I've been reading a lot about the upcoming World Adventure expansion pack for The Sims 3, which is scheduled to be released this November.  (Just in time to ignore your family for the holidays!)  One thing that strikes me, based on the detailed information which has been posted to the Sims Wiki, is that it includes several actual mini-games.

In general, the Sims franchise has shied away from traditional games, with objectives and rules and such.  After all, the Sims games are the ultimate sandbox, and why try to pretend differently?  Of course, a kind of "mini-game" has been embedded into each of the Sims games, where certain families have backstories and predilections programmed in by the developers, with a bit of teaser introductory text.  I found one of these recently when one of my Sims married Gerry Lessen.  

When we moved into the Lessen's home, I found a "mini-game" with regards to Destry Dixon.  When you first enter the Lessen lot, Destry has just died.  After a few days, my Sim got a message to bring a tombstone to the science lab for their experiment.  Destry only half came back (as a playable ghost) but the mini-game was still on.  I gather the idea is that you run Destry through all of the musical skills, and then he plays mentor to Gerry Lessen.  Gerry was unemployed when we moved onto the lot, but he immediately had a wish to join the Musician career track.

Like I said, this hardly even counts as a "mini-game."  It's more like a bit of fun the developers stuck in, and it helps provide new Sims players a bit of guidance.  (Surely the most frequent newbie question must be "Now what?")

ANYWAY.  World Adventures will have proper mini-games, including puzzles and fighting challenges.  You'll want to beef up your Sim's athletic skill - and World Adventures also allows them to specialize in Martial Arts.  Get a lot of that, too, because soon you'll be fighting mummies for their treasure!  

Of course, it's not as if you're going to stop and play a round of Bejeweled before proceeding to the next level.  This is The Sims, after all.  It seems that the Puzzles will be solved by beefing up your Sim's skills - so it's more of a skill level threshold than a proper puzzle.  

So far we have really only heard information about Al Simhara, which will be the Egyptian-style neighborhood introduced in World Adventures.  There will be two other countries (neighborhoods), Champs Les Sims (a tribute to Paris) and Shang Simla (China).  I doubt we will have a lot of mummies running around Paris, but you never know!

Another interesting facet of World Adventures is that it will be "state-full" rather than "state-less."  What I mean by this is that if you make a change, that change will persist after you leave the country and come back.  This could potentially cause some serious problems for the unwary gamer - imagine if you accidentally cause a landslide that blocks access to the catacombs.  Permanently!  (I don't know if this will actually be an issue - it's just something that occurred to me.)