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GameSpy: SimPrentice Part 3 and OfB Review
Gaming site GameSpy has posted two new articles. The first one is the third part of the SimPrentice, in which GameSpy interviews Grubbs, a Sim trying to run a business. This time they cover buying a community lot, and building a salon there using the new building tools. There are also some details about hiring employees, including the talent badges. The robots are also mentioned. A Servo, the family pet robot, will come at a price of 3,000 simoleons when you create it. Finally there's a little note about a reviewer, who comes in to rate your business. For more details read The SimPrentice Part 3. Naturally it comes with several screenshots.

GameSpy has also had the privilege to post the first online review of the game. One of the first things they note is that Open for Business works best in combination with the earlier released expansion pack Nightlife, especially because that pack provides the objects necessary to create several kind of businesses. Another downside is that running a business is not as intuitive as the rest of the game, and that talent badges are put besides the skills, rather than adding to it. Also, you don't get to see the progress in getting the next badge for a certain talent. It's also unclear which existing skills help building up a talent faster.

The good thing is that there's a good balance. Starting a business is easy, but making it very successful is quite hard, a lot harder than say having a Dream Date in Nightlife. The amount of humour - pet bricks which can be taught tricks, or robots freestyling for tips - in the expansion also make it a lot of fun to play. It's quite deep, and feels almost like a whole new game. Altogether GameSpy gives the pack a rating of 4 out of 5 stars. It's a little sloppy in the implementation, but otherwise a very strong pack, especially when combined with Nightlife. Check out the review and watch the screenshots for more details.

Written at 15:53 on Saturday, 25 February 2006 by ChEeTaH.


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