Game Review: The Sims Medieval: Pirates and Nobles
By Angela Roberts
September 30, 2011
Some time ago, I reviewed EA's quest-based adventure game spin-off of The Sims, The Sims Medieval. Last month, the first expansion pack, or Adventure pack, came out: Pirates and Nobles. In this expansion, you get numerous new items, outfits, and a new Kingdom ambition, Peacemaker. In the Peacemaker ambition, your goal is to settle a war between two neighboring countries, the Noble Guild of Tredony and the pirate nation of Aarbyville, and of course, to ensure that your own kingdom survives the whole thing. You also get two new traits to give your Sims, the Entitled trait (which gives your Sim a negative buff anytime they're somewhere not decorated to the nines) and the Guild Enemy trait (which causes your Sim to be overcharged at the Village Store). You can play the new War Quests within any existing game (and depending on the quest, that can be a profitable use of Quest Points), but for the purposes of this review, I decided to try to play out the Peacemaker ambition, and use as many new objects and outfits as possible. I opened the ambition, began a new game, and as of this writing, I've played it as far as apparently possible (which sounds weird, I know, but I'll touch on that later).
First of all, it's a little sad to say that, for the first expansion, EA didn't really stretch the imagination much. They didn't even attempt to keep the game's mythology internally consistent. Tredony and Aarbyville are both pre-existing territories that you can annex and dominate politically. In fact, Tredony is one of the territories you get automatically when your kingdom reaches a high enough level of renown to build the reception hall. But these are minor geeky details, you might say. Partly true, but it also points to a lack of thought being put into the whole expansion. Because not much has actually changed. We're still working within the same fairly limited world. The least EA could have done was expand the map and create two new countries to fight its war. Where's the next expansion going to be? Crafthole and Yacothia?
What could have been done better? I've already mentioned new territories. It also would have been preferable if you didn't have to start a kingdom from scratch when you play the Peacemaker ambition. You're given a limited amount of Quest Points, and often not much Resource Points, so building a kingdom while pursuing the Ambition is rather difficult. This wouldn't have been hard to fix. Provide a ready-made kingdom; it's not as if the buildings are ever different. Have the player expend RP to populate it, if necessary. Then it's still customizable, and the player can concentrate on the story quests.
And a horse! My kingdom for a horse! It boggles the mind that EA didn't think to add one of the most requested elements: transportation. The most annoying part of the Sims Medieval is the time it takes to walk around on quests. They gave us parrots and falcons; no one thought players would want a horse? The excessive travel time means that it's necessary to fast forward a lot, something that causes you to miss a lot of text, because it displays too quickly. Not good.
Which brings me to one major issue. Pirates and Nobles is buggy. At least two quests stalled because the objectives disappeared or the text was unclear. In one, my hero was supposed to read a poem out loud but the game neglected to say that it was supposed to be read to a specific NPC. And more difficult; I can't finish the Peacemaker ambition. The quest is glitched; I've gotten as far as getting a peace treaty, but the objectives are gone and the quest isn't finished. So that sucks.
What did I actually like? There are some nice outfits and items. The storyline is not bad; interesting, really. But I'm going back to my base game ambitions. I enjoy it more. And really, I don't think I'll notice the absence.