SIMplicity isn't always the best direction...
Almost eleven years ago, I did a "30 Worst Games" list, and I look back and shake my head at how poorly-worded some of the posts were. But there was a game I listed as #1 that generated quite a stir of debate, even years later as I stood by my feelings on it. The Sims back then was such a BORING game, and I couldn't understand the overall appeal.
I mean, the only enjoyment I was able to get out of the game was to find creative ways to torture my sims. It took The Sims 3 to really show off the potential of creativity this series had, even though it still wasn't quite perfect. With so much more customization added to the mix, as well as a wide variety of fun character traits, it felt less like a simulator and more like an actual game. I had to cheat in order to enjoy the first two, but here, I was compelled to be challenged by playing it correctly.
Not only that, but the main draw I get from this series is the ability to build and design houses. I'd spend more time building than actually playing, to be honest. My only true gripe with the franchise is how much EA charges for expansions, which are really just extra skins, outfits, and furniture packs. I'd rather just mod the base game instead.
But now there's a fourth entry! While excited for a visual upgrade, the long list of changes EA announced had me really worried. Is it as bad as everyone feared it would be, or were we all over-reacting?
Pros: Upgraded visuals make creating your sims more fun than ever before; House building has been vastly improved with more customization tools; Emotions and moods allow a fantastic variety to the way sims interact with one another; Multitasking makes micromanaging your sims less of a chore
Cons: Huge steps backward on everything else; Lack of an open world makes the game feel claustrophobic; Due to the closed world structure, multi-sim controls feel cramped; Many innovative features introduced in The Sims 3 have either been neutered, simplified or removed; Excessive loading times, even if your sim wants to simply cross the street
First Impressions
What's the #1 thing we spring for when firing up a new Sims game? Duh, creating our sim! While the third one took it to a whole new level, the new push-and-pull method here makes customization even easier than before. Creating yourself, your friends, or even celebrities is far less daunting, you no longer have to constantly go back and edit specific palettes.
Selecting outfits is much simpler here as well, as everything is categorized under several sub-types. However, when it comes to colors, you no longer have the ability to distinctly edit each one through the familiar "create-a-style" feature that was added in the last game. Instead, you have to select one of few specific pre-set color combinations. This was a bit frustrating, because it's such a basic feature, and really doesn't impact how the game functions in any sort of negative way. Not to mention that some of these combinations were ghastly to look at. The same exact thing goes with furniture. For a series based solely around creativity, this was the absolute WORST thing they could remove.
Hairstyles are a big step up as well, but there are still clipping issues with some of them. Especially if your sim is sporting a voluptuously plus-size figure with large breasts. While it's not as bad as previous entries, it's still there, and it remains an eyesore... at least to me.
I was also disappointed that I still can't customize height. That was one evolution in the series I had been hoping for since the second game. However, being able to choose how they walk was an amusing addition, I'll definitely admit that. And like before, you can select their traits, habits, and emotional personalities. It might seem like it's too limited to only allow four personal traits at first, but the way the emotion system plays out, the game makes that little bit go a long way.
The biggest perk, in my opinion, was the vast improvements made to the build mode. Creating your house is a LOT less frustrating when it comes to making subtle changes. You can even pick up entire rooms and swap them around, or even simply rotate them in their place. This totally beats having to bulldoze a section of your home just because you made the wall too wide. Even when rooms are furnished, the game will compensate and keep everything reasonably intact. I also loved that light fixtures and other wall accessories can be placed at different height levels.
The foundation tool is a bit different though, as you add it in retroactively, and it applies to the entire house. Guess what that also means. No basements or garages. But hey, you don't have cars in this game anyway, so it's a wash. Yeah...
Visuals & Presentation
While the game definitely looks gorgeous, and sports some tremendous amounts of detail, it doesn't quite meet the standards of what we're used to today. Now, I'll be fair here, as it's clear that they were going for a more whimsical, cartoony look. It's a selected style that I'll admit works quite well. Character animations are fluid, with terrific facial expressions, given their moods and how they speak to each other, and they even added detailed lip syncing to the mix.
The music tracks are upbeat and cheery as they usually are with these games, they even added little tunes to alert you of a change in a sim's mood or emotional state.
