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On Tuesday Oct. 27, 2009, the weather was still quite nice in Taiwan even though it is supposed to be Autumn already. I got up really early in the morning, even though I didn’t need to get to Taipei until noon. Maybe I was too excited!!! I travelled by High Speed Railway to Taipei, I live in Taichung which is in the middle of Taiwan. I met Evanell for lunch and we went to EA office in Taiwan together.
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When we got there, we talked a little with Claire, who’s the product manager in EA Taiwan. She was talking about the possibility of having a party for the 10th anniversary of the Sims in December in Taiwan. So, we were trying to think of ideas for the party and wait for the computer to be ready for us. If anyone has one, you can drop a line at our guest book.
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Finally, we got to play the game. You have to get into Sunset Valley or Riverside first and from there, you send your sims, using a phone or a computer, we didn’t even bother with the computer, on vacation. Sorry, I’m not exactly sure of the “Terms” used in English games, because we played World Adventures in Chinese. |
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The first person we sent on vacation, he went on a taxi and on his way to somewhere, and the screen changed to loading screen for World Adventures. So, I’m not exactly sure where he went to take a plane(?). And when he got back to the neighborhood, he just appeared on the side of the road near the military base. But the next one that we sent, the loading screen came right on after the sim made the phone call. So it was a bit confusing as to which is the norm.
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Our first destination was France. Because we haven’t seen any news on France and I really like the kissing screenshot that was released. |
First thing we noticed was the music, it was awesome. The animation that you see after loading into France was beautiful. It is more of a country side France. It’s kind of flat and green with cute country houses. However, we didn’t see Eiffel Tower. I was really disappointed. But, the thing is this version we played wasn’t exactly the final version. So, we could still get Eiffel Tower in the final game. Because the staff that was helping us told us that she saw Eiffel Tower before, and the loading screen did have it in the back ground even so faintly. |
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The town is really cute. You can see into the shops, but when you want to purchase items, you will have to talk to a shop owner, such as grocer, bookstore owner, artifact shop owner, and food store owner. You can only buy scooters at shops in Egypt and France. Because sims ride scooters when they go places in France and Egypt and in China, they ride bicycles.
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We tried photography in France. It was really interesting. You can purchase disposable looking camera in France, but I’m not sure if it is disposable. And in China, you can purchase a better camera. Not sure, what better means though, because with no photography skills, I believe that there’s no difference. |
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The first picture we took, we got a thumb on top of the photo and the second one with magic gnome posing in front of it. But I don’t remember seeing him when I snapped the picture. Sometimes the photos were clear and sometimes they were blurring. You can frame them or sell them.
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Then of course, we went on an adventure. It wasn’t too scary or difficult, but it will take time for you to solve each puzzle and find keys. Some keys were easy to find or you can even purchase them at the shops. Some you need to accept challenges to get.
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There are many different breeds of grapes in France, and you need 10 to make nectar. You can used different combination of breeds for the nectar. But I can’t guarantee the taste. The one we made was graded terrible. Haha. The animation for sims to make nectar was interesting. Our sim fell down a lot when he was stomping on the grapes. But I guess the higher nectar making skill a sim has, the less he will fall(?). |
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We didn’t actually take any challenges, because we didn’t have much time. So we just take a look at all three destinations. We found a receipt for frog legs in France, yes, it means you can fish frogs. They look totally cute, I mean the frogs not the frog dish. :P I’m not sure if you can fish frogs at Sunset Valley or Riverside, but you can get frogs at any of the three destinations.
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** You sims cannot go on vacation right after they came back from one. There’s a 2-day waiting period. So we had to use a different sim for a different destination.
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