[typing]
If you spend any amount of time looking at my channel,
then you will know that I am a huge fan
of the Sims series.
I loved the first game.
It really opened my eyes to
what a simulation game could be.
The life simulation stuff.
And then I really enjoyed The Sims 2 as well.
It was a great addition to the series, adding
pretty much onto the first game entirely
and just expanding on what was already there.
And giving more expansion packs than we ever thought was possible.
And then The Sims 3 came out in 2009,
and it was yet another good iteration to the series.
It had its problems, of course,
but it was also something that kept the same formula
but just improved and added onto.
Giving you things like open world
and intense customization that we'd never seen before.
So, when you have games like these,
in a series that has been going around
for like 13, 14 years now,
then obviously there's a lot of anticipation for a sequel.
And being one of the best selling games series of all time,
it's natural that there's gonna be
a whole lot of speculation
as to whether or not it's gonna be any good.
Well... that
is what I am here to tell you in my opinion today.
Yes, it's time for...
The Sims 4, developed by Maxis
and published by Electronic Arts in 2014
for Windows PCs.
And, yep, this time around there is no Mac version
with no word of it on the horizon currently.
"Smarter Sims. Weirder Stories."
Ah, yes, just what we needed,
because aliens in hot dog suits befriending unicorns
and casting spells on vampires while listening to Katy Perry
just was not weird enough.
The Sims 4 begins by beginning
and how dare it do that?!
Oh my god! Worst game ever! What a pile of rotten ball sacks–
Ah, I'm just kidding! Could you imagine if I was actually like that?
It's just an innocuous bland loading screen. No big deal.
Once this simplistic screen scampers on by,
the main menu plops down some animations in the background
showing how weird the Sims are.
Aren't they WEIRD?!
Look how WEIRD they are!
Betcha can't wait to see how WEIRD their stories get!
So you may as well just start a new game.
Although, perusing the options menu would be a good idea,
since there are indeed an optional array of optional options.
Like Laptop Mode for you top-of-the-lap gamers,
options for autonomy and aging of Sims you play, and those you don't,
and options to make the game play a bit more like The Sims 3
in regards to the social menu and camera controls.
But yeah, starting a new game brings you right into Create A Sim the first time you play,
and it's quite telling that it doesn't initially take you to the neighborhood view.
The Sims and their personalities really are the focus in The Sims 4,
as opposed to world building or sandbox exploration,
so you may as well spend some time making them smart
or weird or whatever marketing taglines you can think of.
And thankfully, The Sims 4's Create A Sim mode
is vastly improved over The Sims 3,
except where it's not at all.
Most of it is what you expect, though,
so you can name them, choose their gender, voice, age,
traits, ambitions.
You can even change their default walking style now,
if you want to make them prance around like a moron.
And when you're psychotically ruining their face and body shape,
there's no relying on sliders to do the job anymore.
All you have to do is click and drag,
pinching and stretching their flesh every which way
like a deranged plastic surgeon on mescaline.
When it works, it's great,
and I've found that with enough practice,
you can create all sorts of convincing likenesses,
so making yourself, your friends,
your celebrity crushes, your worst nightmares,
they're all just a mouse click away.
However, what's really disappointing
is when you realize that you can no longer customize
the clothing and accessories however you want.
The feature known as Create A Style from The Sims 3 is gone.
And that sucks because I use that for friggin' everything in the game,
from garage doors to G-strings.
You wanna make this shirt red?
Or yellow or green or any other basic color that seems obvious?
Well, unless it comes with that preset, or you mod the game, you're out of luck.
Apparently, the reason they got rid of this was because of performance concerns,
and, yeah, I can see that when you're adding
like 17 variations of leopard print to every outfit you have.
But it seriously annoys me that you can't at least change the colors of the existing textures.
A simple color wheel for palette swapping
would have gone a long way in making this more acceptable.
Once you've saved your Sim,
you have the option to upload them to the Sims 4 Gallery,
which is an in-game area that takes the place of the Sims' Exchange website of years past.
Here you can download, rate, and comment on other people's creations,
and import them into your game at will,
or even share them on Facebook, if you're really desperate.
