While some expansion packs in the past might have been lacking in content, The Sims 3 Seasons truly expands the game beyond its base experience.

It's not the biggest expansion for Sims 3, but if you're trying to build an interesting, dynamic world for your little pixel people, it may just be the most important.

If EA can do one thing right, it's to again bring innovations to The Sims 3 players.

Seasons is to The Sims what MSG is to cooking (minus the possibly toxic side effects): it enhances the overall experience. Even if you've played it to death already, the simple application of weather and seasonal content guarantees plenty more mileage from the original game.

It's a solid gateway expansion that builds on the rules without overwhelming you, but still adds enough variety that you'll never want to play without it.

In short, this expansion falls slightly short of how interesting and deeply embedded the Supernatural expansion was. That said, Seasons supplies a depth to what can feel like an endless sunny crawl of hours and minutes in The Sims 3. For that, the change of pace is well worth the price of admission.

I never feel like I am doing anything new. Sure, there are new animations, but the gameplay is always the same. Click on a thing, pick the thing you want to do, and watch something happen. A lot of the time the resulting actions are never that visibly different. It's great that the sims can do new stuff, but I really want EA to make me feel like I am doing something new.