As the eighth expansion pack for The Sims 2, the ironically titled FreeTime brings some interesting new features to the table. However, is this content enough to warrant its price premium?

As the eighth expansion pack for The Sims 2, the ironically titled FreeTime brings some interesting new features to the table. However, is this content enough to warrant its price premium?

FreeTime introduces hobbies as a headline feature. Sims are now capable of delving into many different interests that are associated with their pre-existing skills. Arts & Crafts, Tinkering and Cuisine are just a few of the hobbies that can be explored. For example if your Sim is a budding Gordon Ramsay, enthusiasm will naturally grow when they rustle up dinner and cook for guests. Developing hobbies will of course bring many rewards related to them. Regular cooking will allow your Sims to talk about their hobbies to other Sims, subscribe to a food magazine, and eventually produce unique food items like platters. The rewards are a nice system to add individuality to your Sims; however while skills are held for a lifetime, hobby enthusiasm decays over time and with it the benefits. Other tweaks introduced into FreeTime include a new aging system that allows you to bring up to three similarly aged friends to the age group of your choice.

Continuous Lifetime Aspirations are another new inclusion: fulfilling your daily aspirations fills a meter that transfers into points which can be cashed in for benefits, like the ability to learn faster or to slow down their fun and comfort decay rates. On top of this is a Secondary Aspiration, where another lifetime aspiration can be selected to broaden your Sims’ horizons. The developers thought it would be hilarious to revolve a set of life wants around grilled cheese sandwiches. While this seems great at first, the humour might be quickly lost as you find out how much you have ruined your Sim’s cheesy life.

The expansion pack once again includes new careers to choose from, including Architect and Oceanographer as well as a few more realistic careers. FreeTime adds a few more songs into the already bulging Sims 2 soundtrack, continuing its trend to import popular artists’ music converted to Simlish. However with this expansion, the developers have been kind enough to include the ability to create your own radio stations within the game and import your favourite songs.

All things considered, FreeTime is yet another mish-mash of decent improvements and additions for EA’s favourite cash cow. While all the elements are certainly interesting, it’s not quite enough to be the best expansion in an already bloated catalogue.