With any expansion pack, it is expected that there are additions that may not necessarily be related to the theme of the expansion. In this respect, AMB has succeeded in impressing me.

Create-A-Sim - There are new hairstyles, outfits, character traits and lifetime wishes. As one of the professions is a stylist, the hairstyles and outfits are appropriate to that profession but also to anyone else who just wants a change. Some of the other outfits are related to the other professions but some are not directly linked.

Gameplay - During gameplay, there are some further additions. I do not have time to mention all of them so I will just mention a few.

The first big change is laundry. This is optional, however, but it does provide good moodlets when a sim is dressed or even when they are asleep. When a sim changes clothes, a pile of dirty laundry is left on the floor. Every so often, a sim can be directed to clean around the house. Ultimately, they will load the washing machine. After the machine has done its cycle, the clothes either need to be hung on a washing line or put in a dryer. This EP comes with two washing machines and matching dryers, one laundry hamper and one washing line. One drawback is that it can be time-consuming. Another drawback is that the washing machine can sometimes break down and flood the laundry room or kitchen.

For the child sims, they can make some money from selling muffins from that gaudily coloured toy stove. Checking in the newspaper for the Bake Report is also a good idea for them to find out what is in demand and where the market is saturated.

If sims have enough money to spare, they can buy real estate. They can buy existing venues, enhance them and turn over a nice profit. Currently, however, I am yet to have sims who have enough money to spare.

Buy Mode - As examples of new items, there is a trampoline that allows sims to improve their athletic skill and also gain the invisible skill of trampolining in the process. The higher the skill level, the more elaborate the jump. For those residents of Twinbrook who do not have §2,150 to buy their own household trampoline, there is one outside the fire station that can be used.

For the sims who take a lot of photographs either with a camera or on their cellphone, there is also a range of digital photo frames that allows sims to have a slideshow of those pictures that they have taken.

There is a new game for the family called Gnubb, which I admit I am yet to try out but it looks like it could be fun. Again, this has its own invisible skill.

Build Mode - The big change in Build Mode is the roof section pitch control. In order to adjust the different pitches, the player clicks and drags on that section of roofing to get it to the desired slope. This allows you to have variable pitches on different sections of roofing. Also, as previously introduced in The Sims 2 University, columns can be made to rise to three floors.

Another feature that I am pleased to see is the ability to recolour ceilings. There is even a subcategory of flooring (or roofing) for this purpose. There is also the addition of a new set of windows and doors, which would have been easier to classify and track down if Collections were a part of The Sims 3, which alas they are not.

In the main, I believe that the goals have been reached although the score would have been higher had a few of the shots at goal not rebounded or been disallowed because of bugs that had not been ironed out.

Although somewhat time consuming, I have enjoyed playing out all of the new professions and for different reasons. Although the opportunity-based job system is a constant throughout the system, it does have sufficient variety to be no more repetitive than the tones for the original careers. When time allows over the next 5 months, I will be submitting reports about the different professions and I will be able to go into more depth about them and also the new features of the game.

However, I believe that we have been spoilt with the Medicine career track now having a bit of a "professional" twist to it. This has given us the message that tweaking original careers can be done and our sims can be got out of the office. This is unfortunate as it means I am wondering why the same sort of thing has not been done to the other careers. I understand it may have probably put the price up of the EP by a few £ or $ and perhaps set back the release date but it would have given me a feeling of it being more complete and not be wondering if there is an "Ambitions 2" in the pipeline that finishes the job.

Twinbrook is another neighborhood that I feel has been very well designed and I have enjoyed playing in. I have found it to be very atmospheric especially in the misty wetlands, travelling around the derelict railroad system and visiting rabbit holes that are quite different than their opposite numbers that we have seen before. In this case, you see the Twinbrook supermarket on the right and the Sunset Valley/Riverview supermarket on the left. The school, town hall and bookstore are also quite different. Once again, the designers have created something that differs sufficiently from the existing neighborhoods of Sunset Valley and Riverview while maintain a specific theme and feel and to keep my attention.

While on the subject of how things feel and I did mention this briefly earlier, I would still like to see the return of collections. This was a feature that I enjoyed with The Sims 2 and I feel that it should have a place in The Sims 3. It is also a way to help people organise their custom content and keep things in specific themes. As it is, everything looks as disorganised as my office at home and for those who know me personally, you know how messy that is. Considering the amount of different themes and collections there are from The Sims Store and those that come with each EP or SP, it would be good to be able to keep things organised so they can be easily accessed and identified.

Talking about The Sims Store, I am disappointed in EAxis for going straight on to promote new collections (see what I mean?) in The Sims Store, giving us teasers about the new stuffpack due out in September ("Fast Lane Stuff") and informing us of the new EP ("Late Night") due out before Christmas. I feel that they should instead be allocating enough of the workforce to iron out the bugs that are still present in Ambitions. Once again, I do not want to be waiting until just before the next SP or EP is released to be able to say "finally" to the game becoming bug free, only to be messed up again by what comes next. Although I enjoy Twinbrook, I do have families in Sunset Valley and I would like them to be able to enjoy all of the features that have come with Ambitions.

As well as the consignment store bug that I have mentioned, there is another one from the same place where unsold goods are not returned to the playable sim after 5 days. Also, a fellow staff member from TSZ is reporting that her self-employed sims are not getting the proper experience from the sale of their goods. Reports are out there in the community that sims who go on world adventures can no longer excavate at dig sites unless it is completely on the flat. Also, sims seem to be wanting to run everywhere, even when taking the car is obviously quicker. Also, when taking photographs, it gives erroneous descriptions of the movement of the sims being snapped. Does V J Alvi from Sunset Valley here look like he is running to you? Well, according to EAxis, he is.

To summarise, it might not be on the same scale as World Adventures but it offers a great deal of new material and we are not paying an extra $10 or £6 for the privilege of getting 1,000 simpoints to be used in The Sims Store. I was generally impressed, not just with the new professions but also with what else has come with it.

Until I found these bugs, I was going to wholeheartedly recommend it. I had hoped things would have been different with The Sims 3 but it does look like it is going to be the same old story of EPs not being thoroughly checked and we have to wait a long time for those bugs to be ironed out.

I would have liked to have gone into more detail, telling you about the scrap-eating simbots that are this EP's weirdness, the time machine that can really alter a sim's state of being and turn up more unknown relatives than Jerry Springer, the very fast motorcycle that is called "The Beast" and also the detailed and powerful system of tattooing. I have barely scratched the surface but hopefully I have given you a good impression of what I believe to be an imperfect but nevertheless very good expansion pack.

Although I would say the bugs are shots at goal that rebounded or have been disallowed, I do believe that the goals achieved have been realistic and Ambitions has succeeded in what it has set out to do and that is to enrich our gameplay and make us feel our simlives are more worthwhile.

Dag dag!