With the debut of the new expansion pack “Get to Work,” the Sims 4 game expands the horizons for Sims’ careers. In the game, jobs reflect reality: they can be enjoyable, yet stressful and time-consuming.

The expansion pack comes with four new careers: detective, doctor, scientist and business owner. Each day the Sim attends work, the player has the option to join the Sim or send him alone. This lets the player have control over multiple Sims in one family and leads to more job opportunities.

When going to work with the Sims, players must patiently wait for another loading screen to get to the workplace. This supposedly simple process seems to take forever. When finally at the work site, each job has a taskbar just like the one displayed during dates or weddings. The taskbar has options and ideas of what should get done in the amount of time available for that procedure. It’s overwhelming and stressful for the player because the tasks are never-ending.

In the doctor career, a Sim starts as a nurse who fetches coffee and labs, and she eventually works her way up to chief of staff. The higher the rank, the harder the tasks become. The chief of staff must diagnose the patients, and if the Sim chooses wrongly, he loses money and authority. This career is stressful because a lot of Sims become sick at one time. It’s almost impossible to treat everyone, leaving the player feeling guilty.

The detective career involves investigating crimes, running fingerprints, taking mugshots and photographing crime scenes. Detectives must travel to the crime scene, forcing the player to wait for another loading screen to end. At the crime scene, it takes forever to find one clue. Then the task bar tells the player to find seven more. It’s hard to navigate the crime scene and finish quickly. When first starting the job, there are tedious tasks to do. After moving on in the career, these little annoying tasks never go away, and the game doesn’t reward the player with any benefits.  The temptation to skip sending a Sim to work grows stronger and stronger in the detective career.

As a scientist,  the player has more freedom to play around with the career options. This leads to more experimenting and more creative outcomes on projects. In the workplace, there is no boss to directly tell the Sim what to do. When the Sim reaches level 10, the highest level, the player can use the invention constructor to create a wormhole and travel to the World of Sixam, a “hidden” new world where the Sim can meet aliens and discover rare objects.

“Get to Work” allows players to change an empty lot into a retail store or purchase the store and run it as a business. The player can personalize the store in build mode, and whatever the player purchases can be sold in the store. Just like real-life store owners, the Sims use mannequins to sell clothing. Transferring money from the Sims’ household funds to the business fund is a confusing concept. The player can choose when the store opens and closes which is a great feature because running the store is extremely difficult. Instead of helping the Sim, employees sit around and gossip with customers, leaving the owner to serve as cashier and help every single customer. The customers storm out of the store if they have to wait too long.

The expansion pack also comes with a new town, called Magnolia Promenade. Magnolia Promenade includes three real estate businesses and one lot of land that the player can purchase. However, the town is problematic in that it was advertised as a central shopping center yet it only allows one Sim to live there.

Creating and controlling aliens is another great new feature for The Sims expansion pack. While in Create a Sim (CAS) mode you can choose to make an alien. You can personalize your aliens by giving them fun makeup and a unique skin color, but there are only three different outfits to choose from for both genders. The player can also choose to disguise the alien Sim as a normal Sim and can edit the disguise in CAS mode.  When the male alien Sim is placed into the world he has already accomplished every skill and is the chief of staff in the doctor career. Completing a career and every skill is a huge accomplishment because it is time consuming. When completed the Sim can do almost anything. Unfortunately, this privilege doesn’t apply to female alien Sims.

Players are now able to take pictures of other Sims. The photographer Sim must have the photo station in his or her home to take pictures. The problem with the station is that both it and the camera are huge and expensive. While taking a photo the player can choose from different settings like camera angle and filters that are reminiscent of Instagram.

The other new skill is “baking.” To perform this skill usually requires fruit or other ingredients to create a dish. With this, just like the new “Whipped Cream Cupcake Factory” (a baking machine from the Sims 4 base game), the Sims can bake many new treats. Foodie Sims now have more of a variety to expand their skills.

CAS mode also added new, exotic makeups options, especially styles that only aliens can pull off. The added female hairstyles are designed for a work day and are practical for Sims, but some of the female hairstyles — mohawks, elaborate buns, shaved heads — leave players questioning gamemaker Electronics Arts’ (EA) thinking. Male hairstyles range in length and add options for future Sim creations.

Unfortunately, Get to Work doesn’t include any new traits or aspirations for the Sims. While creating a Sim the player envisions the Sims succeeding in some sort of skill or job, but EA limits players’ imagination by not giving the players an opportunity to fulfill the Sims’ aspirations.

The game has some negative features, but its addictiveness forces players to purchase the expansion pack. The careers are fun but way too difficult for players on an everyday basis. The clothing and hairstyles are a great new addition to the game. EA is off to a good start with the first of their expansion packs, but hopefully the company will limit the difficulty level in the future.

stars: 3