Anyway, once you're done forcing your family onto strangers,
it's on to the neighborhood view, and...
yeah, this is actually what it looks like now.
When I first saw screenshots of this, I honestly thought it was a joke,
because it looks like a Facebook game
or the console version of The Sims.
But it's not a joke. This is what you get.
Two little cartoon towns divided up into six neighborhoods,
each of which contains up to five playable lots.
Move into an existing house, or build your own on an empty lot,
depending on how much work you're willing to put in.
And I gotta say, I highly recommend building your own
because the new build mode is incredible.
Even if you're no good at designing homes,
it doesn't matter because rooms are so malleable and simple to create
that it's a piece of cheeseburger- shaped cake to build them.
Rooms and even the entire house can be picked up and moved as a whole unit.
You can place pre-made rooms inside and around other rooms.
Everything is adjustable in ways that satisfy me completely.
And there are plenty of additions that really spice up the look of houses and lots,
little details and features that make each building pop.
And that could be a good or a bad thing, depending on your aesthetic choices,
but, hey, don't let the "societal norm"
stifle your creative freedom.
Buy mode is rolled up into build mode, too,
and you've got quite a selection of items to pick from.
Though I'm a bit conflicted with the fact that many of these
have to be unlocked in-game before you can buy them.
I like a sense of progression in most games,
but here it can take away from the traditional sandbox idea of The Sims.
Thankfully, there is a great sorting and searching system now,
meaning you can sort by tags and object types,
and even use a search bar to find stuff
without having to flounder around menus all day.
You can also use the Shift and bracket keys together to scale items.
Infinitely.
It's ridiculous and seems kinda like a glitch, but I don't care.
I love it and I hope they never change it.
It's useful, too. I mean, hey, you want a gigantic TV,
but can only afford a tiny one?
Just scale it up and it's as big as your wall.
And being a Sims game, there are at least 35 chairs
on offer to suit your bum-comforting desires.
Surely there could be more and I expect a chairs expansion in 2015.
There are some unfortunate omissions in build mode, though,
like no curved walls, only curved foundations and fences,
the lack of terraforming tools, and the lack of swimming pools.
I guess leaving out diving boards in The Sims 3 base game wasn't enough,
now they just say "screw you guys" and leave out the pools entirely.
You can make fountains, but they just kind of sit there,
wasting virtual water and rusting spare change.
There's no swimming in the game of any kind, for that matter,
and as a result, no bathing suits.
And a significant chunk of the game takes place in a desert,
You have to be a sadistic hydrophobe
to build a hot, desert town to play in
and not a single way to go swimming and cool off.
But once you've got a place to live,
it's time to get to the core gameplay,
and it's pretty much what you've come to expect from The Sims.
Basically, anything goes, and it's up to you to make your own goals.
The Sims as a series is a life simulator
grounded more or less in modern-day reality.
And it's your job as an invisible, all-powerful overlord
to guide your Sims' lives to whatever you deem worthy.
As always, you've got their basic needs to account for,
but following in the footsteps of The Sims 3,
there's less of a focus on taking care of their comfort
and more of an emphasis on playing with the world they live in.
And all of the menus are rather minimalistic this time around,
taking more than a few cues from the 2013 SimCity atrocity–er, reboot.
Along the bottom-right here, you can expand your Sim's needs
their traits and detailed statistics of their entire life to date,
their current inventory and a list of collectibles
that can be found in the game world,
the status of their relationships, both good and bad,
the skills they've learned and their adeptness at them,
their career, if they have one, and how well they're doing at it,
and their current aspirations and available rewards for completing them,
which range from simple mood potions to additional traits.
Then over to the left, past some familiar speed controls,
there's a section that shows your Sim's bank account,
some controls for their phone and home lot,
any queued actions,
and their current emotional state.
Emotions are another significant addition to the Sims series at large,
and they replace the vague Mood Meter of games past.
While Sims have always acted in ways that implied certain emotions,
now it's made explicitly clear how they're feeling at all times.
Sims can feel any one of 14 emotions at a time
and these are affected by everything from their surroundings
to their interactions with other Sims,
to an event that happened earlier in the day.
Above your Sim's portrait, you'll see some things that your Sim wants.
