Here it is at last, my extremely belated review of The Sims 4! I've played enough to have gotten a sense of it and my overall impression is not so positive.
A little background: I've played the Sims since the very first expansion pack, Livin' Large. I've played almost every single Sims game EA/Maxis has released, so I feel like I'm pretty qualified to be talking about this (that, and it's my opinion). I liked Sims 2 when it came out, but when Sims 3 was released, I abandoned S2 quickly. There was so much improvement over S2 that I couldn't go back to what I'd had before. Sims 3 is not without its problems, but overall it was a huge step forward for the efranchise.
Sims 4, however, feels like a 2014 incarnation of Sims 2, and in a nutshell, that's probably my biggest problem with it. Let's take a more in-depth look, shall we?
1. Return of the Loading Screen - Without a doubt, this is my number 1 issue with Sims 4. Any time you want to step off your lot, even if you just want to say hi to your next door neighbour, you have to sit through a loading screen. Granted, they aren't too long, but they get tedious very quickly. It makes me stay at home with my Sims as much as possible, and that means I'm getting bored (and cabin fever) pretty quickly. The best thing the Sims franchise ever did was introduce the open world in S3; it's a damn shame they got rid of it. Yes, my game runs smoother, but I'm honestly not sure if that was a fair trade.
2. Unless everyone's in the same place, you can only control one Sim at a time. Want to send little Bobby and Suzy to the park while Mom goes to the gym and Dad stays at home to skill up? Make your choice, because you can only control one lot at a time without sitting through loading screens. It's a disjointed way of playing and makes having bigger families a lot more difficult to control.
3. Speaking of difficult to control, overall I find this game a lot harder than it needs to be. Were people complaining that Sims 3 wasn't challenging enough? You have to have certain skills. complete a daily task and go to work/school in a certain mood (which often changes moments after your Sim leaves, especially if they're prone to anger, sadness, etc.) in order to get a promotion or get good grades. Micromanaging has always been a feature in the Sims, but I find there's a lot more of it in Sims 4. It could be a bug in my game, but I find my Sims aren't very smart (despite what the ads will tell you). If my Sim is hungry, she won't go eat some food unless she's in the red. Same thing with the bathroom - she's more likely to pee her pants than she is to autonomously use the bathroom to take care of herself. Overall, I find I'm spending so much time taking care of these idiots, doing the same thing over and over again just to get a promotion that it doesn't leave a lot of time for fun activities.
4. Multi-tasking was really hyped up as a big new deal when the game was coming out, but I don't find it to be all that. There are times when it's come in handy, I can't deny that. But it's extremely - and I mean extremely - tedious when you're talking to a Sim out in public and EVERYONE in the vicinity comes rushing over to join in. It's obnoxious, especially if you're trying to get your flirt on with someone in particular - it somehow turns into a group flirt and everyone feels awkward.
I'm also not a fan of the multi-task queue. If your Sim is watching TV and chatting to someone, and he is moments away from pissing his pants, clicking on the toilet isn't good enough to get him to go. You have to actively X out his multi-tasking activities in order to get him to go. I can't begin to describe how annoying this is, especially when it's something your Sim desperately needs to do.
5. Everything takes forever. I'm not kidding. It will take my Sim at least an hour to eat a bowl of cereal. She'll take a bite, look around, sit there for a while doing nothing before taking a second bite. I have to get them up so damn early for school and work just to get them fed and ready to go for the day.
6. The emotions don't add too much to the game - not to the extent I was lead to believe. I hope they add new ones with the inevitable 37 expansion packs in the future. And more importantly, they NEED to add more traits. This was another huge step forward that happened in Sims 3 and to whittle personality traits down to a measly 3 for a fully grown adult is terrible. Between that and the surprisingly few traits we got with the base game, a lot of my Sims seem to have the same personalities over and over again, and that's really boring, IMO.
7. The worlds feel small. There are only a handful of empty spaces to build a house and there are only a few lots to visit. Even if you travel back and forth between neighbourhoods, there's only so many times you can visit the same 6 lots over and over again.
8. I really miss Create a Style. I didn't think I would, but holy crap, I do. I get they didn't want a lot of textures to clog up the game play, but it sucks you can't re-colour anything. They never have the exact colour combo I'm looking for in the styles I want in Create a Sim, and that's frustrating.
9. Build mode is obnoxious if you don't have a mouse. If I want to rotate anything, I have to drop the item first, then rotate my screen and pick the object back up. It's very annoying and I tend to skip build mode as much as humanly possibly.
10. Y U NO AUTO ROOF? I really, REALLY hope they add this back in at home point - it's not very intuitive and most of my roofs look ridiculous. Not everyone is a builder, EA.
So, is there anything I like about the game, you ask? Yes, yes there is:
1. Visually the game is beautiful. I got used to the more cartoony look and feel of the game, and I think they did a nice job of designing the towns and Sims.
2. Create a Sim is awesome. I'm not terribly skilled at creating a Sim that I imagine in my head, or of a real person/pre-existing character, but that's on me, not the game. I love the pre-styled looks for when I get lazy, I like that you can make some really unique body types, I like that there's a surprising amount of content in CAS and that you can wear anything at any time. Want your wedding dress to be a bathing suit? Why not!
3. Build mode, while a pain in the ass for this laptop user, is admittedly pretty easy for the most part. I've never been a builder, so I love the pre-made rooms (though I wish there were more). I like you can redesign your house without too much of a fuss - something that will come in handy for upgrading your shack to a mansion!
Overall opinion - eh. It's a disappointment, to be frank. If you loved Sims 2, you'll like this game. If you prefer Sims 3, you probably won't. Simple as that. It's a little easier to swallow if you pretend it's a Sims ripoff and not the real deal, but....they really dropped the ball on this one. Too many fans bitched about how much more they liked the Sims 2 better than Sims 3 and we're all paying the price. Hopefully, future expansions and patches will make this game more enjoyable, but it seems like the biggest problems are core features of the game that won't go away anytime soon.
