The skies (read: plastic bag) opened up and the heavens (read: Jimmy) blessed upon me (read: threw at me) a copy of the Sims 3 Ambitions Tuesday evening.
I didn’t have much time to play Tuesday night, especially after having to relocate my computer and install the game. Fortunately for me (knock on wood), the game has run fairly flawlessly for since (for the Sims, I did have one crash last night, but I was really asking too much of it at the time, and I didn’t blame it for pooping out- and it didn’t really, it only pretended to crash…long story).
Tuesday, I just selected a random premade house in the new town of Twinbrook. I ended up choosing Amy Bull- a budding stylist. I would have never actively selected to play a stylist first (if you know me in RL you know I hopelessly lack any sense of style…and will to care), so it was interesting. I had fun playing Amy for a few hours, and I was surprisingly pleased by the stylist career. I look forward to playing it again.
However, Wednesday night I had more time to play- and I had a whole day at work beforehand trying to figure out what I wanted to play, lol. I’ve decided since I am so in love with Ambitions, now would be a good time to give a legacy another shot. I need to complete one to achieve a goal on my 101 things in 1001 days list. My premade legacies aren’t going to count for this goal. I’m going to play a scored legacy (akin to the Sims 2 legacies) because I want a list of mini-goals to achieve and to make sure I thoroughly play every aspect of the game.
For those of you who are non-simmers- or just casual simmers- and don’t know what a legacy is, it is essentially a challenge to make it to generation 10 of a single family. There are also some rules in place. The Legacy challenge was originally developed by Pinstar for the Sims 2 and has become a very popular challenge. The traditional TS2 legacy has lots of rules, and a complicated means of scoring. The TS3 edition was very, very simplified. I chose to make my own more complex version of the legacy, but not nearly as complicated as the original. I simply added a scoring system (out of 100 points) that encourages me to try different aspects of the game.
Step 1 of my legacy involved creating my legacy founder in CAS. I used the 1st Sim that appeared, fortunately, she was decent looking. I changed her clothes, of course, but I kept her long, straight black hair. I let her favorites be randomly generated- she loves blue, egg rolls, and classical music. Since Ambitions came with tattoos, I clearly had to give her one. She has a blue butterfly on her lower back. Her personality traits I decided not to randomly generate since I wanted to play a detective. 
I selected perceptive, bookworm, computer whiz and brave to help her become an excellent detective. I also tossed in dramatic for fun. Her lifetime wish is to solve 35 cases. I named her Annabelle Pine.
I’ve played Annabelle for a full Sim week now. Her house isn’t pretty, but it looks realistic to me. I paid attention to all the details- even the toilet paper, laundry hamper, and recycle bin. She got a job in the private investigator field, and is doing awesome. The dough is just rolling in. In this one week, she has managed to upgrade her bed, buy a new book shelf, buy a telescope, buy a grille, and join a book club.
She has solved several cases this week. Most are pretty trivial- and not really legal, but Annabelle’s not picky. She’s hacked into forums several times to clear up “misunderstandings”, she has dispelled some rumors, and hunted down people who were kicking garden gnomes. She has also found a missing child, and hacked a database to fix some credit “misunderstandings”.
The only mystery Annabelle can’t solve is where to find a single cute bachelor in Twinbrook. All the men she has met on her cases have been romantically involved with someone else. How is she to carry on her legacy?
