Hi, everyone! Long time listener, first time caller here. I just wanted to pop in to say how much I love this game and all the new features and improvements over 3. I'm going through kind of a dark time in my life right now and it's a very welcome respite. I was surprised to browse the internet and see so many negative reviews and comments elsewhere harping over the lack of pools and toddlers. I mean, really? These two things were so desperately essential to the experience? The only thing I ever used the pool for was drowning my enemies and eventually they figured out they could just climb out of the pool anywhere along the edge, as in real life.
Toddlers are cute and all, but--and it sounds like this is unusual based on all the baby & family talk in this thread--I often eschew child-rearing in favor of jobs, skills and socialization.
So I was pleasantly surprised to come here and learn that they added nursing to the game, and predictably annoyed with the pixels. I laughed when someone upthread noted that much more time and care was put into custom animations for sex, whereas nursing = the toilet. I'm not unsympathetic to EA given the nature of the predicament posed--despite the facts of the situation people are still weirdly prudish/misogynist about nursing & the female body in real life and even a brief glimpse of breast could have endangered that valuable T rating, which is totally not EA's fault and just reflects the wacky world in which we all live. Pleasing the arbitrary and dogmatic censors is something the entertainment industry is constantly having to dance around, alas. I also agree that they could have made a custom animation with a discreet blanket, and I'd like to hope the reason that didn't happen is because of development resources etc. and not primitive political views. So it's a question of whether it's better to have the half-measure executed poorly vs. not having it in the game at all.
But enough about a feature it may have taken me months to notice otherwise and on to the many amazing features I noticed right away:
--I love the dynamic emotions system! I made an Insane sim and it's hilarious to watch her emotions swerve all over the place. One minute she's placidly examining samples under the microscope, the next minute she's furious and kicking over the garbage can (for her poor, responsible sister to clean up.)
--Agreed that the socialization system is much more fluid, fun and easy to use, though it can occasionally lead to odd moments (though hilarious, sometimes unintentional oddities are a trademark of this series.) I'm thinking in particular of a moment when my sim and her bestie were having an intimate chat on the side of Bestie's bed, when Bestie's roommate comes into the bedroom and joins the conversation--via sitting down on the other edge of the bed, face to the wall, back to the others.
--I love how much more intricate jobs and skills are! While there's only 8 jobs, they each have two separate career tracks, so it's really more like there's 16. I agree with the poster who mentioned above that it's neat that lifetime aspirations now come with sub-goals, they also added similar features to careers to make job performance more complex, including the ideal mood and daily tasks. I'm having lots of fun trying to master controlling my programmer sim's mood--when she's in her house, it's like a Hive of Focus with mathematical diagrams and all the neat career rewards (also an awesome addition,) but the second she steps outside she forgets all about that and is just happy she won the Blikblok Tournament. I'll get the hang of it eventually. & skills! So many neat new ones--comedy, mischief, programming, video games, gourmet cooking, mixology in the base game, multiple musical instruments in the base game. I was also really pleased by how every new skill point usually meant a substantial and interesting new feature. It's not always a biggie--sometimes just something new to talk to others about--but it really makes it feel worthwhile to put the time in developing the skill.
--It's a small thing, but I enjoy the unique & witty capsule descriptions of individual books. The Sauntering Dead, indeed. Hilarious flavor text in The Sims is another thing that makes this franchise great--my brother and I still crack each other up by describing my mom's living room as having carpeting that just has to say West Coast.
Two other random notes--I love how the sedate, realistic telescope from previous games has been replaced with a comically enormous steampunk home observatory at the low low cost of $1,500 simoleons. I was surprised to hear that other people's Sim families are having trouble making ends meet and that they've apparently made bills more expensive and paychecks smaller--the recession comes to Willow Creek, or whatever--because my Sims always seem to be flush with cash for whatever crazy thing they desire. Maybe things will be different now that my new Sim is a materialistic snob married to an art lover who will surely want to start a personal collection--and of course, her hoity-toity husband simply won't approve of her buying bargain basement kitsch, and he'll frequently get the urge to splurge his own self. We'll see.
Finally, and this might be another thing for the charming oddity category, but my art lover sim was enjoying herself at the museum, only to be confronted by my ultra-focused computer programmer greeting her rudely, with a crazed gleam in her eye--which I didn't even know Programmer knew how to do! But that's not the crazy part. The programmer was inexplicably clad in a full-body hot dog costume, complete with mustard. And she's not even the insane one. Oh, The Sims.
