Tonight I'm giving another talk within the realms of my all-time favourite game series- The Sims. You may or may not know, but back at the end of January, in order to celebrate the 15th anniversary of the game, Maxis released a free 48-hour trial of The Sims 4 on Origin. I'd never been majorly excited by The Sims 4, from things I read & from seeing early screenshots I just didn't like the look of it- felt the graphics looked too cartoony & the fact that there were loading screens back in it again really put me off, seeing as the game had progressed to open world in Sims 3. However, a free trial is something to take advantage of & I was curious to give it a go- it is The Sims, after all!
I don't think I used the full 48 hours, but I think I managed to experience enough of the game in order to give it a review. As I only had a short while to explore, I wasn't able to go full-story mode like I do in Sims 3, however, I did create a brother & sister duo & gave them their own stories that I worked on whilst exploring the game. Overall, it wasn't as bad as I initially thought it might be, but if I'm being honest I still prefer Sims 3. Sims 4 did have good points, although the not-so-good points outweighed the good for me. Allow me to elaborate:
Good Points
- Emotions- The new emotions are my favourite feature of Sims 4, & what I believe is the most prominent in this latest addition. For those of you that don't know, Sims don't tend to have a lot of emotion- it's normally good, bad or in-between. In Sims 3, the mood can be affected by certain events, such as negative or positive life experiences. In Sims 4, there are a variety of emotions- inspired, flirty, sad & confident are some I experienced- again brought on by life experiences the Sims have. Unlike with it's predecessors, these emotions are more complex, allowing for new wishes to be made & they can even control actions. A Sim whose feeling confident, for example, has the option to "pee like a champ" (really, that's what it says!) & sad Sims can express their sorrows in the medium of art. By far the best thing about this game!
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| Emotions example: This is a painting my Sims did when he was sad. Very moving... |
- Multitasking- Finally Sims have the ability to multi-task! Admittedly, they can do so a bit in Sims 3, but much like emotions, this is more prominent in Sims 4. Not a particularly major point in comparison to emotions, but I liked it.
- Graphics weren't as bad as I expected- One thing that put me off initially was the way the game looked. As I said earlier, it looked more cartoony, much like the versions of the game you'd see on social media as opposed to the game itself. Whilst actually playing though, it looked alright, I liked how the characters look, didn't look as flat & horrible as how I first saw them & their surroundings in screen shots.
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| My Sim, Greg. I want his hair... |
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| Here we see Greg's sister, Glenda (green hair) playing chess in the park. |
Not So Good Points
- Lack of customisation- One thing that's great about Sims 3 is the ability to have a huge amount of control over customising objects- from clothes to furniture- there are a number of textures & colours to choose from. In Sims 4, this is gone. Outfits & furniture can be customised, but the customisations have already been selected. For example, you can change the colour of a shirt, but the colour you can change it to has already been pre-selected.
- Create-A-Sim- The way Sims are created is another big part of the game. More areas of the body can be customised, however, I found navigating this new feature a bit tricky, especially with the face. The trick, I learned, is to click on the highlighted area of the body & then enlarge or reduce that area. Although this particular ability to customise is great, I personally prefer the use of sliders & diagrams, as found in Sims 3, as this enables a better selection of certain areas & allows an easier selection of finer details.
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| Took a few minutes to get Greg's face together. With glasses on I think he resembles a character in 'The League of Gentlemen' |
- Build mode- To be fair, I'm not the biggest user of build mode anyway, I prefer playing with the Sims than building, but I thought I'd customise the initial house I bought in order to explore it, & although it wasn't much different to before, I found putting the roof on quite difficult & took me a few attempts. I wasn't overly impressed.
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| My addition to the original house. Thankfully, they kept the blueprint tool, which is something I liked about the new Build Mode. |
- Loading screens- Now this is the worst! As I mentioned before, in Sims 3, the series progressed from the loading screens between lots to an open world, so this was one of the initial things that put me off the game & also my least favourite part of it. For starters, it's restricting- every time you want to go somewhere you have to wait a few minutes & stare at a loading screen. Plus, there's hardly anywhere to go in Sims 4, in comparison to the many community lots in Sims 3. Also, I feel it's taking a step back in terms of the Sims games- the open world is what drives the game forward in Sims 3, so to go back to loading screens in Sims 4 really is a shame.
In conclusion- I don't think Sims 4 is worth it. If Maxis had built on the emotions & somehow worked that into Sims 3 (which, as well as the open world & high customisation, has pretty much everything in expansion packs, including time travel), then they'd have an amazing game. Instead, they sacrificed one key element for another, & although the new element makes for a new & interesting game play, it also makes the game lose it's fun slightly by regressing to the singular lots format of Sims 1 & 2.
That's my view readers. Have any of you played Sims 4? If so, what do you think?
Thank you for reading! :)
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| Here's a better image of Glenda. Again, I want her hair! |
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