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Great game, but enough expansion packs already!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 25 / 27
Date: September 29, 2002
Author: Amazon User

First off, I would like to say that this expansion pack is worth buying. You get thirty lots in your neighborhood (some are commercial(grocery stores and farmers' markets) and some are housing lots)and of course you get pets. The only pets worth buying are the cat and the dog, because the other pets stay immobile and don't move around at all or interact very much. The only big difference is that the cat eats rodents. Also, they have put in a little farming minigame which allows you to grow crops and sell them, though I still prefer gnome-making... hehehe... There is also a park where people and their pets are frolicking around all over the grass and having a good time. There are some downsides, however. The dog and the cat count as a family member, so you can't have eight family members and a cat/dog, and, the big one, THERE ARE ALWAYS A BUNCH OF VERY ANNOYING STRAY DOGS WANDERING AROUND, RUNNING THROUGH YOUR HOUSE AND PEEING ON YOUR CARPET AND FLOOR! THEY RUN THROUGH DOORS! I have done EVERYTHING to keep them out(put up fences, barbed wire, furniture...) but they keep getting in and ruining my room score! But, all-in-all, the pros overcome the cons 5-to-1. If you want to hear some unique ideas of putting in a final expansion pack or the sequel, keep reading...
Enough with the expansion packs and on with the sequel!! We are tired of them! Yes, while a lot of ppl do enjoy watching ppl slide down waterslides, have snowball fights, and housetrain dogs, seriously... there are BILLIONS of things to do in this world, and it would take plenty more expansion packs to make them all available. If Maxis wishes to make anymore expansion packs, they should cut to the chase: add weather, let the Sims go to other Sims' houses (and I mean YOUR Sims to OTHER houses, with YOU as the guest), have different landscape surroundings besides green grass, be able to follow your Sims to work, add the ability of the Sims driving THEMSELVES to work, be able to go to horse and dog races and bet on them, be able to go on cruises, fly to different countries (and let the Sims actually go to the airport and buy the tickets and board the planes THEMSELVES...), buy a boat and go fishing in the ocean, be able to buy and sell stock, be able to control the sims with the keyboard while they are driving, skateboarding, skiing, snowboarding, etc. so you can steer, turn, and pull off tricks, allow the kids to earn money by washing cars and mowing lawns around the neighborhood, allow the kids to grow up, be able to go on walks and jogs to increase the Sims' body skill, allow the Sims to go to college to start up on degree-requiring career paths, be able to purchase life insurance for your Sims, have a life span (but allow the Sims to live a long and fruitful life before dying), change from third person to first person and back with the press of a keyboard button, and, because I am tired of writing down ideas, PUT ALL OF THESE IDEAS IN ONE OR TWO FINAL EXPANSION PACKS AND/OR START WORKING ON A SEQUEL!!!

Great Expansion Pack!!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 23 / 24
Date: December 01, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I was probably more excited about the Unleashed expansion than any other Sims expansion, mostly because I am a HUGE animal lover and I had been telling my fiance a few days before I heard about it that I wanted pets for my Sims! It more then exceeded my expectations, though it did have some annoying faults (which have since been fixed).

The Stuff I Liked:
-The Pets!- Besides the fact that you get a TON of pets to choose from (plus if you go to the Sims website, they have more pet skins available to download), it's a lot of fun to play with and train your pets. I couldn't be happier with how the pets themselves work - they are awesome!

-Old Town- Old Town is a fun place to take your Sims! You can shop for seeds to make a garden at home, enter your pet in a show, hang out at the coffee shop.. It's a lot of fun - excellent addition!

-New Items- You get a TON of new stuff in this pack, mostly related to pets! There are lots of cool dog/cat houses, toys, scratching posts, you name it! There are also some fun new skins and clothes.

-New Neighborhood Design- I like the newer neighborhood design. Old Town is part of the overall neighborhood, giving you more lots to choose from!

Ok, the stuff I didn't like:

-Stray pets!- These guys are super annoying because they constantly pee all over your lot and come in your house and eat your pet food! Luckily, there is a fix to this which you can download from the Sims site, or I believe it comes with some of the newer expansion packs. It's a little "no stray" sign you put on your lot. It fixed all the problems for me!

-Pet Family Members- Dog and cats take up a family member "slot", so you can only have a certain amount. I tend to have huge Sim families, so this was a minus in my opinion.

-Old Town- You have to take your entire family (pets included) whenever you go to Old Town. If one of your family members is at work, no one can go until they get back! This is annoying to me and hasn't been fixed with any of the new packs. I wish there was an option to take only the family members you want to Old Town.

Overall - I give this expansion 5 stars. Bottom line - even with bugs, it's still a lot of fun to play!!

