Your Sims may be Livin' Large, they may throw House Parties, and they may even go Downtown on Hot Dates, but maybe they want to do a little more. Maybe they want to get away and relax, forget about the day to day hassles of their jobs and... well, that's about all Sims have to worry about, really. What they really want is a Vacation.

Vacation is the fourth expansion for the ever-burgeoning PC (and Mac) game The Sims. As always, Vacation requires the original game to play, and as always, since it's not a stand-alone, please read my review of The Sims if you want an overview of the basic game mechanics. This review will focus on the additions the expansion offers.

Just like the three previous expansions, Vacation offers a plethora of new wallpapers, floors, and objects to help design and decorate your Sims' homes. These are eclipsed, however, by the main feature; as the name implies, you can now send your Sims on Vacation.

Hot Date, the third expansion, started a trend with the ability to bring your Sims out of the house and to the new Downtown. Vacation continues this by allowing you to take your Sims out of the house and to any one of several vacation resorts. Going on vacation brings up what is essentially the 'vacation neighborhood', where there are several lots to which you can choose to bring your Sim in order to help them (hopefully) relax and de-stress.

EA mixed things up a bit by offering three 'themes' for the vacation lots; snow getaways, camping retreats, and beach resorts. Each one offers its own special items and flavor, though most of the areas offer the same basic features. One of these features - beds - lends the vacation area an entirely new importance. Because your Sims can sleep while on vacation, and since other vital needs can be accounted for (like hunger and bladder), your Sims can stay on vacation for as long as you'd like.

Well, practically as long as you'd like. It does cost money to go on vacation; in fact, it costs money daily. The benefit is that the time mechanics work exactly as they do in Hot Date. Time does not pass at your Sim's house while on vacation, so, for example, they will not lose their job because they aren't missing work. This makes going on vacation a valuable tool for things like improving your Sim's mood, and especially making friends. In fact, vacation is one of the best places to make friends because you don't have to worry about inviting other Sims over and providing for their needs. This makes climbing the ladders of career tracks somewhat easier.

There are some specific activities available in the vacation lots, from carnival games to searching for treasure to fishing. Vacation expands on the Sim inventory introduced in Hot Date, allowing your Sims to win, buy, or find items on vacation and bring them back to display on their shelves or in cabinets. This personalizes the house to your Sims, and they'll even reminisce about the stuff they bring home!

If sending your Sims on vacation isn't enough, you can also try your hand at creating your own vacation lot. Just as in Hot Date, you can customize lots in this new area to your heart's content, without worrying about money. You can build the resort of your dreams, or a run-down hovel worthy of appearance in National Lampoon's Vacation.

Before installing Vacation, I highly recommend having all the previous expansions installed as well. It's possible to install them out of order, but very annoying and can lead to system problems. This means that you should have:
A) The Sims Double Deluxe and Hot Date -or-
B) The Sims Deluxe, House Party, and Hot Date -or-
C) The Sims, Livin' Large, House Party and Hot Date.
You will also need a machine beyond the minimum system specs for the original game. An 800Mhz processor should suffice, along with 128MB of memory (256 if running Windows XP), and 32MB of video memory. A system at this level or better should be able to run the game with all four expansions with all options turned on.

Really, I don't feel the need to justify buying these expansions. There are two kinds of people in the world; those who like The Sims and those who don't. If you like the game, you're going to want all of the expansions, so it's not like I have to convince you here. But for all the money and hype machine that EA's continual updates to the game are, they do expand the game reasonably and always offer more to do. Vacation is no exception, and beyond just adding new stuff to do it adds even more control to your Sim universe and changes some of the strategies of the game. Truly another worthy addition.

Recommended: Yes