Product Details
 | The Sims 2: Bon Voyage |
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Product Description
The Sims 2: Bon Voyage PC CDProduct Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #1228 in Video Games
- Brand: Electronic Arts
- Released on: 2007-09-04
- ESRB Rating: Teen
- Platforms: Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows XP
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.25" h x 5.25" w x 7.50" l, .44 pounds
Features
- Whisk your Sims away from their everyday routines and take them on exciting trips
- Travel to 3 dream destinations; try local cuisine and admire cultural landmarks
- Transform them from bumbling tourists to savvy international travelers
- Go on fun excursions, shop for unique objects, collect shells on the beach or dig up treasure
- Splurge on the luxury suite or save Simoleons and choose a more cozy lodging
Customer Reviews
Save Your Money...and Possibly Your Computer's Functionality
Two words: Bugs and SecuROM
v7.
I'd have a lot more fun with this game if I was actually
playing it. But as usual, this EP shipped with a bunch of gameplay bugs
and also an ugly, potentially dangerous form of copy protection by Sony
called SecuROM.
A Brief on Bugs:
- Game shipped w/a
programming error that created Tour Guide after Tour Guide, unchecked.
Too many character files in a sim 'hood means too many opportunities for
them to corrupt and your 'hood to go boom. A third party fansite had a
fix before EA did (like two WEEKS before EA did). The fansite fix didn't
weigh in at a whopping 15 MB like the EA patch did either, considering
the EA patch fixed very few things and another will be needed. Must be
fun to download on dialup.
- One of the game's Twikii Island
locations has an object issue that slows gameplay to an excruciating
crawl. A prebuilt lodge in the woodsy vacation hood has no grill or
phones, so sims can't cook or order room service and must leave to eat. A
secret location in the Twikii hood is so poorly constructed it grinds
the game to a halt. Stuff like this should've been caught in
testing...BAHAHA! Like they test this game, ugh. Poor devs. I do believe
they want to make a great game, but the time constraints put on them by
EA management makes them churn out bugfest after bugfest.
- Funky
installation errors told some people that they had to uninstall previous
EPs to install BV, so they followed that advice and TADA! Doing so
wiped out their entire saved games folder. Sure, you should always back
up before installation, but that shouldn't happening in the first place.
-
This EP has a new 'feature' called the Launcher, which will connect to
the internet to inform you of patches or other EA spam before you get to
play. Many people, myself included, found that 1) this game takes long
enough to get running, extending the misery for spam isn't appreciated
and 2) bypassing the Launcher via running directly from the SP6.exe made
for much smoother gameplay, possibly because the game isn't still
trying to connect to the web. *shrug* I don't know, but it did make a
difference for me; the game was hitching and lagging the few times I
used the Launcher, but was much smoother when I bypassed it and yanked
my wireless router cord out of my computer when I played. EA denies the
game 'phones home', but denial is their standard fallback position, and
it might have more to do with the ugly new noose they've decided to put
around our necks w/this EP...
Say 'No' to SecuROM:
SecuROM
is Digital Rights Management (DRM) or copy protection software. EA
doesn't want you copying the games you buy from them. 'Kay.
*cough*violatesFairUseAct*cough* But SecuROM v7 is DESIGNED to disable
software, like CD/DVD burner drivers or emulation software, that it
thinks might be used for 'pirating'. DaemonTools, Alcohol 120, and the
like.
Oh, and factory installed versions of Nero and Roxio
too...?
Yes. Seems the version of Securom shipped w/BV wasn't
updated enough; anything it doesn't recognize as kosher gets shut down,
so if you've got a newer comp, it could very well affect you most of
all. It doesn't happen to everyone, but that it's happening at all is
unconscionable. Because of a game, some people are having drives
REPLACED because they don't know about Securom's effects, reformatting
their computers, finding their antivirus settings altered, and in the
biggest of ironies, some are searching the web for ways to strip their
comps of Securom and use a NoCD cracked .exe to run their purchased
games, as they cannot otherwise.
Securom is PIMPING piracy! More
simmers than ever are now aware of how to go about it, out of fear of
what Securom might do or has done to their own or other people's comps.
In
the US, none of the boxes came with any warning whatsoever that the DRM
used might cause these kinds of issues. If you install BV, Securom
installs with it, and the 'removal' tool from Sony EA was forced to post
on the official site (after being harangued into investigating several
weeks after BV's release) DOES NOT fully remove Securom from your comp.
