Sims 4 - First Impressions

[thelittlepakeha]

I had a long time to wait for this. My old computer couldn't run it - by the last few weeks, my old computer was struggling with running a web browser at the same time as Twitter - so I had to wait until financial aid came through to upgrade. And then Sims 4 was half price so I managed to scrape up the money earlier than I'd expected. (I'll have to wait a while for Outdoor Adventures though, which is a pity coz it looks neat.) So I'm playing new game on new computer and even have a new mouse that doesn't seem to have a middle button so I'm not sure what that would have done for the Sims 3 camera controls anyway.

I LOVE the loading times. I've opened the game about five times today. I feel like I can pop in and play for ten minutes, even, without it being much of a hassle. With the suburbs separated I do find I'm not traveling much further as much as I did in Sims 3, but I do quite like them anyway. The worlds overall feel a lot smaller since they're, what, three residential neighbourhoods, a park and a commercial neighbourhood? But my first test Sim lives RIGHT next to the magic tree entrance to Sylvan Grove, so that's pretty handy.

I'm finding I really don't have space in the smaller starter houses for much. I don't have a computer yet because there's nowhere to put it. The shelves don't seem to be big enough to put my frogs on, so I have a line of them on the floor next to the tv. I love that you can choose the height of things you put on the wall though, and consequently have multiple things in one tile. I have a column of about four mounted fish that give my Sim a lot of confidence when she comes out of her bedroom, even though she's not that social. I need to get the elemental display board soon though because she's a gardener/collector and I don't really have a way to build focused mood yet. (On that note, the first times I sent stuff off to the geo council I got it back fine but my last lots seem to be taking a really long time. I have no idea what's going on with that.) My cow plant also died really quickly because she went off to fish in the grove, came home exhausted and went to bed. It presumably got hungry while she was fishing and died just before she had time to feed it in the morning. OTOH the skeleton looks awesome, and I couldn't really be bothered feeding Sims to it anyway.

Grafting plants is awesome! However I had a message pop up saying there was information on new plants in my notebook and as far as I can tell that's something I need a computer for? I miss the skill journal from Sims 3, I don't really feel like I know what the skills are doing or what I'm working towards. Do I get anything from completing collections? No idea! I've even finished one (the eggs, of course) and I still don't know because I wasn't paying attention when I finished it. Aspirations are neat though, I'm getting the hang of switching between them now. I also like multitasking. I had Sims eating, watching tv and chatting at the same time, filling hunger fun and social as well as cooking skill. I ended up selling off most of my harvested plants just before I quit last time - when I went to fertilise or pick bait most of them were listed in very small amounts, a huge huge list of them in no particular order, so trying to scroll through and find the four fish in my inventory when I have 100 each of seven or eight different plants is a bit nightmarish.

[bigcountryaus]

First off, I have been a Simmer since the first in 2000. In my opinion, Sims 2 offered the best gameplay/ graphics of the whole series. Sims 3 was a backward step in the overall feel of the game graphically, but the game options brought new game play into the sims but they made the worlds too big. So, when they announced that Sims 4 would be what Sims 3 should have been I thought great.

First thoughts of Sims 4;
●Graphics - Great, they finally returned to a Sims 2 look.
●Neighborhoods - At first, I thought good, they broken the world down into down into neighborhoods, but as I soon discovered, your sim can't walk around the neighborhood except to their own parks without loading screens, but the loading screen times are very quick.
●Gameplay - Okay but still getting use to a new system, but will improve with expension packs.

Overall, happy with the new base and 2 expansion packs.

[beardeux]

bigcountryaus - my sentiments exactly.
  Sims 2 is still the best in my humble opinion, but am enjoying sims 4.  I had very little trouble with the new system as I feel it is so very similar to sims 2.

[neuroticnelly]

Late to the party, but I still caved in sooner than I thought I would.

I have mixed feelings about the game so far. Parts of it remind me of earlier sims games, for better and for worse.

I loathe the camera zoom. It's really jerky and even though I have the option checked for TS3's camera, I still can't get a handle on the controls. Put it on my "to learn" list. I also don't think I'll ever fully get over not having Create-a-Style. My sims' clothes don't entirely match and it hurts me on the inside.

Don't know how I feel about the transition from LTWs to aspirations. I didn't really pay attention to them in TS2, and I last played that game in 2005 anyways. It does seem to "fit" the game, though.

A lot of the interactions are cute. The sims in general look pretty nice, even if the facial sculpting options are limited, and the base-game fashion isn't godawful for once. Money and needs seem more challenging, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

A lot of this sounded negative, but I'm also hopeful that I'll find more things that I like as time goes on.

Yup I'm bored. I've tried creating a dynasty. My original couple had 8 kids: 2 guys, 6 girls. Unlike sims 3 when you kicked the extra kids out, they got jobs, lovers, had kids etc. Now when you move the extras out they don't progress in the game. All 6 girls were never promoted in their careers, and died of old age. Not one got married. With all the hype of how great the sims would look, the creators deleted a helluva lot that made sims 3 way more interesting and "real" as a town.

[chongjasmine]

I just downloaded the base game from steam website, since it is free. So far, after 1 hour of gameplay, I am finding it more fun than sims 3. The expressions of the sim are priceless.