But there's one thing that needs to be addressed, and that's the game's excessive use of loading screens. Oh my fucking god, we just fell into a time warp that transports us back to 2004. Even just visiting the next door neighbor's house triggers a loading screen, I cannot understand exactly what is so intense in the game's engine to where it can't at least keep the entire block as one section. This was immensely frustrating, as you'll find yourself staring at the same white screen over and over almost every five minutes if you plan on keeping your sim busy by going out 'n about.
And going back to clipping once more, trees placed too close to your house will cause branches and leaves to grow through your walls. If that's something that still can't be remedied with a new engine, then why give me the option to place monster-sized trees on my lot?
Gameplay
Okay, I'm going to try and start things off with HAPPY thoughts. Like what does The Sims 4 get right? Well, first of all, the new emotion system is great. Having conversations with sims feels more intuitive than simply going through the motions, like what we were used to. Depending on the character's mood and emotional state, certain conversations can trigger different effects, and it makes interacting with them a whole lot more fun. If a sim is feeling down, you can pick certain options to cheer them up.
Certain character traits also come into play with these emotions. Like if you have a sim that always hates kids, their interactions with kids in general will play into that, and will lead to all sorts of amusing scenarios. Unfortunately, there's no way to evolve your sim into different personality traits. Once they're set from the beginning, they're there forever. While I can understand why, it would have been nice to see our sims change depending on their surroundings. Like a child hater eventually having a child themselves, and then realizing that kids aren't so terrible. Or a slob eventually becoming a neat freak after being constantly ridiculed by clean and tidy roommates.
Another great improvement is that sims can now multitask. This clears up a whole issue I had with past games, where sims couldn't talk and cook at the same time. Now they're able to combine simple tasks, thus eliminating that whole train of eventual actions we've all been used to seeing. Hell, when I first saw my sim get up to use the toilet and keep her eyes on her book, I about died laughing. But hey, this is getting one step closer to making these characters seem more realistic. I mean, who doesn't do that?
Your sim could be cooking, or doing some programming on their computer at home, but they'll still hold a conversation with another sim while doing so. This also makes it more fun to just sit back, abandon the controls, and simply watch your sims interact on their own.
However, they often still suffer odd behavior. Like I had two sims in my household that never washed their dishes in the kitchen sink. They kept going to the upstairs bathroom to do the dishes there. I also don't understand if the game is now graphic enough to let us hear the *tinkle-tinkle* sound of a sim peeing, as well as a guy's stream into the toilet, why aren't they adding the funny sounds of them dropping a deuce? No, I'm serious. They could totally make some of the funniest expressions, and add hilarious consequences if another sim happened to walk in on them.
Immature? Hardly. If you're going to animate a sim's pee stream, then fuck it... GO ALL THE WAY! Oh, and that censor mosaic? I don't know what's sillier: Hiding what we already know they're doing, or the fact that female sims still piss through their pants into the toilet.
Okay, while that was a very minor gripe, let's get the ball rolling on this rant. For one thing, remember all those cool jobs you could have in The Sims 3? Gone here. You have to select from a list of generic, yet silly jobs that you can never ever interact with. Your sim leaves for work, you can't follow them. They just walk outside and vanish for several hours. They don't even get into a car! Hell, you don't even HAVE a car!
In fact, going anywhere in the town makes you feel confined. No matter where you go on the map, you have to sit through a loading screen while your sim teleports to that location. You don't get to explore like you did with the last game. Also, there are so few locales to visit in your town, it feels like you're socializing with the exact same residents over and over. Trying to establish new relationships can get frustrating when you keep running into the same people. You can't even make new friends at work! Yeah, you can pick little actions like "socialize with coworkers" or "work harder", but what fun is that when I can't see it?
Also, if I have to sit through a loading screen for my sim to visit a neighbor, why does it allow me to watch my sim jog up and down the block?
So if you have a job, and keep a solid sleep schedule, you don't get to do much with your sim outside of the weekends. So it makes more sense to have them work from home. Otherwise, all you can do is sit there all day while your sim is at work if you're playing a single household. That, my friends, is a HUGE step backward from the previous game.
