Disclaimer: Everything is just my opinion. You are entitled to disagree with my opinion, but this is my article, so I’ll be expressing my thoughts.
If you’re similar to anyone else during this period of lockdown/quarantine and social distancing, you’re probably spending a lot more time playing video games. Most people that I know have had their lives taken over by Animal Crossing, but I’ve just been playing The Sims 4 nonstop. And since I was blessed with a 3 month long spring break, The Sims 4 managed to worm its way into my daily routine. But unfortunately, this development wasn’t all positive. The more time I spent playing, the more issues I began to have with the game.
The first point is that they have a monopoly on the industry of the real life simulation game genre. They’ve dominated the game for roughly 20 years, and with no big competitors that offer a similar game, Electronic Arts gets to charge its consumers a high price for not a lot of content. EA is a massive gaming company, and I’m pretty sure that as the giant corporation that it is, it can give the consumers more content for less money. A lot of the packs feel like cash grabs, and with some packs you only play through them once, and never touch them again. I can’t wait for Paralives to come out, because hopefully with more competition, The Sims 4 can get it together and stop charging us absurd amounts of money for their packs.
And in terms of life stages, TS4 focuses so hard on the young adult and adult stage. Most of the gameplay and activities that your Sims can do only apply to young adults and adults. Babies are basically objects, and toddlers weren’t even included when TS4 first came out. It took EA 2 years to add them back into the game. I didn’t buy TS4 until the summer of 2017, so by the time I started playing, toddlers had already been added into the base game. But in my opinion, the most lackluster life stage goes to teenagers. Your teenage years are such an important part of life, and no teenager looks the same as a young adult, so why is there no differentiation between teenagers and young adults? The only real difference that I can see from my gameplay is that teenagers are still programmed to go to school, and young adults aren’t.
Beyond that, Sims are boring. They are just shells, and have no actual character. No matter what trait they’re assigned, the Sims will automatically gravitate towards electronics. It makes me want to not give my Sims any computers or televisions when I build their houses, but they usually always need computers to do everything. They also don’t listen? I’ll give them directions, and they’ll just stand there and smile while not doing anything. One of my Sims just watched her little puppy pee in the house because she wouldn’t pick her dog up to go outside, no matter how many times I clicked that action (puppies and kittens can’t walk on stairs). Something else that frustrates me to no end with Sims is that they always wash their dishes in the bathroom sink, and not the kitchen sink. I initially thought that it was because I put the bathroom too close to the dining table, but even when I move the bathroom to a separate floor, they still carry their dishes to the bathroom sink? I really need that to stop.
The build/buy mode also has its own issues. Nothing in build/buy mode matches with each other. The furniture barely matches… a lot of sofas don’t come with matching love seats, so bigger living rooms don’t really look cohesive. And kitchen counters feel too fancy… I just want some basic swatches, basic textures, but TS4 always tries to make things look different and special, and I think it’d be better if they toned it down a little. The worst part is how the wood tones don’t match… they’re all just varying shades of brown, and it’s frustrating when nothing in my house matches properly. I understand that it’s a life simulator, and in real life your furniture doesn’t always match up, but I’m playing the Sims for a reason. Let me have my matching wood tones. However, I am not exactly an advocate for the colour wheel system like they had in TS3. I think too much freedom can be a bad thing. It’s like when your teacher tells you that you can write an essay on anything you want, and you have no idea where to begin. So as long as the wood tones actually match, I think having some restrictions and guidelines can be nice, as it can also remove some stress out of the players.
But at the end of the day, I still love The Sims 4. Maybe it’s because I used to play TS1, and there’s the nostalgia factor, or maybe it’s because I just want to imagine myself living in a different world. I haven’t been leaving my house very often, so whenever I’m free, I just sit in front of my computer and get lost in the game. And no matter how many issues I have with TS4, I still love it, and I still play it.
I JUST WANT BETTER GAMEPLAY.