Whoops
Last night while Will and I were having a date night, he had Steam open before we launched Spiritfarer, there was an advert for The Sims 4 with the Cats & Dogs expansion for 80% off. Will pointed out that it would actually make good financial sense for me to get the game now, even if I wasn’t ready to play it yet. And thus begins the tale of how I spent last night on The Sims 4.
Don’t worry, I am still playing The Sims 3, I absolutely love it, it’s a nice chill game that I treat myself to in phases. But I have officially started 4. Screenshots ahoy, and I’ll talk about some differences further down.
I find it hard to make my own face in things like The Sims because I think I might actually have trouble picturing my own face. Bitmoji uses a selfie so you’re less likely to go wrong, but with The Sims it’s like, uh I think my features are that far apart? etc.
But yes clearly my ideal version of myself is thin and goes around in flowy skirts and crop tops.
The first thing that jumped out at me was that when creating the Sims 4 sims, and using “play with genetics” to make our children, The Sims 4, like most other iterations of The Sims I’ve played, assumed that our children would end up with darker hair. Two other iterations of playing The Sims 3 did as well, except for my current game, which gave both of our daughters red hair.
Creating a Sim is quite different, I found the menu a bit overwhelming. I didn’t get to choose Will’s traits at all, perhaps because I made him first as part of the tutorial, and there are only 3 trait slots this time. I prefer the look of the Sims 3 trait icons (I mean I even have some in the sidebar of this website lol!), and I think there’s a more interesting selection than in 4. Also couldn’t figure out voices at all and everyone sounds weirdly deep.
The Sims 4 is visually beautiful, but it seems a very “stripped-down” game. Not a lot of product options, very little decor. I expected to fill the living room walls with all sorts of new stuff but there just wasn’t a lot to choose from!
Pets, of course, are a frustration. Not only can we not control them, but we don’t even get to see their needs! Even The Sims 2 let us select them and see their need bars, we just couldn’t click on anything. So this is a massive step backwards, and of course, no horses or lizards or anything.
I find the UI a bit annoying, but maybe it’ll grow on me in time, I just prefer the way the Sims 3 bars and stuff are displayed at the bottom of the screen. Also everyone changes their mood every two minutes, and it’s like, calm down y’all.
Going to work is super weird, your sim just may as well not exist for that time. In The Sims 3, while you don’t actually see your sim doing stuff at work (unless you’re something like a ghost hunter), the camera can at least zoom over to the building they’re in, and you get some sort of audio going on, and you can see them drive to and from work, there is a designated place on the map where they currently are. In 4, they just vanish from the world for a while.
Hopefully The Sims 5 will be a perfect hybrid of 3 and 4, with more stuff to throw on the walls, and better pet management. I think I would be pushing my luck asking for horses again, because the company seems really averse to doing that for some reason. Just put all the good things about 3 and 4 together? Let us get some of our fave furniture with updated visuals? But please don’t make it too RAM heavy, so those of us on terrible laptops can still enjoy it without needing to be at a gaming PC.
That reminds me, 4 makes my laptop VERY HOT whereas I’ve been lucky so far that 3 doesn’t. This is a laptop that struggles with Tabletop Simulator, so I realise I’m lucky to play The Sims at all.
I am certainly enjoying the ability to live on a haunted lot so far, anyway.
Did I forget to mention anything? Almost definitely.