These are known as Whims
and these Whims are affected by their traits as well as their current emotion.
So if a Sim is feeling angry, they can do a hardcore workout to vent.
If they're feeling focused, they can speed through a book
or program on a computer more effectively.
Or if they're feeling confident,
they can go up to random Sims and hit on them without fear.
Overall, I kind of like the emotion system,
as it constantly changes up what may happen at any given time,
and provides some new context- sensitive interactions with each emotion.
Of course, it can be manipulated pretty easily
simply by ingesting unlocked potions,
or surrounding yourself with specific things.
Many decor and clutter objects can emit an emotional aura,
and when this is enabled, any nearby Sims will be overcome with emotion.
So if you've got a study, it's a good idea to fill it with objects
that emit auras conducive to instilling a sense of focus,
and avoid objects that instill hyperactivity.
If you place a bunch of them around each other, these can conflict, though,
and sometimes their emotions change so rapidly
from one extreme back to the other
that your Sim could probably be diagnosed with a variety of psychoses.
Another new feature of their day-to-day routine is the ability
to routinely do more than one thing at once throughout the day.
And thank balls!
Sims can now perform many actions simulteanously
without having to stop the previous action.
Down in the bottom-left, you'll see that Sims can cue up their activities as normal,
but below that, you'll see the multitasking section.
Up to three things can be done at once,
as long as they don't conflict with one another.
For instance, your Sim can exercise,
watch TV AND talk to their spouse at the same time.
Or you could go to a bar,
carry drink in one hand, food in the other,
and chat up the barflies all night long.
Or my personal favorite:
you can take a dump
while browsing the Internet 'til your legs about go numb,
which hits so close to home, it's wonderful.
Sims can also talk to more than one Sim at once,
or leave and enter a conversation while performing other actions
like changing seats or getting food.
These means that keeping your Sim's social needs
fulfilled is easier than ever.
And the significance of this addition cannot be understated.
It just feels most of the gameplay feel more dynamic and lifelike,
and takes away so much of the tedium
of micromanaging all their actions and priorities.
Sims can now just live their life
and get things done without becoming a social outcast,
and that is, quite simply, brilliant.
Of course, if they WANT to be a social outcast,
there are plenty of things to help them accomplish their introverted desires.
Electronics abound,
more than ever, in fact,
with everything from old-school computers and word processors
up to virtual reality and smartphones.
In fact, there are no newspapers or landlines any more
because with all this tech your Sims carry around, you simply don't need them.
But with all this fragile equipment in use,
you'll want to stay up to date on your repair skill,
especially since there is no repairman anymore.
It's either fix it yourself or replace it outright.
In kind of an odd choice,
many of the hirable services are no longer available,
and all you have from the outset are maid services and pizza delivery.
Skills are also divvied up more generously
with separate skill trees for just about everything you do,
from playing the guitar to playing video games.
This means you have a lot more to occupy your Sim's time at home,
and that is a good thing
because going out on the town is a bit of a drag.
You know how I mentioned earlier
that the town is divided up into separate lots?
This means that another significant feature from The Sims 3,
the seamless open world,
is totally gone.
It may appear that there are all sorts of places to explore when you look around,
but it's an illusion.
What you see onscreen here
is the ENTIRE explorable area of this neighborhood.
The stuff immediately surrounding it is only set dressing.
If you want to go somewhere else besides your home lot or the surrounding public land,
you can click it or call it up on your phone
and choose it from the map screen.
Your Sim will then disappear
and you're given a loading screen,
lasting anywhere from 20 to 45 seconds,
and that's running the game from an SSD hard drive,
so your results may vary.
But now you're there, and you can do as you please!
Oh, but wait, you wanna go across the street to another lot?
Well, that's another loading screen that's just about as long.
Ah, thirty seconds later, there we go!
Things are good here–
Oh, but wait, I need to check on my other Sims' needs
but I can't see them because for some reason
it doesn't let you if they're offscreen.
So I'll just choose to play them.
Augh! Yeah, you got it, another loading screen!
After thirty hours of gameplay, I got positively sick of loading screens in The Sims 4.
Why would they do this?!
Well, again, it's under the guise of performance
and making the new features of the game work properly.