Also while I can understand (to a point) the exclusion of toddlers, the removal of swimming pools is mind-boggling. There's absolutely no reason for that feature to be omitted, other than to add it in later as an expansion. Throwing pool parties is something lots of us enjoyed doing in previous games, especially if you wanted to easily get rid of a sim you didn't like.
And with the nefarious loading screens, managing multiple sims gets to be more tedious as ever. As with The Sims 3, clicking on a sim will immediately zip you over to their location. Here, if your sim is at a bar, and you wanted to check on your roommate at home, get ready to sit through that screen while you wait for you home to load. And sometimes you'll arrive to see your sim just standing in the middle of the living room or front yard, doing absolutely nothing. This breaks that immersion of your sims going out and behaving on their own when you're away.
Skill progression has also been sped up a bit, making it less of a chore to level up your abilities. Some of it is a bit too easy, though, since my sim became a master chef in no time. However, there are items that are blocked from being purchased unless you reach a certain level in a skill. While this is okay for some stuff, a few items are a bit on the ridiculous side.
I live in a two bedroom, one story house... How the hell am I going to fit a monster-sized microscope that's bigger than a statue inside? With how cramped and confined the world is in this game, creating the lab of a mad scientist is rather mundane and pointless. Especially since travel and micromanagement of sims isn't as fluid and seamless as it once was before.
With how limited and restricted everything feels, you'll often find yourself spending more time at home with your sims than anywhere else in town.
Verdict 6/10
I might be going a little soft on it, but I won't lie. I did have fun with The Sims 4. Unfortunately, like others have said, the game has one gigantic problem... The Sims 3. Everything that cranked the series up to soaring levels of creativity has been wiped out here, making this a restrained, seemingly empty, and disappointingly vanilla experience.
But that's not to say The Sims 4 is terrible. The way they improved how sims interact with one another was a breath of fresh air, and greatly helped keep the game from feeling lifeless. I'm giving it a slightly above-average score for the potential it lays out. Hopefully as time goes by, they improve upon the base model and give fans at least SOME of the things this series has thrived on.
Until then, this would only be a worthy purchase for the most diehard fans of the series. Others? Stick with The Sims 3. For now, that's the best it's ever going to get.
I mean, the only enjoyment I was able to get out of the game was to find creative ways to torture my sims. It took The Sims 3 to really show off the potential of creativity this series had, even though it still wasn't quite perfect. With so much more customization added to the mix, as well as a wide variety of fun character traits, it felt less like a simulator and more like an actual game. I had to cheat in order to enjoy the first two, but here, I was compelled to be challenged by playing it correctly.
Not only that, but the main draw I get from this series is the ability to build and design houses. I'd spend more time building than actually playing, to be honest. My only true gripe with the franchise is how much EA charges for expansions, which are really just extra skins, outfits, and furniture packs. I'd rather just mod the base game instead.
But now there's a fourth entry! While excited for a visual upgrade, the long list of changes EA announced had me really worried. Is it as bad as everyone feared it would be, or were we all over-reacting?
Pros: Upgraded visuals make creating your sims more fun than ever before; House building has been vastly improved with more customization tools; Emotions and moods allow a fantastic variety to the way sims interact with one another; Multitasking makes micromanaging your sims less of a chore
Cons: Huge steps backward on everything else; Lack of an open world makes the game feel claustrophobic; Due to the closed world structure, multi-sim controls feel cramped; Many innovative features introduced in The Sims 3 have either been neutered, simplified or removed; Excessive loading times, even if your sim wants to simply cross the street
First Impressions
What's the #1 thing we spring for when firing up a new Sims game? Duh, creating our sim! While the third one took it to a whole new level, the new push-and-pull method here makes customization even easier than before. Creating yourself, your friends, or even celebrities is far less daunting, you no longer have to constantly go back and edit specific palettes.
Selecting outfits is much simpler here as well, as everything is categorized under several sub-types. However, when it comes to colors, you no longer have the ability to distinctly edit each one through the familiar "create-a-style" feature that was added in the last game. Instead, you have to select one of few specific pre-set color combinations. This was a bit frustrating, because it's such a basic feature, and really doesn't impact how the game functions in any sort of negative way. Not to mention that some of these combinations were ghastly to look at. The same exact thing goes with furniture. For a series based solely around creativity, this was the absolute WORST thing they could remove.
