The Sims 4

The Sims 4
File:The Sims 4 Box Art after Rebranding.png Smarter Sims, Weirder Stories.
Genre(s): Life Simulation Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Xbox One Playstation 4 Xbox Series X/S PlayStation 5 Release: September 2, 2014 (PC) November 17, 2017 (Consoles) Developer(s): Maxis Publisher(s): Electronic Arts Series: The Sims Predecessor: The Sims 3

The Sims 4 is the 4th game in the life simulation video game series of the same name, developed by EA Maxis and published by Electronic Arts.

Why It's Sims 4Ever

1. Same Sims gameplay as the last three.
2. Gorgeous graphics that are a huge step up from the previous Sims games.
3. The bodies of Sims are more customizable, with various parts of the body being able to be changed in size and scale, in addition to the previous overall sliders of body fat and muscular weight. You can also give male Sims a feminine body and vice versa.
   • By that token, it is now much easier to create good-looking Sims in this game than in previous games.
4. The Create a Sim mode now allows the modification of Sims' body shape and face shape by clicking and dragging various parts of the body, making it easier to create Sims without shifting through various menus.
5. Sims can now multi-task so you can watch TV, run on a treadmill, and talk to another sim at the same time.
6. Sims now have emotions. There are seventeen types of emotions, with each having different levels. Emotions also change how Sims act in the world. Energized Sims will do better working out, and Very Uncomfortable Sims can't perform various tasks.
7. More social interactions with other ages were added.
8. Lots of expansion packs, game packs, and stuff packs were released, which added new features to the game.
9. Three worlds are available to live in in the base game, with each having 13 lots. Additional worlds were added in expansion packs.
10. Building tools were improved in the game. You can extrude walls more easily, and place in whole pre-built rooms in a new lot.
11. Items can be rescaled in the game. Your TV or statue is too small? Scale it up in Build mode. Want a tiny toy couch? Scale down a real couch. Or, scale a toilet and make it absolutely massive.
12. For the first time, lots can now have traits set for them, such as the Fast Internet, which increases the rate at which programming, video gaming, and writing skills increase.
13. The Sims Gallery allows for easy importing of user-generated content into your game. Sims, Lots, and Rooms can be uploaded and downloaded on the Gallery. The gallery also doesn't mind users uploading creations with custom content.
14. The Sims 4 on the console is a direct port of the PC game, meaning all of the features are in the game, excluding mods. DLC can also be purchased here too.
15. True advertising: Smarter Sims, Weirder stories is so true.
16. You can now create Sims by simply answering questions about their personality.
17. In October 2022, the base game was later made free to play in which can get new people to experience the game.

Bad Qualities

1. Lots of features from the previous games were omitted in The Sims 4 at launch, such as pools, toddlers, Create a Style, and more. Even as some of the features were added in updates, the base game content were not modified to add this content, meaning that the starting houses and stuff don't have pools.
2. There is no open-world gameplay anymore. You'll encounter loading screens when switching to another lot even if it is nearby.
   • Though this does kind of makes sense, since The Sims 3 had performance issues, even on powerful computers.
3. It is no longer possible to customize worlds in the game, additional plots can't be placed on to existing worlds and you must deal with the existing ones.
4. The only cars that exist in the game are toy cars and model cars, which both can be rescaled to match the scale of a real car, but, of course, cannot be used as a real car.
5. Sometimes Sims will bug out and stop doing anything, which usually happens when they attempt to go to sleep, disrupting the gameplay as the lot must be reloaded or the Sim reset to fix the issue.
6. The console version's controller controls are slightly clunky and hard to maneuver due to the requirement of switching between two control modes to select items on the screen.
7. The My First Pet Stuff content pack is controversial due to appearing as if it was content taken away from the Cats & Dogs expansion pack and released on its own to sell for extra money.
8. Though emotions were overall a great addition to the series, some emotions (namely "Enraged", "Mortified", and "Hysterical") can kill a Sim.
9. The Journey To Batuu game pack was poorly received by fans because it showed how EA and Maxis still aren't listening to fan suggestions.
10. Without the use of mods or custom content, the game can get pretty boring and repetitive at times.
11. To get the full experience as of now, you have to spend $689.66 on DLC, which makes this feel like a cashgrab for EA. Worse, EA takes the easy way out by discounting DLCs very little, which further proves EA's selfish nature in discounting their DLCs.
    • In fact the only game to still receive discounts is the previous installment.
    • Additionally unlike The Sims 3, the DLC is split up to multiple DLC packages. For example The Sims 3 Supernatural had Fairies, Vampires, Werewolves, Witches, and Ghosts included in the DLC, but The Sims 4 ended up splitting all of them into separate DLC for each supernatural form.
12. There are a few cringeworthy pop culture references.
13. The color wheel that was previously included in The Sims 3 to create your Sims is no longer featured in The Sims 4, only coming with severely limited preset color options. It is not from the result of hardware limitations, but rather, lazy developer decision because they refuse to include such a simple yet useful feature.
14. Despite the game later being free to play in October 2022, this could be a bad practice to some considering that some people spent $60 at launch (Or lower after launch due to the sales) for the game years ago and now it's completely for free.

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