You're stuck with it, and due to it's very rootkit like behavior, it is a
total bear to completely remove. Once you or a tech remove it, w/the
Sony tool or otherwise, you cannot play the game you paid for. And
problems Securom can create with driver software may or may NOT go away
when you remove it, either.
BV has been out 3 months and EA has
still not addressed this very serious issue in any satisfactory way. In
fact, EA is blithely sticking with Securom for all its future games
(it's in a lot of them already). People are contacting the FTC, states
attorney generals, and the BBB about this issue.
Some who aren't
suffering make light of it, blame people's comps, or call others
hysterics, but when something that came unannounced with a game starts
dictating what you can or cannot do with your comp outside of the game,
it's not hysteria, it's major. It's affecting PAYING CUSTOMERS, people
who gladly pay for every title they play and would never condone nor be
involved with software piracy, and worst of all - Securom is a total
failure as copy protection. NoCD cracks (ie. Securom-less game .exes)
were available within 24 hrs of the game's release.
Anyone can
understand a publisher's need to protect their product, but not at the
expense of people's personal property, time, money, aggravation,
livelihoods, etc. If this is the wave of the future, I want no part of
it - we own our computers, not EA or Sony.
***If you are
responsible for the welfare of your comp, you need to seriously evaluate
the possible damaging consequences of installing this EP or any other
game that uses such invasive and possibly debilitating copy protection
software.***
EA has a Securom board on their official TS2 site,
look it over, draw your own conclusions.
Check out the Bioshock,
Neverwinter Nights 2, Command and Conquer, and Supreme Commander game
boards too. It's not just BV that has these issues; those games all use
Securom too and have similar problems.
Do I have anything nice to
say about BV? The water's pretty, and walking to lots is cool. But my
simming buzz is pretty dead right now from game bugs - and worrying
about the future of my computer's functionality if I decide to upgrade a
component or add a peripheral that Securom decides it doesn't like.
I
wish I'd never installed it.
*Edited, as time marches on. Please
see comments for updates.
Very
dissapointed....
I'm pretty sure I might have
had fun with this expansion pack if it hadn't shut off my CD drives (its
not just that, my printer doesn't work either) and let me play my game.
When I installed Bon Voyage I wasn't aware that a program called
"SecuROM" was also installed along with it, and thanks to that, my
CD/DVD burners are no longer functioning. Anytime I put the Bon Voyage
disk I get an error message that tells me to put the actual game disk in
the CD drive or something like that, when the original disk is actually
in the drive already.
I can't burn or back up anything to disks,
I can't play DVD's, it's just a disaster. Before I could figure what
was causing all of these problems, I logged on to the official website
to report my disk problem (asking for the original) which is when I also
learned about SecuROM. It turns out that this software is causing all
of these problems and there is no easy way to remove it. It installs
itself with rootkit-like behavior, its very hard to find, and thus, very
hard to remove as well.
As you can tell, I was extremely
disappointed to read about this, and will be reformatting my whole
computer to get rid of this nasty problem very soon. I just want my
computer to function once again like it should, and I will NOT be
reinstalling Bon Voyage or purchasing anymore products from the Sims 2
line until its guaranteed that the game won't cause any other annoying
problems with my computer. Its such a shame that I didn't get to enjoy
this game like I should have, and it's even worse that I can't play the
game I payed $30 for, and that it just really messed with my computer.
And
that's the only way I can sum up this game: very disappointing.
Last Game I EVER Buy From Maxis/EA Games
As much as I enjoy The Sims
2, this particular package has ruined the experience for me. Don't get
me wrong, the game is great, but it is NOT worth the headaches SecuRom
has caused. SecuRom is an anti-piracy software that comes packaged with
the game and is installed on your system WITHOUT your knowledge. If I
had but known the problems it would cause, I would not have installed
it. I cannot write to my CD drive now, and after having called Maxis,
they make it sound as if I am the only person experiencing this. They
try to overlook the real problem and try to target game play, but I
don't have a problem with the game. I DO have a problem with what their
insecurity has done to my system. They finally gave me instructions to
uninstall SecuRom, but THEY DON'T WORK. WARNING TO ALL WHO HAVE NOT YET
PURCHASED THIS GAME, BUT ARE THINKING ABOUT IT. DON'T
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