Could be better

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 23
Date: September 27, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was disappointed in Unleashed because I was under the impression that it would make the game more fun. While it's great to go get pets and have a veggie garden, the reality is the expansion is not that great. My computer was top-of-the-line last summer, and I own all of the expansion packs. I'm only using half my hard drive and I clear all unnecessary programs before I start the game. It takes four minutes (at least) to load and the game lags during play.
Plus side: You get to choose the breed of your pet(cat/dog), name it, choose the gender, and train it at home (which can be time-consuming). The downtown area is nice, and it's free to get to. The new "call Neighbor" function on the phone lets you access more people than the old flow-chart method. You can grow your own food, but it kills your time, energy, and fun. In order to sell your veggies, you have to take them to town.
Neg. side: Beyond telling the pet where it can go, you can't control the animals. I guess this makes sense if we're sticking to the idea that you can only control people, but then what's the point of including the dogs and cats in the family if you can't control them? Also, added to the roaches and the weird bear that plays with your garbage, we have rabbits galore, gophers, mice, skunks, and the infamous raccoon. Add ten stray dogs and cats and you have a zero yard score. Also, you can't delete or stop actions already in a pet's queue, which can get annoying if your cat wants to chase its tail and your sim wants to give it a bath or pet it or something. The veggie garden was more of a pain that it should have been.

It looks like Maxis just pushed this out and didn't really put a lot of thought in it. I wish their install program would let you pick features you wanted in the game and leave others out (I can live with the roaches and the homeless flies, but mice and rabbits? It's a jungle out there!) On the other hand, there's some fun features and a new decorating theme: French Quarter.

The best idea EVER!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 19 / 20
Date: September 05, 2002
Author: Amazon User

This idea is great! 1) It has 12 breeds of dogs,
-Dalmations
-Beagles
-French Bulldogs
-Cocker Spaniels
-Rottweillers
-Labs(chocalate)
-Greyhounds
-German Shepards
-Australian Shepards
-French Poodle
I don't know what the other two are.

2) Sims: Unleashed also has 12 breeds of cats,
-Siamese -black cata -hymalian -gray w/black striped cats -dark calico - and orange cats.

3) There are also monkeys, parakeets, love birds, giant parrots, turtles, goldfish, and lizards. You can buy millions of things that your pet would like to play with.

4) Now the planting that the Sims do isn't just planting flowers, but vegetables! You can also get vegetables at a Farmers Market!

Big and Clunky, Still Fun

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 29 / 38
Date: May 15, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I enjoy this expansion pack, I really do. However, while it really adds a lot to the game, it also adds a lot of unnecessary and irritating things to the game. I have a mid-range system - I meet the system requirements by far, but I don't have a new or top-of-the-line system. I've had some system issues and I've had some frustrations with gameplay itself. I've also enjoyed playing with pets. Also, I should mention that I have hot date and vacation, but not Livin Large or House Party.

First, the good things: I like having pets. I especially like the iguana and the turtle, because they don't require too much care, but add some entertainment value. I also LOVE the new Old Town area as a new place to go. I like the new families, and I like the extension of the amount of space you have to build houses in each neighborhood (new "zoning" restrictions to build more lots). It doesn't cost anything for your Sims to go to Old Town - they don't have to pay cab fare, so I like it better.

Now, the Bad: First off, it's HUGE! It is by far the largest application that I have on my system. Unlike the other expansion packs, it is 2 CDs. This isn't all bad and when you figure how much gaming has progressed since the original "The Sims" came out years ago, I can accept that. This game also takes longer to load than the others, but not to the amount that I've found some people complaining about. I've never timed it, but I don't find it incredibly annoying.

I've found this game to be more unstable than previous versions. I get lock ups and have to restart the game, losing all of my changes (since it also takes longer to save). I've had periodic bugs such as water getting stuck under objects and random disappearing chairs.

As far as features go, I hate the strays. I find it nearly impossible to keep my lot clean with all of the strays on my lot. You either waste time going and telling the strays to shoo or you waste time cleaning up after them. This makes it very difficult to get promoted because the yard score impacts your Sims' moods so much when going to work. Another irritating thing is that bunnies and such eat your garden. Cats can keep the garden pests away, but it makes it difficult to have a garden without a cat.

Gardening is difficult. It takes a lot of time and effort and seriously decreases your Sims' comfort level and Fun. You'd think that maybe a Sim would LIKE gardening and would do it for fun, but that's not the case. It does save a little money, but with the amount of time spent gardening, I don't know if it's worth it.

The bird in the game gets you charisma, which is really cool. However, it constantly makes noise and that is irritating. You can't tell it to be quiet. Old Town is great, but few of the "canned" lots have places to sit or places to get real food, so your Comfort and Hunger scores drop quickly. You also can't go downtown unless you take all of the members of your household.

The addition of gardens & pets is great, but can be a bit overwhelming when you're trying to go on vacation, go on dates, meet friends, take care of needs, take care of family, get promoted at work, and also build skills. Sometimes, that is just too much to handle.

