1. The Sims themselves...
Sims in Sims 4 are more dynamic, extra funny and definitely more fun to play with. The game's main focus is the Sims. There are more social interactions than ever! I can see that the developers paid most attention to sim detail and to the amazing animations. The sim's actions seem so fluid and life-like. Sims will still, however, be sims. They still don't think to remove a dirty dish blocking the refrigerator nor do they think to get out of the way of a fire!
2. The MULITASKING!
This has got to be the most amazing feature ever added to the Sims series! It's so useful, allowing you to satisfy a lot of your sim's needs all at once. Eg. Having breakfast while watching TV and blowing your wife a kiss. It's possible! Sure the other Sims series attempted it, i.e. you could talk while eating in Sims 3 but there are so many more actions that can be performed now. Your sim can now cook or paint while talking to another sim and listening to music!
3. EMOTIONS...
While the new emotion system can be annoying at times, eg. Sims constantly being inappropriately flirty or feeling embarrased and wanting to do nothing but hide from the world in their bed (seriously they do that).
The emotions are very entertaining and so funny at times. It's a very nice element to the game and I love that The Sim's body language, social interactions and whims are affected by what mood they're in AND by their traits! I wish there were more emotions though and I also wish they could be combined eg. a flirty and energetic sim could have some interesting consequences (all night Woohoo maybe?)...
4. The Game performance!
IS AMAZING (mostly) . Technically my computer is below the recommended specs of Sims 4 but it runs like a cheetah on steroids. I love that saving takes a few seconds instead of the 5 minutes that Sims 3 takes. There is, however, lag especially when adding items into your game from The Gallery (more on that later). For even faster gameplay you can switch to laptop mode. This is not recommended because the game looks horrible (well for me at least). After a while of playing, the game does tend to get laggy especially with big families or houses or if your sim is travelling a lot but overall I love the speed of the game.
5. The Gallery
I have a love-hate relationship with the Gallery. I loved it when I just had the CAS demo but now that there are tons of houses and sims it's very slow. Adding a ready-made house to the game takes forever and caused my game to crash quite a bit. I can't do without the gallery though because of the lack of houses and community lots in game and also because I don't usually like to build which brings me to my next point..
6. Build Mode
The game's main focus are the sims themselves but build mode is so incredibly easy to use once you get the hang of it. And trust me, it takes long to get used to new build mode controls. This build mode is stacks more fun than any other build mode in the series and I love the fact that changing things (such as wall size, room size and house position) is so easy! I never ever used to build my own homes in Sims but now building is my preferred choice!
My 2 simple creations
7. Careers
There are many careers to choose from: astronaut, tech guru and entertainment being the most interesting. Each career has 2 different career paths to choose from. But the thing that struck me was how challenging it is to move up your chosen career as opposed to other games. For each level sims must satisfy a few conditions before the next promotion (eg. having 5 friends or completing 3 masterpiece paintings) and to increase career performance sims must go to work in a particular mood (eg. inspired in the Artist career) and complete the daily task (eg. reading every day for a set amount of time in the writer career).
This seems like so much and you may ask yourself: Why all the effort? Why not just motherlode your sim into fortune? Because now in The Sims 4 progressing up your chosen career path unlocks special items which help your sim in that career or otherwise in their lives. The objects are not that great but it's a cool thing to do. I like this career system instead of sims 3 where just showing up to work can get them promoted. Getting your sim's kids good grades in school has a similar system.
8. Happy families
Ok not all of them may be the very happiest but sim families in Sims 4 are adorable. I just LOVE the kids in this game. From their interactions to their clothes, everything is so adorable and gives them so much life!
Sure it's kind of annoying how babies can't leave their crib or how they just miraculously become kids and skip the toddler stage but at least they have legs now and are still so adorable! Also I really love the breastfeeding interaction!
9. FOOD!
This may seem like an odd choice on this list but the food is probably the most we've ever seen in game! As a foodie myself I was excited for this and love the wide array of recipes available! There are 2 types of cooking skills as well: normal and gourmet for those fancy meals. I also love the fact that any meal can be cooked at any time of the day! Want scrambled eggs at 1am? Go ahead!
10. The tons of missing content and features we expected to be there..
I couldn't do this without mentioning this aspect. Many fans of the series were very disappointing by the exclusion of key features to the series such as toddlers and swimming pools (now how will we kill our sims?) I was really hoping to have a few new features added to the series such as more life stages eg. preteens. Instead they remove a life stage! I was really also hoping for weather in the base game but I knew that was never going to happen because any opportunity to make money from an expansion EA and any other company will take.
On that point, I think The Sims 4 is going to be an expansion pack breeding ground! This game was made for expansion packs. I'm looking forward to them but also thinking of how hurt my wallet is going to be when they come out.
In conclusion, I enjoyed playing The Sims 4 very much. It changed the series but not as much as I'd have hoped for. I love it to bits though and am totally addicted to it and will always be to any game in this series.
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