I’m not going to drag out a description of the graphics and sound for this game because they are identical to the other three expansion packs and the original game, for that matter. What is offered are nine new vacation destinations that allow for your whole Sim-family (you can’t just take part) to engage on a fascinating vacation destination that you can pick.

When your Sims get to their destination they have to choose from a variety of different activities to keep things fresh and new. Otherwise they, and you, will become very bored. You can also work with the new souvenir system that allows you to collect tickets from carnival games and turn them all in for something that would have cost less if you used the money to actually buy it at a store rather than pump $50 bucks into Skee-Ball. While the collection aspect of the game has a few novel points, it certainly doesn’t make for a $30 dollar expansion set.

So why would you want to play this game? Having not played any expansion after Livin’ Large, I was a little excited to actually get back into play The Sims again. It had been a number of months since my computer took a turn for the worse and I wasn’t able to recover my saved game before the hard drive bit the big one. I popped in the CD and gave the game a go, and I still wonder why people would pay for this. While it does expand on the game, and give players new abilities and attributes to use it doesn’t further anything from the Hot Date expansion set (or from what I have read about it).

The Sims will always be The Sims in my mind, a game that over two years ago came from a company that revolutionized simulation gaming with their engaging, involving gameplay that made a stand against the generic and boring, but I feel like Maxis, or EA, are just milking gamers for what ever they can get from them before they unleash the next expansion pack, which they conveniently announce weeks after this game’s release.

Gamers have a lot to look for with these types of games. The Sims Online from EA and hopefully The Sims 2 will be in the cards and released sooner than later, but is that such a good thing? One of the main reasons it took me so long after losing my Sims game to a buggy hard drive was because I burned out on the thing. When I was in high school and didn’t have a life, I would come home every day and pump in a few hours with my people simulator, but now that things have picked up for me. Could it be any different for someone who doesn’t have a steady job and bills to pay?

Thinking of the secluded nerd stereotype that has played through all the expansion packs and is eagerly awaiting the next, will be still want to play a sequel or an online version when he finally tires of rehash? Companies have tried this before (cough, Tomb Raider, cough) and it nearly killed the series, and if this review turns more into an editorial, so be it, but I don’t want to see a good series of games get turned backwards and despised (like Myst) because they were too successful for their own good.

As it stands, if you have written off the series a while back, you might want to give Vacation a try. It could be very interesting to see where the game has progressed since the days of the original and Livin’ Large, but if you are picking up every expansion pack and reading every tidbit on the new game, I know you probably already have this game. But before you devote a corner of your room for a shrine to this game, realize what you could be doing.