Summary: Not quite as original or inspired as previous games, but a solid life simulator nevertheless
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The Sims 4
Distributor: EA Games Genre: Simulation Rating: M15+ Reviewer: Scott Romeyn
It’s been five long years since The Sims 3 arrived on PC and the fourth instalment is finally here. The Sims 4 arrived this week, and it’s just how we expected it to be. The base game contains everything we’ve come to expect as well as a few delightful new additions, but on the other hand there are some removals that are bound to disappoint some of the more dedicated players.
The core of the standard Sims gameplay is intact. You essentially control families throughout their daily activities and shape their lives based on what they want to do, alternatively you could cause some divine intervention remove them of their free will and make them do whatever, for whatever your entertainment needs are. You can taunt them, starve them and make them wet themselves.
In this iteration of the franchise, the focal point of the game is based on interactions with sims. Sims act more accurately to real life than they ever have before. They are more expressive visually, with a cartoony feel that blends in with the new art direction that gives it a Pixar-style look. These emotions let you know what your sim is interested in doing at the present time, but it’s nothing that wasn’t already featured in The Sims 2 and 3. One convenient new option is that you can ‘auto-solve’ your sims’ needs, which is useful for those times when you have a lot to handle, and it’s especially useful for large families that get hectic and difficult.
Sims 4 For Computer
The Sims 4 (PC) review by Nightfire. Dollhouse Simulator 2014. The Sims 4 continues the popular Sims franchise. If you don't know what The Sims is all about, well, it's basically a 'people simulator.' The Sims 4: Seasons review. Holidays come to The Sims 4 courtesy of the Seasons expansion. As with The Sims 3 expansion of the same name, Seasons aims to flesh out the world further by bringing. Review: The Sims 4 (PC) 11 Sep, 2014. The Sims 4 is immediately flawed if you’re looking for an open pool for your Sim on fire to dive in or to get your toddler Sim to start crying and draw attention to the house fire, but for most of the other aspects of the game, The Sims 4 is still pretty much what it is. A PC copy of Sims 4: Tiny Living was provided to TheGamer for this review. Sims 4: Tiny Living is now available for PC. It will be released for PS4 and Xbox One on February 4th. READ NEXT: Sims 4: Tiny Living Challenges Explained.
However, The Sims 4 is not without its problems. There’s a large lack of content compared to the base games of previous Sims games. You can no longer customize your clothing colours, toddlers have been removed from gameplay, neighborhood sizes have been reduced a lot, and the series staple pools are no longer. Gone are the days when you can kill a sim by removing the pool’s ladder. As an extra limitation, the Sims 4 is no longer an open-world, so loading screens are required for moving from place to place and the environment feels disconnected.
The new additions to the game don’t actually add anything new. The flagship new feature, emotions are basically just a glorified mood feature which has been present since the first Sims game. And there are a number of annoying glitches, such as poor lighting on sims when inside houses (you’ll have to spend a day’s pay to fill your home with dozens of lights), babies that don’t render correctly, blurring, and in my own play through I found a glitch which deleted all the items in my lot and stopped me from placing anything else. There was also a single specific object that crashes the game when it’s placed.
But I can’t point out the game’s flaws without pointing out the highlights. The Create-a-Sim mode comes with a variety of clothing and accessories to give your sims character as well as the overhauled body and face customization tools I’ve already covered in my review of the Create-a-Sim demo. The gameplay runs much smoother and load times have been reduced to mere seconds. It’s now a lot easier to save and share content through the game’s built-in online community, and the custom content people have created can keep you playing for quite a while.
Graphics and Audio
The Sims 4 looks really great. The simpler art direction means there are some really detailed looking sims and environments that are easy on the eyes. There’s rarely any moments where you see the jaggedness of low polygon animation and the high resolution textures just make it all the better. As for audio, you’re in for a typical Sims-style soundtrack that after 4 games and dozens of expansion packs has lost any character it once had. It’s not that it’s a bad soundtrack but it’s not as memorable or distinctive as the audio for the first two Sims games.
Final Thoughts
As much as the series has evolved over the years, The Sims 4 has the least to offer with no real additions to the gameplay besides sims being more “expressive”, though really that just means that there are more character animations than before. If you’re looking for a nice graphical upgrade to the standard Sims gameplay and perhaps some promising expansion packs and custom content on the horizon, go for The Sims 4. If you’ve already got yourself The Sims 3 and any expansion packs for it then you’ve probably got more content and creative freedom than you’ll find in The Sims 4. Personally, I would hold out on getting the game for an inevitable price drop.
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Few franchises have demonstrated the potential of expansions like The Sims one, coming from developer Maxis and Electronic Arts. Each major iteration saw the appearance of many smaller add-ons, DLC packs, or full-fledged expansions that enhanced the base game.
