Today we will be taking a step back on Adventure point and click games and check out Sims 4.
I’m not sure whether you are a fan of these games, but since day 1 that I’ve been playing this.
I remember playing Sims 1 forever, trying out different house shapes and putting my awful Feng Shui to practice. We didn’t have a lot of choices and the Sims all looked the same. There were awful loading screens and the game was so hard that I eventually would cheat to move to a better house or just to have money to have kids. After some time, it got boring, because let’s face it, there wasn’t a lot that could be done.
I can barely remember Sims 2. I’ve recently read in some reviews that it might be the best one of the series. I know I’ve played it but I can’t really recall.
Then came Sims 3 which is my favorite one so far. The graphics are great and there is so much to do that you can play it several ways. I love the Open world. I have the feeling that I really am part of the community. I’ve read in some reviews that this Open World feature is a headache for many players who have slowness and glitching issues.
I can’t say the same. I have some worlds that are unplayable. They just freeze and annoy the crap out of me. Then I have the Bridgeport world, my favorite. But every time I play I need to use the reset sim command, because my sims always get stuck on elevators. But there is so much to do there, so many ways to play and so many details.
I love all the expansions, ones better than the others. I like world adventures but I have no patience to wait for the loading screen. Seriously it takes me more than 10 minutes to leave my world and go around other places. I have to say that the best one for me is Seasons. Going through the different seasons and having a fest for each one is so relatable and it makes us aware of the passage of time. I like my life simulation games to be as much alike normal life as possible (minus the werewolves, fairies and stuff)
I could do whole post about Sims 3 and how amazing I think it is, but that might be for another time. Now we’ll see Sims 4.
I have to say that I was terribly excited to play this game. My boyfriend got me the base game for Christmas and I could barely wait for the installation time. For me this would be like a continuation of Sims 3, but with brand new cool stuff.
The first impression was WHOA nice graphics!!
I didn’t mind the CAS being gone and not having that many many choices that we had as creating a sim. I realize this was a base game and it was normal not to have a lot.
I’m also a very simple person. I can’t have many choices otherwise I will get lost. It’s the same when I got to a supermarket. If it’s too big, I can’t seem to buy anything. Too many choices! So when sims 3 gave me the change to even paint some parts of the sims’ hair one colour and the rest another, I thought that it was really going too far.
So the beginning was fine. I was ok with the creation of the sims. Then came the house. There is a big change on this part. It is soooooooo simple to create buildings on sims 4. And they look amazing! Again I didn’t mind not having that many choices. In sims 3, I ended up not using most of the stuff. There were so many! Also the bar that showed the objects was so small that I couldn’t actually understand what the hell it was. And I have no patience to check all of them one by one. In Sims 4, this was resolved so it was a pleasure to build lovely houses.
I had my family, I had a house, I was ready to go. And then it all started to go downhill.
First of all, there was no more Open World. I now could go down the street, but that’s it. To go to different buildings I had loading screens. They were extremely fast but they completely ruin the experience for me. I ended up staying at home most of the time, since I wanted to have a continuous paced game. When my sims went to work, they disappeared and I thought ‘Come onnnnn EA, didn’t we get through this already? Why on earth are we back to this again?’
I can only control one sim per time, which means that if I send one to a community place, I have to follow him all through this time. The other one stays on the house like nothing had happened.
A cool feature that works is multitasking. I can now proudly read my book while sitting down on the toilette. Jokes aside, this is actually one of the things that I miss when I play sims 3.
I also felt like my free will was taken. In Sims, we don’t really have a guideline and we do as we wish. On this one I felt like I had to do what my Sims wanted me to. I had to follow his string of emotions. I felt like I was playing a tablet game. ‘Do this, now go here, do that, follow that and great, you’ve won!’
And it was all so easy. If I had a Sim with the cooking skill, he would progress so fast on the Cooking job that it was ridiculous. I wasn’t expecting Sims 1 difficulty, but come one, let me play a little. Don’t give me everything.
Emotions are the most important features added to this game – Emotions. My opinion on this is
It really sums up what I think. I mean it’s great and all that they get inspired and paint an awesome painting or get angry and drop an angry poop. But it doesn’t really get you anywhere different. These emotions are so easily influenced that it gets a bit ridiculous. I mean, it only takes a hot shower for the sim to get flirty. During one single day the sim can have all of the emotions that exist. It must be exhausting.
My sim could wake up fine, then get sad because he saw a dirty dish, wash it up and feel confident, start to cook breakfast and feel inspired then get extremely focused for 5 seconds and then finish off by getting out of the shower felling flirty. It’s too much!
I don’t think it really added much to the gameplay. It’s good to see sims change depending on their moods, but honestly, it’s only entertaining for some time, then I want to play.
And that’s where this game is failing. There’s nothing to do! Really, you visit the ridiculous few places that you can (while enjoying the loading screens) and that’s it.
Since I played for quite some time Sims 3 with all of the expansions, I thought that this might be my problem. I was just used to have so many things to do. It would be unfair to compare a base game to an Expansion full one.
So , when the first game pack came I anxiously bought it. Outdoor Retreat was good and brought a lot of things, especially considering that it wasn’t that expensive. But I still felt like this wasn’t what I had envisioned for Sims 4.
I gave it a last try and bought the first expansion ‘Get to Work’. Again, it was great. But I couldn’t shake the negative parts. I don’t want to play with only one sim at the time. I want to play with all my sims. I want to follow them to work, but not get stuck there for the whole day.
And I gave up.
When the game was launched there was a lot of discussion about what was missing from this base game, simple things such as swimming pools (now added), toddlers and dishwasher. For me that is not really the problem, although it adds to it.
I just couldn’t shake the feeling that this was not want I wanted from Sims. It looks awesome but it feels hollow. There is no Story Progression, there are no seasons, I really don’t feel like I am in life experience. The game was transformed in an all chicks game where the feelings are what matter.
My problem is that I was spoiled with the all of the possibilities of Sims 3. For me, the only way to go next was to take this one as a starting point and go up.
Whenever Origin allows me to, I will try to play again to see if I can get used to it. BTW, Origin sucks big time. There are so many updates that need to be done and then the games won’t work. There are a lot of workarounds, but the last time I tried I wasn’t able to get anywhere. I had to wait until the next update to see if it would work and until then I couldn’t access the game.
It did work…till the next update for sure.
obscurasomnia 