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Reviewer: IGN

Another six months, another expansion for The Sims 2. Bon Voyage is the sixth expansion for The Sims 2, not counting Stuff Packs, and the 13th overall expansion since Maxis unleashed this digital drug on us years ago. The various expansions have had their hits and their misses in regards to quality, so it's always a bit of a dice roll when installing a new one and taking your Sims for one more spin.When it comes down to it, The Sims series has been about family. One thing about all the prior expansions, however, is that individuals were favored over whole families. Nightlife, for example, was all about romantic interactions and dates, or groups of friends. As anyone who's married will tell you, it's tough to Woo Hoo with a crying kid in the next roomBon Voyage, conversely, really adds a lot to the family dynamic in the game. This is obviously most appealing to role-players and other hardcore players who really get into the generational and familial aspects of The Sims 2. Entire families can go on vacations, upping their relationships with each other. And best of all, while on vacation, the rest of the family's affairs are in a time freeze. That means anyone can take vacations without risking job performance, friendships, grades, and so on.At this point, it's safe to say that The Sims 2 has one of the best interfaces in gaming. It's simple, elegant, to-the-point, and easily grasped. Setting up vacations in Bon Voyage is perfectly streamlined into the rest of the game, with a simple phone call and a few dialog boxes the only things standing between your family and a sunny beach.There's a lot to do on vacations, which is really the selling point. After all, if the vacations didn't have enough activities to do, the whole purpose of the expansion would be botched. There are many sights to see and even some secrets to discover, all of which are given to you in a checklist of sorts. If you managed to complete all 45 objectives with a single Sim, which will take at least three vacations to do, you'll receive a pretty decent reward for it.Once a vacation is over, just like reality, a Sim's enjoyment of the vacation will carry with them to their daily lives. Certainly no one wants to go back to work, but you can choose rewards for your Sims such as temporary improved job performance, or even temporary boosted romantic attraction. Bad vacations result in negative consequences, because your Sims will carry their unhappiness to work and school with them.Beyond that are souvenirs, which range from buyable items like little collectable statues to photographs of your journey. Vacation spots being the money pits that they are, you actually have to spend Simoleons (the in-game currency) to buy prints of your screenshots. Photographs and other souvenirs can lead to increased social meters, as your Sims' friends will want to talk about the vacation and its memories as well.The problems with Bon Voyage, if we must be nitpicky, come from the fact that very little was actually changed for a Sim's home life. Granted that the temporary boosts from enjoyable vacations will be felt, but they are temporary and won't exactly make or break families. Also, vacations are very expensive, so it will take new families quite awhile before they can go on a long vacation. Established families, of course, won't have any trouble.Sound and graphics are unchanged from previous iterations of the series of course, and there's nothing here that will convert you to The Sims if you never liked the series before. For Sims fanatics though, there will be plenty here to keep you entertained for another dozen hours.