As such, it was obvious that for The Sims 4, the next major installment in the series, the two companies had to pull off something special that felt like it wasn't a skeleton for the many expansions set to appear down the line.
Some controversies have already surfaced over key missing content, like toddlers or swimming pools, so it's going to be interesting to see if Maxis and EA have managed to make up for it and implement plenty of new things.
Does The Sims 4 manage to deliver an experience worthy of the series or should more content be added in order to justify its full price? Let's find out.
GameplayThe Sims games have always been about the stories you can craft for your virtual sim and this ties a lot into the core gameplay, so I won't dedicate a separate section to the plot.
The first thing that any Sims veteran will notice when starting up The Sims 4 is the speed of its loading. After installing a few expansions and a few user-created mods, The Sims 3 grinded to a halt and had lengthy loading screens that practically killed any passion in the player.
After getting over the speedy loading, players are met with Create-A-Sim, the new and improved system through which they can create and customize their own Sim in all sorts of ways. After enduring the clumsy and complex systems seen in The Sims 3 or in previous titles, The Sims 4's creation mechanic appears to be the most intuitive one yet, especially since you can actually shape and mold using the mouse cursor, instead of just fiddling with sliders or numbers, although in some areas a lot of precision is required.
Create-A-Sim has been overhauled
Clothing is organized in a better way, but the actual options for things like colors and makeup are a bit scarce, so expect some DLC or user-generated content to bring more choices in the future. Create-a-Style is gone so those looking to really customize their creations will end up disappointed.
While there are fewer traits in the new game, four as opposed to The Sims 3's standard five, there are quite still plenty of outlandish combinations that result in some interesting characters and moments when interacting with other Sims.
After completing the creation process, you go into the Build Mode, where you can craft a house for your Sim by using the many different tools available inside the game. While in The Sims 3 the build mode was pretty complete and required a lot of time to master, here it's much easier to design and forge your own home.
The system is great for those that want to create a basic home with pre-made rooms and get to playing the game, but also for those that want to make the home of their dreams by customizing every square foot/meter.
After creating the Sim and making sure he lives in a nice home, the third major aspect of the game kicks in – the actual life simulation. Depending on your traits and inspirations, you can do all sorts of crazy things, but also more regular ones, like getting a job, roaming the neighborhood, going to all sorts of social gatherings, and eventually establishing a family.
However one key sore point in The Sims 4 is the tiny neighborhood. As opposed to the much larger towns seen in The Sims 3, the new game's environments seem cramped, despite the fact that they feature quite a lot of different lots to visit. While the loading is fast, it's also rather often, as you're met with a transition screen when traveling between zones.
While the actual levels are small, the Sim behavior is improved in quite a lot of different ways, chief among which being the ability to multitask certain items. From reading on the toilet, to holding two drinks in their hands, Sims are much more capable of doing different actions at the same time. Sure, there are the occasional issues with paths taken by the characters, but overall, they're quite good.
Actual group behavior is also much better and pretty lifelike, especially in situations like friends hanging out in bars or at home. However, especially during such encounters, expect quite a few glitches. While I realize that The Sims 4 is a hugely ambitious game that needs to account for all sorts of situations, there are some problems that popped up during regular gameplay, such as missing babies, mistaken friends, and other such glitches, not to mention downright crashes, so save often.
Besides the technical issues, while The Sims 4 does feel like a pretty fun experience, it also leaves plenty of room for expansions and add-ons, and in some cases things are rather obvious. There are plenty of missing key items, very few options to choose from in terms of traits or aspirations, and the customization system has very generic items.
A major missing aspect of the game involves the jobs system. Whenever they go to work, your Sims just disappear from the map and you can't do anything that concerns them.
Visuals and SoundThe Sims 4 looks really impressive at all zoom levels, from the highly detailed Create-A-Sim to the fantastic Build mode, to the regular gameplay. Character models and the many items inside the game look great and animations are much more fluid. Textures are also quite good and fit the whole Sims style perfectly. The interface, which is more simple and subdued than in previous iterations, is also a welcome sight.
The soundtrack is quite varied and pretty fun, managing to complement the action on the screen in a good way, even though some of the situations you can get yourself into sometimes don't really match the generic music. Actual Sim talk is also pretty varied and won't annoy players unless they're engaging in extended sessions.
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The Sims 4 is a fun experience that certainly takes great steps in improving the core mechanics of the series. The Create-A-Sim and Build Mode systems are much more accessible yet offer a lot of depth for those that desire it. Sims are smart, can multitask, and interact in lots of nifty ways. However, there are still plenty of missing core items while the existing set of options are limited, to say the least, no doubt to ensure that the upcoming expansions bring lots of highly desirable things.
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