Hairstyles are a big step up as well, but there are still clipping issues with some of them. Especially if your sim is sporting a voluptuously plus-size figure with large breasts. While it's not as bad as previous entries, it's still there, and it remains an eyesore... at least to me.
I was also disappointed that I still can't customize height. That was one evolution in the series I had been hoping for since the second game. However, being able to choose how they walk was an amusing addition, I'll definitely admit that. And like before, you can select their traits, habits, and emotional personalities. It might seem like it's too limited to only allow four personal traits at first, but the way the emotion system plays out, the game makes that little bit go a long way.
The biggest perk, in my opinion, was the vast improvements made to the build mode. Creating your house is a LOT less frustrating when it comes to making subtle changes. You can even pick up entire rooms and swap them around, or even simply rotate them in their place. This totally beats having to bulldoze a section of your home just because you made the wall too wide. Even when rooms are furnished, the game will compensate and keep everything reasonably intact. I also loved that light fixtures and other wall accessories can be placed at different height levels.
The foundation tool is a bit different though, as you add it in retroactively, and it applies to the entire house. Guess what that also means. No basements or garages. But hey, you don't have cars in this game anyway, so it's a wash. Yeah...
Visuals & Presentation
While the game definitely looks gorgeous, and sports some tremendous amounts of detail, it doesn't quite meet the standards of what we're used to today. Now, I'll be fair here, as it's clear that they were going for a more whimsical, cartoony look. It's a selected style that I'll admit works quite well. Character animations are fluid, with terrific facial expressions, given their moods and how they speak to each other, and they even added detailed lip syncing to the mix.
The music tracks are upbeat and cheery as they usually are with these games, they even added little tunes to alert you of a change in a sim's mood or emotional state.
But there's one thing that needs to be addressed, and that's the game's excessive use of loading screens. Oh my fucking god, we just fell into a time warp that transports us back to 2004. Even just visiting the next door neighbor's house triggers a loading screen, I cannot understand exactly what is so intense in the game's engine to where it can't at least keep the entire block as one section. This was immensely frustrating, as you'll find yourself staring at the same white screen over and over almost every five minutes if you plan on keeping your sim busy by going out 'n about.
And going back to clipping once more, trees placed too close to your house will cause branches and leaves to grow through your walls. If that's something that still can't be remedied with a new engine, then why give me the option to place monster-sized trees on my lot?
Gameplay
Okay, I'm going to try and start things off with HAPPY thoughts. Like what does The Sims 4 get right? Well, first of all, the new emotion system is great. Having conversations with sims feels more intuitive than simply going through the motions, like what we were used to. Depending on the character's mood and emotional state, certain conversations can trigger different effects, and it makes interacting with them a whole lot more fun. If a sim is feeling down, you can pick certain options to cheer them up.
Certain character traits also come into play with these emotions. Like if you have a sim that always hates kids, their interactions with kids in general will play into that, and will lead to all sorts of amusing scenarios. Unfortunately, there's no way to evolve your sim into different personality traits. Once they're set from the beginning, they're there forever. While I can understand why, it would have been nice to see our sims change depending on their surroundings. Like a child hater eventually having a child themselves, and then realizing that kids aren't so terrible. Or a slob eventually becoming a neat freak after being constantly ridiculed by clean and tidy roommates.
Another great improvement is that sims can now multitask. This clears up a whole issue I had with past games, where sims couldn't talk and cook at the same time. Now they're able to combine simple tasks, thus eliminating that whole train of eventual actions we've all been used to seeing. Hell, when I first saw my sim get up to use the toilet and keep her eyes on her book, I about died laughing. But hey, this is getting one step closer to making these characters seem more realistic. I mean, who doesn't do that?
Your sim could be cooking, or doing some programming on their computer at home, but they'll still hold a conversation with another sim while doing so. This also makes it more fun to just sit back, abandon the controls, and simply watch your sims interact on their own.