Despite my complaining, I really do like this expansion pack. I just think it has a whole lot of issues that need to be worked out. It does not seem like it is the most "polished" of all of the expansion packs. If you are a Sims fan, I would definitely buy it.

The Best Yet

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 25 / 31
Date: July 15, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I just heard about this game the day after it came out. It sounds like this expansion pack will be the best yet! It has pets which everyone has wanted since the original game and also has a pet store. I have only seen one picture from this game and it looks awesome! It looks like there are about ten differnet types of dogs and a couple of types of cats. You can also gets parrots, turtles, lizards and fish. For fun try entering your pet ino a pet show. Also, it has those carpeted climbing things and other realistic toys for the pets in the pet store. This expansion pack also features a cafe and a market. In the cafe you can bring your pets and bring up your relationships with people through your pets. In the market I'm guessing you can buy all different types of food to eat and I'm sure they will look different then the food they always eat. I mean come on. Who wants to see their sims eat the same food over and over again. The last features in this game are the garden and the parks. You can plant your own foods and have them grow, but watch out for the mice and other outdoor creatures wanting to eat them up. In the park you can walk your pet and also play with them. This game also has five new career paths-fashion, become a culinary genius, take care of the neighborhood's pets as a trustworthy veterinarian, teach others as a noble educator, or simply run away and join the circus. There are 125 new objectsfor pets and people, dozens of new character skins and an all new decorator set with a New Orleans French Quarter theme. There is much more to tell, but then there would be no point in buying the game!

More Promise then Punch

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 22 / 26
Date: October 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

I was very excited about this expansion PAC, perhaps too excited. Although the new town looks great, game play has not changed or even improved. This expansion PAC is design solely for the cat & dog lover (I was very disappointed when I found out a monkey could not be a pet - it's just a decoration on the Box). There is no substantial change in human interaction worth mentioning & the "over a 100 new objects" are basically for pets only. If you are tempted to get a pet dog, be careful. A full time stay-at-home sim is needed to housebreak and take care of it. The pups need more attention then a New-Born Baby Sim so you might have to kiss that high paying Sims' Job goodbye! The stray animals (a nice sounding feature)are more annoying then fun & you can't take the stray out of the cold and make it your pet. Also I think this new PAC is filled with bugs. One Example: Unknown sims from next door not only ring the doorbell for a visit, they just walk right into your sim's house. The new "zoning" option is not what Maxis lead its customers to think during its on-line pre-sale chat. Despite their promise to the contrary, many items purchased or created for the home can not be used in the "Old Town" & the animals can not be part of the Hot-Date city (what's a city without rats). Perhaps the most annoying feature is the fact that a Sim can not visit "Old Town" without dragging the entire family (including pet) with him, which leads to problems for sim children missing school and prevents adult sims from going to "Old Town" while their spouse is at work or their child is at school. It would have been better if this PAC added weekends off for the student & working sim, or added weather elements, or a calendar feature so that holidays/birthdays/wedding anniversaries could become part of the sims play experience. Maxis could have at least offered a wider and wilder variety of pets to chose from (monkey, pig, ferret,horse, maybe even a LION!) Heck, there isn't even a Basset Hound puppy offered! I am not sorry I purchased this item, just disappointed that it isn't all that special (much like the SIMS VACATION PAC)....

Not ready for release

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 25 / 32
Date: October 03, 2002
Author: Amazon User

Let me start by saying that I LOVE the SimCity/Sims games; they're totally addicting...

On the expanded Neighborhood: Fabulous! Lots of room for population boom, and some awesome, affordable empty houses. The bad news: if you installed over existing games, you may not be able to remodel your old houses without demolition first. (E.g., some old wall panels won't accept a door or window; you have to remove the wall and rebuild it first. Tedious and expensive. Go to SimsPlus to get the money cheat -- you'll need it.)

On the Pets: Cute as buttons. Neighbors' pets as well as strays wander from house to house, so even if your Sims aren't ready to adopt, you can still enjoy the animals. The bad news: my Sims are at best indifferent to them. If I make them pet and play with the furries, I see their Fun scores drop.

On the new Walls/Floors/Objects/Skins: Big yawn. Not much, and not much appealing. Maybe if you've never downloaded or made anything for the game yourself, you might get a rise; but I was very disappointed. Fan websites have lots more and lots better stuff.

On the new Community Areas: There's no accounting for tastes; I found one gorgeous, another boring, another creepy. They are, however, all uniformly small and cumbersome to navigate (you're going to see the MOVE symbol a lot). As for the NPCs, I think the Saxophone Player in the French Quarter is going to go the way of the Tragic Clown: he's cute for about 15 seconds, but by the third rendition of "When the Saints Go Marching In," you just want him to SHUT UP.

