music].