Lunar Lakes is the latest world released by EA for the Sims 3. Sims have finally headed for space, taking the descendants of some familiar families with them. The spaceship crash lands, leaving the survivors to make the most of what they’ve found. We join them a few years later, once things are up and running; welcome to Lunar Lakes!
My first reaction on loading up is, quite simply, wow! The world is huge! It comprises a plateau area at the foot of three large mountains, two of which have craters filled with lots. The plateau houses most of the town centre type area, and is dominated by the remains of the spaceship which brought the Sims to Lunar Lakes – now the science building – and 5 biospheres which contain memories of the old world! You do need to hunt around as there’s a few lots that aren’t immediately obvious, too!
The feel of the world is fun and funky, aliens meet Alice in Wonderland – the landscape is yellow, sandy, but not quite desert, with some interesting surfaces. The natural water is a vivid turquoise – different enough from earth-bound worlds, but they could have taken it a bit further – magenta water, anyone?
There’s a lot of nods back to the default hoods – as well as descendants of the Altos, Landgraabs, and Sekemotos amongst others, there’s some familiar sounding names among the lots, too. And check out the graveyard for another unexpected surprise!
If you have the Futureshock store sets, these will really fit into this world. There’s a few objects, such as the mailboxes and one of the benches that match the sets – and the roads have the same neon glow instead of white painted markings! The world also includes all new rabbit holes. I think, for me, the only let down is that they all seem to be identical with nothing to distinguish one from another.
Lunar Lakes’ exclusive item is the Tree of Prosperity and, as with the Fountain of Youth in Hidden Springs, you need to place it yourself. At §1000, it’s a lot more affordable for the average sim! The tree is a skill-boosting object, and gives a skill point relating to the tree’s energy each time you eat the fruit. Your sim can imbue the tree with one of four flavours of energy – harvest, body, mind and soul. So far, my sims have received gardening and cooking (from Harvest), riding and martial arts (from body) and guitar (from soul).
The layout and the lakes are a unique mix of natural and man-made – natural ponds, leading to a series of man-made pools connected by canals, and the structured town area on the plateau next to the residential areas nestled in the tops of the craters. The world contains a total of 87 lot, 48 residential, 39 community, and 25 playable families.
Sadly, there are no alien sims amongst them, all the premade families are the surviviors of the crash and their descendants. It’s easily sorted, either by adding your own, or editing the existing ones in CAS.
Overall, Lunar Lakes is fun and quirky, and a little different from the normal suburban hoods, with some cheeky nods back to old favourites!