However, they often still suffer odd behavior. Like I had two sims in my household that never washed their dishes in the kitchen sink. They kept going to the upstairs bathroom to do the dishes there. I also don't understand if the game is now graphic enough to let us hear the *tinkle-tinkle* sound of a sim peeing, as well as a guy's stream into the toilet, why aren't they adding the funny sounds of them dropping a deuce? No, I'm serious. They could totally make some of the funniest expressions, and add hilarious consequences if another sim happened to walk in on them.
Immature? Hardly. If you're going to animate a sim's pee stream, then fuck it... GO ALL THE WAY! Oh, and that censor mosaic? I don't know what's sillier: Hiding what we already know they're doing, or the fact that female sims still piss through their pants into the toilet.
Okay, while that was a very minor gripe, let's get the ball rolling on this rant. For one thing, remember all those cool jobs you could have in The Sims 3? Gone here. You have to select from a list of generic, yet silly jobs that you can never ever interact with. Your sim leaves for work, you can't follow them. They just walk outside and vanish for several hours. They don't even get into a car! Hell, you don't even HAVE a car!
In fact, going anywhere in the town makes you feel confined. No matter where you go on the map, you have to sit through a loading screen while your sim teleports to that location. You don't get to explore like you did with the last game. Also, there are so few locales to visit in your town, it feels like you're socializing with the exact same residents over and over. Trying to establish new relationships can get frustrating when you keep running into the same people. You can't even make new friends at work! Yeah, you can pick little actions like "socialize with coworkers" or "work harder", but what fun is that when I can't see it?
Also, if I have to sit through a loading screen for my sim to visit a neighbor, why does it allow me to watch my sim jog up and down the block?
So if you have a job, and keep a solid sleep schedule, you don't get to do much with your sim outside of the weekends. So it makes more sense to have them work from home. Otherwise, all you can do is sit there all day while your sim is at work if you're playing a single household. That, my friends, is a HUGE step backward from the previous game.
Also while I can understand (to a point) the exclusion of toddlers, the removal of swimming pools is mind-boggling. There's absolutely no reason for that feature to be omitted, other than to add it in later as an expansion. Throwing pool parties is something lots of us enjoyed doing in previous games, especially if you wanted to easily get rid of a sim you didn't like.
And with the nefarious loading screens, managing multiple sims gets to be more tedious as ever. As with The Sims 3, clicking on a sim will immediately zip you over to their location. Here, if your sim is at a bar, and you wanted to check on your roommate at home, get ready to sit through that screen while you wait for you home to load. And sometimes you'll arrive to see your sim just standing in the middle of the living room or front yard, doing absolutely nothing. This breaks that immersion of your sims going out and behaving on their own when you're away.
Skill progression has also been sped up a bit, making it less of a chore to level up your abilities. Some of it is a bit too easy, though, since my sim became a master chef in no time. However, there are items that are blocked from being purchased unless you reach a certain level in a skill. While this is okay for some stuff, a few items are a bit on the ridiculous side.
I live in a two bedroom, one story house... How the hell am I going to fit a monster-sized microscope that's bigger than a statue inside? With how cramped and confined the world is in this game, creating the lab of a mad scientist is rather mundane and pointless. Especially since travel and micromanagement of sims isn't as fluid and seamless as it once was before.
With how limited and restricted everything feels, you'll often find yourself spending more time at home with your sims than anywhere else in town.
Verdict 6/10
I might be going a little soft on it, but I won't lie. I did have fun with The Sims 4. Unfortunately, like others have said, the game has one gigantic problem... The Sims 3. Everything that cranked the series up to soaring levels of creativity has been wiped out here, making this a restrained, seemingly empty, and disappointingly vanilla experience.
But that's not to say The Sims 4 is terrible. The way they improved how sims interact with one another was a breath of fresh air, and greatly helped keep the game from feeling lifeless. I'm giving it a slightly above-average score for the potential it lays out. Hopefully as time goes by, they improve upon the base model and give fans at least SOME of the things this series has thrived on.
Until then, this would only be a worthy purchase for the most diehard fans of the series. Others? Stick with The Sims 3. For now, that's the best it's ever going to get.