Kaye's Days

I talked about Sims 4 before on this blog, when I got some hate thrown at me for not being excited about the game. I can’t say I was wrong. To me, this game is a mess.

I did like it for a while, but it couldn’t hold my interest. Even when I did like it, I could only play it for 2-3 hours. Eventually, the time I could enjoy it lessened and it reached the point where this game was making me yawn within 5-10 minutes of playing. Creating sims, building, and moving things around were fun, but playing with them? No.

I’ve uninstalled it and I don’t miss it at all. I’m not interested in anything for it simply because no amount of new content can fix most of my problems with the game.

Graphics/Art

This was my complaint from the beginning. The game looks way too cartoonish. I find its graphics more cartoonish than Sims 2! The graphics irritate me because the worlds and sims look like they were styled after a preschool cartoon. The graphics are just too bright and too pastel-like. They give me a slight headache.

Emotions

Emotions were the main selling point of Sims 4, but they turned out to be flat. The emotional system is very easy to manipulate. Sims can also flip through different emotional states within a very short period of time. I had a sim who kept switching between states for about five game minutes. She wasn’t doing anything. For some reason, her emotional state just went a little haywire. The emotions simply do not add any depth to the sims for me.

Lack of the toddler stage

My families feel incomplete without toddlers. I find the infant-to-child transition jarring and it makes the game seem more like Sims 1.5 instead of Sims 4.

Cradle infants

The infants are confined to their cradles. The only difference between this and Sims 1 is you can see them, and they all look identical anyway. However, infants have always looked identical, so that’s nothing new.

Reduced number of traits in CAS

Only three traits can be selected for a sim in CAS instead of five like in Sims 3. Most people can’t describe their own selves in three words (or five, for that matter, but it’s still more).

Loading screens

Enough said. I’m fine with them in Sims 2, but not in Sims 4. They drive me up a wall!

Functions of some emotions

A hot-headed sim, for example, will randomly get angry out of nowhere. That’s not what being hot-headed means. It means being easily provoked, not being angry the air touched you.

Worlds

All of the worlds are small, and one in particular only has four lots in total. Only Sims 1 contains worlds smaller than the ones in Sims 4.  More annoyingly, you’re stuck with wherever the lots are. Unlike Sims 2 and Sims 3, the lots cannot be moved nor is placing your own lots possible. So, in addition to being small, they’re also very restrictive.

Theme

As far as I can tell, the theme of this game seems to be partying. Nothing wrong with that, but I am not a party girl. Over half of the community lots are for getting drunk and dancing, and two of the four packs released were advertised as relating to partying, fancy and casual. It’s not something I care for or am interested in.

Repetitiveness

Certain events, such as going on a date, gives you a list of goals to complete, and they quickly begin repeating themselves. Sims 2 had a similar function with some events. However, you weren’t given a specific list to complete. You could raise the score in whatever way you please. In Sims 4, if the tasks are not completed, the score will not rise.

Inability to bypass CAS

A new game can’t be started without going into Create-A-Sim. Why they assumed someone wants to make a new sim every time they start a new game is beyond me. Some people want to play with the pre-made households. Some people already have sims they want to add. There’s no need for this.

Culling

For some reason, the game generates a ridiculous amount of sims and at a population of 180, it begins to destroy them. The problem is while it deletes sims to make room, it continues to generate them. There’s also no control over which sims are culled, meaning the culling system can destroy family ties and alter the family tree. According to the staff, this is what’s supposed to happen. I understand it’s to prevent performance issues within the game, but why is that seemingly impossible to do without breaking relationship ties in the game? Wouldn’t it make more sense to program the game to stop generating sims once it reaches its cap instead of deleting them?

Humor

It’s too childish for my tastes. No more words necessary.

Patches

By itself, the patches aren’t a bad thing, but some of them add things I don’t want in my game, such as a bunch of Star Wars costumes to celebrate May 4th, and it’s not possible to get rid of them. Those kinds of patches should be made optional.

Inability to bypass Origin

The game cannot be played without logging into Origin. Thankfully, it is possible to log in offline, but that it’s necessary to log in at all is annoying. It’s possible to log out of Origin after the game has started up, but not before. It’ll only bring you it the Origin log-in screen and refresh it as many times as you click the game icon if you refuse to sign in. Unfortunately, this kind of thing is apparently becoming common with PC games (Cities: Skylines does the same with Steam). Why anyone would think everybody is so enthusiastic to be connected to everyone else is beyond me, but I wish that idea would die. If I wanted to connect with other players, I wouldn’t be playing a Sims game. I’d buy a darn multiplayer game and system.

Playground equipment

This is probably the only problem more content could fix. The only playground equipment in the game are two jungle gyms in the shapes of a pirate ship and a rocket, and a set of monkey bars. No slide, no swings, no playhouse, no merry-go-round. That’s a very boring playground. If I saw a playground like that as a kid, I’d be disappointed.

Those are pretty much all of my problems with Sims 4. I feel a little bad for saying it, but if Sims 4 is any indicator of how the series will continue (if it does), I think I’m done with anything after 2014. My expectations for the sims series are lower than dirt. If Sims 5 ever comes around, the only expectation I have of it is it having the number 5 on the box. Notice I said if. Yeah, I’m not holding my breath.