The Sims 3: World Adventures and Spore Double Pack

If the web is always correct, and my computer tells me that on the whole it is, between 43 per cent and 50 per cent of all marriages end in divorce.

It's a startlingly high ratio, even if you account for the 'celebrity' exposés that feature on the front page of Hello or OK! every other month.

More importantly, however, this startling statistic does make you wonder: what qualities do people see in each other at the beginning of a relationship that have all but faded away by the end?

Bear with me, for EA Mobile's The Sims 3: World Adventures and Spore Creatures double pack may contain the answer.

Wright and wrong

Given that both these franchises – at least in their original form – emanate from the mind of Will Wright, this is the kind of merger that really should just work.

Unfortunately, neither The Sims 3: World Adventures nor Spore Creatures truly taps into what made the original PC releases so great.

The worst offender is The Sims 3: World Adventures, which takes the model set in place by the mobile version of The Sims 3 and bolts on an awkward jet-setting angle.

As Spanner Spencer suggested back in the original review, even the franchise's typical assortment of cleaning, feeding, grooming, and social interaction can't save play from mediocrity.

“Each country is smaller than your Sim's house, with a few stereotyped artifacts littering the place to really drive home which country you're in," Spanner opined.

"A few very basic mini-games are used to represent the goals that come your way, but nothing that adds any depth to the overall game.

"The remainder of play boils down to point and click mechanics as you attempt to meet the strange challenges a Sim faces in everyday life, which loses much of its charm now that the locations dotted around town have been replaced by semi-offensive trivialisations of real world cultures."

Creaking creatures

Spore Creatures isn't guilty of the same volume of crimes as The Sims 3: World Adventures, but its highly structured take on the 'exploratory platformer' hasn't aged particularly well.

Nonetheless, it earned plaudits from Spanner in 2009, largely thanks to the balanced nature of the gameplay: continuous improvements need to be made to your creature to meet the stern challenge thrown up by the critter's surroundings.

"From what initially appears to be a rudimentary selection of torsos, legs, eyes, feet and other basic animal parts, you're able to construct a very unique creature simply and efficiently.

"By shoring up a target score and meeting the cursory objectives of each area, new parts become available so you can continually upgrade your Spore.

"In turn, your evolved creature becomes more and more in accord with its environment. Where small rocks, toxic crystals or lava once blocked your path, an improved creature is able to overcome these obstacles and visit previously inaccessible areas."

Still, compared to games that have come since, Spore Creatures feels rather clunky in a modern context, and much of its initial depth now seems superficial.

Being strapped to The Sims 3: World Adventures does it no favours, either, and it's hard to imagine this particular marriage of convenience lasting for very long.

The Sims 3: World Adventures and Spore Double Pack

Dragging Spore Creatures down to its level, The Sims 3: World Adventures does its bedfellow no favours, resulting in a 2-for-1 package that substitutes bargain for banal
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Keith Andrew
Keith Andrew
With a fine eye for detail, Keith Andrew is fuelled by strong coffee, Kylie Minogue and the shapely curve of a san serif font. He's also Pocket Gamer's resident football gaming expert and, thanks to his work on PG.biz, monitors the market share of all mobile OSes on a daily basis.