And by the way, your stay-at-home Sim can't go anywhere while his roomie's at work, oh no; the shuttle will only agree to come if ALL the household members are going together at once.

On these trips, you also enter another dimension of time and depletion. Say your Sim leaves home at noon, with all his motive bars full green. He arrives at his destination. About two minutes of game time later, it's 9 p.m., and all his motive bars are edging on solid red. When he arrives back home it's still noon, but with hunger, comfort, energy, etc. all depleted, the day is shot. This wreaks havoc with a working Sim's schedule.

On the new Interactions: It's good to have some more options of what Sims can say and do with each other; unfortunately, Maxis made some lousy choices, most notably: Gossip. It's the ONLY mode of speech non-playable Sims seem to use, and the playable Sims uniformly detest it. Watch your Social points plummet and your Friends disappear.

On the new Careers: It's always nice to have more options, though since we never actually see the Sims at work (*there's* an expansion pack for you), it hardly matters; and given the time/motive distortions and negative social interactions incorporated into Unleashed, a player may never get to see what outfit changes accompany promotions.

Maxis clearly put a lot of effort into scale and the visual aspect. And just as clearly, they put too little into concepts and coding. Is it worth buying? Yes, if just to have a greatly expanded neighborhoods. But the price seems awfully steep for a still-buggy Beta..

Sims Unleashed Review

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 14 / 14
Date: November 20, 2003
Author: Amazon User

In my opinion, The Sims Unleashed is the best all around Sims Expansion there is. Infact, if this was a stand alone game with just the pets, Old Town, and the Sims, I would say it's the best all around computer game. The reason I rated it four stars was because of some glitches, like half of the time I call the Old Town Shuttle bus to come pick up my Sims, it'll say it's coming over in a couple of minutes.. but a couple of hours later, it still doesn't show up! But this game is great when the Shuttle bus shows up, and you venture out into Old Town.

When you first buy The Sims Unleashed, I suggest you go to the Sims Unleashed tutorial house, Claire Charming. Even though it isn't the official The Sims Unleashed tutorial house, Claire Charming's small little cottage, and her adorable Cocker Spaniel, Luna, helped me with the basics of the game: Feeding, training, disciplining, playing, and many more activities to do with your pet. Also, I started a little garden in Claire's backyard, filled with all sorts of vegtables. The only bad thing about having a garden, is the rabbits and gophers! They'll trash your crops, no matter how much fencing you put around it.

Pros:

1. There are tons of dogs, cats, fish, birds, etc to choose from.
2. You get a whole new part of town, plus a new neighborhood section.
3. Instead of a plain, old yellow taxi, you get a big red Shuttle Bus to pick you up if you want to head out to Old Town!
4. New bodies, heads, clothes, furniture, house materials, and more!
5. You get pets! (What more could you want?)

Cons:
1. Sometimes the Shuttle Bus doesn't show up! Very annoying!
2. A new expansion pack means more loading time!
3. It can take weeks or months to train your pet just to get five skills!
4. Pesky rabbits, gophers, and especially stray dogs and cats pee all over the road, making it look terrible!
5. There's only one new child's outfit - a hideous pair of overalls and boots, and a ugly, puffy denim dress!

Sims Unleashed- here's what i think

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 15 / 16
Date: January 05, 2004
Author: Amazon User

The Sims Unleashed was a very creative expansion pack. You can now adopt animals from the pet store from a whole new downtown area. You can choose from dogs, cats, birds, lizards, and turtles. You can:
-choose from different breeds
-name them
-choose their sex
-buy them collars, treats, and toys
-play with them

There are also some different jobs, people, and outfits to choose from. The expansion pack also comes with all the beds, food dishes, play areas, and other things like that for your pets. It's also really fun to have your pets train to do tricks.

Also, in case you didnt already know, their are a bunch of cheats. Here are only some of them:

-first, hold down Shft+Ctrl+"C"
-you should then have a box at the top left-hand corner of your screen
-you can then type all your cheats in here and then press enter
-typing in rosebud will get you $1,000
-if after rosebud you type in ";!;!;!;!;!;!" each time you enter the pattern ";!" you will gain another $1,000
-if you fill then entire box with rosebud then the pattern of ;! (the box does end, i promise)and in the last pattern sequence u change it to :! instead of ;! then hold down the enter button and it will say no such cheat but you will receive money anyway
-hold down enter until your money box reads all 9's and you then will have unlimited money
-another cheat i use often is "move_objects on" which allows you to pick up and move objects that the game normally wouldnt have allowed you to
-also, if a person you have is unhappy and wont do something, use this cheat to delete them and the click on their picture to bring them back (keep in mind that this may delete and relationships or jobs that this person has)
-using that button you can also clean up messes and spills that otherwise your sims would have had to clean up themselves

i hope that i have helped you!
good luck with sims and i hope that you also like sims unleashed!

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