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The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack
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Graphics & Sound:
The Sims Medieval marked a change in The Sims games. Instead of being totally open-ended, there were much more specific missions. The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack not only adds new characters, clothing, items and more, but you also get lots of new missions to tackle as well!
Graphically, there are quite a few new things to look at. I think my favorite new thing is the birds, falcons and parrots. They're really quite beautiful and a lot of fun to send after people. The new pirate and noble clothing options are bright and fun. The characters are entertaining to see and hear. I really like that they add in different personalities for people from different territories, exactly as you would expect. For the most part though, the majority of things look the same, which makes sense as this is just an expansion, so you wouldn't want the overall look to change. Likewise, the music and sounds are mostly the same as before, except that you get new accents and new sounds like the bird whistle and bird noises.
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Gameplay:
So as I've said, The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack is an expansion to the previous game, so the overall gameplay is the same. When you go to choose a new quest, you'll see that some of them now have crossed swords in front of them. These refer to the impending war between Tredony, Aarbyville, and your own city. Tredony is the home of the merchants so you might think that they sound more trustworthy than the pirates of Aarbyville, but we all know that merchants can be quite bloodthirsty, so don't take anything at face value. You will end up deciding what to do about conflicts between the two kingdoms and whichever side you take can end up affecting your kingdom in many ways. Once you've played the quest called "The Incident," you will unlock a "war gauge effort" that you can use to see what your choices have changed in the war between Tredony and Aarbyville. Of course, these quests can be played no matter how far (or not) you already are in your current game save, so even if you've just started Sims Medieval you can still play Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack.
One of the first things that you're going to notice is that there are new daily goals that you didn't have before, like sending falcons after people. Unfortunately, the game did give me that particular task before I had a falcon, so I just had to fail on that chore since I didn't quite have a bird yet, but I do like to do things in odd orders so that was probably the problem. You can also buy tools and maps to go treasure hunting and let's be honest, who doesn't love treasure? You are also going to get fun new toys, like an interrogation chair. Granted, it's probably not much fun for the victim, but oh well. To use it, you just select the chair and it'll pop up a list of people near you that you can put into the chair. Once they're in there, you'll find a variety of torture methods you can use and a meter in the top left that shows their will and their alertness. You need to manage to get that will down to the bottom before they're unconscious. Once you do this, you'll be given the option to interrogate. Each torture method works well on some people and not so well on others. Just keep an eye on that will meter and when you find one that reduces the will a lot, go to town on them. |
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Difficulty:
The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack adds content, but manages to keep the difficulty about the same, which is nice. I hate when you get an add-on pack that changes the game so much by making things way too easy or way too hard, so I was very pleased with Pirates and Nobles as it does a very good job with balancing things. There are new things that you will have to learn, like how to call and send birds and how to dig for treasure, but they're not hard to learn and are well explained when you get to them. As before, the quests are made easier by placing a circle over the head of the person that you need to talk to or the place that you need to go so that you don't spend days wandering around the kingdom just to find one person. I think that if they didn't have this, then I would get very frustrated very quickly.
Just like before, you will get a rating based on how quickly and how well you complete your quests, so make sure to try and get up to platinum every time. To get your rating up, you'll need to keep your status bar in the green, which means not only making sure that your Sim is well fed, rested, and sometimes cleaned, but that they also complete their daily challenges and satisfy their desires, which isn't always easy to make happen and still get things done on your quests as well. Keeping that status meter green is very important though, so make sure to keep an eye on it!
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Game Mechanics:
As I mentioned, The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack plays exactly as it did before, so there's not much new for you to learn. Everything is controlled by a combination of the keyboard and the mouse. Most things just involve clicking where you want to go or clicking on what you want to do to make a menu appear. You will need to use the keyboard to do things like rotate the camera (press the comma for left and the period for right), which believe me, you are going to want to use at times! For the most part though, things are very easy to use and move around, exactly as before.
I've been playing hours and hours to try and get to the end of the Pirates and Nobles Adventure Pack quests before writing this and I still haven't managed to get there yet. If you're a fan of the new quest format like I am, you're definitely going to want this add-on pack as it gives you a lot more to play, so go pick it up today! |
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-Cyn, GameVortex Communications AKA Sara Earl |
Minimum System Requirements:
OS: Windows XP (SP3), Windows Vista (SP1), or Windows 7, Processor: XP: 2.0 GHz P4 or equivalent, Vista/7: 2.4 GHz P4 or equivalent, Memory: XP: 1 GB, Vista/7: 1.5 GB, Hard Disk: at least 1.5 GB with at least 1 GB additional space for custom content and saved games, Graphics: 256 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0, Sound: 9.0c compatible sound card, The Sims Medieval required to play |
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Test System:
OS: Windows 7 SP1, Processor: 2.4 GHz, Memory: 4 GB, Hard Drive: 10 GB free, Graphics: 128 MB nVIDIA Quadro NVS 140M, Sound: DirectX 9.0c |
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Related Links:
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