Sul Sul! Harva sol labaga along with hava so lawnumg. Ooo shanga day. Benzi chibna looble bazebni gweb. Ribby wibbs ahhhh molombia veena fredishay. Shoo flee ooh be gah. Wing zing dog plerg majah bliff. Gerb woof em blark balahonc zierex nicloske ga gloope. Boobasnot! Uhh shamoo ralla poo! Litzergram flart arriba chandler nuber menukonya. Deepla blah meshaloob shoandish. My Shuno!
The Sims 4 (Windows)
No, friends, I haven’t gone crazy. Well, not yet anyway. I was speaking Simlish…whether or not I was doing so correctly is another matter altogether. If you can believe it, there are Simlish dictionaries out on the web that will help you decipher just what it is your little minions…erm, Sims are saying. I’m sure someone will correct my Simlish grammar in the comments below, it’s inevitable. Before you go to the trouble, be warned that I just threw Simlish phrases together like a mad scientist…they probably don’t make much sense to those who understand it. I find it ironic that someone could find my interpretation of a gibberish language as gibberish, but whatever. “The Sims 4”, like all of its predecessors, is loaded with more Simlish than you can handle.
In looking back, I was really excited for “The Sims 4”, but not in the way you’d expect. I played “The Sims 2” religiously and had every expansion. My favorite was the “business” expansion that let you set up and run your very own business, something that I didn’t see (I may have missed it) in “The Sims 3”. Speaking of which, I purchased “The Sims 3” on Steam before Origin became a thing. The transition of the EA profile to Origin has not been kind to me, to the point where I gave up and created a whole new account because the former was stuck out in some type of limbo. Getting ahold of EA customer service was near impossible and frustrating as a result. In the end, “The Sims 3” was in my Steam library but I couldn’t connect it to Origin in order to make full use of its features…good job EA.
Using my new Origin account, the same one I used to purchase “SimCity”, I was able to get into “The Sims 4” without any trouble. “SimCity” was plagued with launch issues, namely in the form of people not being able to login to the servers. Luckily, I didn’t have that problem with “The Sims 4”, though I am admittedly a few weeks late to the party. Not everyone can drop sixty bucks on a whim, after all. At any rate, I was immediately glad to learn that I could enable or disable aging amongst other things. You’ll want to be careful though, there’s a separate check box for aging that effects other Sims of which you’re not in control. The wrong check box combination can lead to your Sim staying young while everyone else around you dies of old age.
My first impressions were positive overall. The Create-a-Sim has been overhauled quite a bit, allowing you to “drag” body parts in order to change their proportions. Gone are the thousands of sliders to the right of your avatar, just “grab” that stomach (or bosom) and enlarge as you see fit. If you’re not feeling all that creative, there are templates available for faces, outfits, and the like. The game’s build mode was equally as innovative, allowing me to resize rooms without having to delete anything. Rooms even come prebuilt with the ability to change their color scheme, though you’re free to create them from scratch if you so choose. Oh, and Sims can now “multitask”…about damn time!
Who knew that I was such a stud-muffin?
As great as all that is, I can’t help but feel that the world is empty. This was partially to be expected however, seeing as how EA usually releases 10+ expansion packs for every major “Sims” game. “The Sims 3” featured about eleven expansion packs and nine stuff packs, setting the hardcore “Sims” fan back hundred of dollars in the process. I have no reason to believe that “The Sims 4” will be different in that regard. The base games have always tended to be the initial platform or staging area, if you will, for what the series as a whole is truly capable of doing. You’re not going to find a lot of content in “The Sims 4”, but I do feel that in combination with everything else, it’s enough to justify the sixty dollar price tag (barely).
Speaking of everything else, the trait and aspiration systems have been dumbed down a bit. The game also lacks toddlers, cars, swimming pools, and other goodies that we enjoyed in the previous “Sims” games. This makes absolutely no sense to me. A sequel should expand on the former game, make it better, and if possible introduce new engaging gameplay mechanics. A sequel should NOT take away features, not unless those mechanics were horribly broken or useless in the preceding games. While some of us may understand the limitations of new technology and/or game engines, the average paying customer does not. All they see is that the game they owned had more stuff than what they just bought, and they’d be right to feel angry and/or frustrated.
“The Sims 4” is a step in the right direction, but I can’t help but feel a bit jipped by some of the missing content I took for granted in the previous “Sims” games. I have a feeling some of it may be introduced via expansion packs as EA is wont to do, but it’s hard not to see these expansions for the cash grabs they are. Introducing toddlers in a future expansion when it could have been included in the base game, for example, would feel like a kick in the proverbial nuts. Not knowing what expansions are planned, however, I’ll have to wait and see how this game develops over the next few years. “The Sims 4” isn’t a bad game and I’ve admittedly enjoyed my time with it, though casual fans may want to hold off until there’s a price reduction (if one ever comes).
Final Verdict: 7/10
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You can learn more about and purchase “The Sims 4” by visiting the official site, here:
http://www.thesims.com/the-sims-4
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s6et82KEbeU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_kQibo_A_o
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-POWTkum3Ek