And it's got some good side effects, like you don't have to wait for textures to stream in,
there are no rabbit-hole lots anymore,
there's far more Sims that will show up on each lot,
and you can easily send your Sims to other towns
without sacrificing their progress.
All of these are very good things
and I welcome such additions with open arms.
But it comes at a cost,
and that is the feeling of freedom when playing the game.
It is quite simply a pain to go from one area to another in The Sims 4,
and makes me want to stay in one area
far longer than I normally would.
In fact, 90% of the time I just stay at home and hold social events there
so I don't have to bother with maps and loading screens.
It makes me feel a bit claustrophobic,
and it's the exact opposite of what I felt when playing The Sims 3.
Sure, you can still explore your general vicinity
and collect weird little things and find hidden areas,
but even this feels empty and repetitive.
The collectibles always show up in the same exact spot
every single day and the hidden areas
don't really offer much of real value.
And because your map is so small,
you miss out on some other cool things, like transportation.
There are no cars in the game,
except in the background as decorations,
and the trains and steamboats you see are the same.
They're just there to look nice and do nothing.
Same with the cityscape in the background.
You can't go there. It's just a tease of things that can't be done yet.
Not only that but I'm already having performance issues
after about thirty hours playing the same save game.
Seeing some stuttering, longer load times and general glitchiness,
so these restrictions are just disappointing all around.
However, when you're simply living out your life
and focusing on the gameplay it DOES have,
The Sims 4 is quite the engrossing experience.
Like prior Sims games, there's something undeniably captivating
about simulating these virtual existences
and living vicariously through an avatar.
Buying a house, making the space your own,
getting a job, leveling up your skills,
growing a garden, getting a promotion,
falling in love, building a spaceship,
eating, sleeping, WooHooing, taking a dump,
it's good fun!
When you decipher The Sims 4's limitations and play around them,
it's quite easy to get lost in the game and let suspension of disbelief
do its job and take over.
Of course, it's inevitably shattered by something silly
like the inability to carry your newborn baby around the house,
or when they age up, they skip the toddler age entirely
and magically poof into a fully-fledged kid.
Creepy to say the least,
and yet another bizarre design choice that could probably be explained,
but no one really cares because it's missing
and as a player, you just want to enjoy a game without feeling ripped off.
And that's what it all comes down to.
Is The Sims 4 worth buying or not?
Yes!
Asterisk, asterisk, holy crap, asterisk.
It's fun but it is not amazing,
especially for the price.
The regular and limited version of the game are priced at $60 US,
the Digital Deluxe edition costs $70,
the Premium Edition costs $80,
and the Collector's Edition costs the equivalent of $106.
So not only is it more expensive than any base game in Sims history,
but it arguably has the most problems in comparison to its predecessors.
And take into account the inevitable onslaught of expansion packs, DLC,
and possibly a premium subscription service,
and you've got a game that costs more than ever
for an iffier reputation than ever.
So why do I say it's worth buying, then?
Well, because it's not an awful game
and is not even close to being as bad as it could be.
I am having fun playing this game
and thank goodness it's not another EA tragedy
a la SimCity 2013 or Battlefield 4.
But a game not being a total waste of time
does not by any means result in it being worth
a full $60 or more.
Absolutely friggin' not!
From my point of view, it's worth about half the asking price,
considering it started wearing out its welcome after several days of play.
But I also truly think that there's some great stuff here,
like the build mode improvements, the multitasking,
and the ability to really get creative with lots,
seeing as they're all sectioned off now and can be way more complex.
I can see this being a far greater game to play in the future,
but as it is right now, it needs a lot
to merit a whole-hearted recommendation.
If The Sims 4 was the first or even second game in the series, it'd be totally awesome.
But it's not.
And as much as EA would like you to forget that The Sims 3 exists,
and has a lot more for a lot less money,
that's not how it works.
Being a sequel to a longtime franchise,
people naturally expect improvement and iteration,
or at the very least, maintaining the status quo
while augmenting and optimizing what was already there.
Yes, base games always have less
than a fully-expanded game of the past, and that's fine.
but they've never taken out this many core features from the previous game, either.
Honestly, it seems like a throwback of sorts to The Sims 1 and 2,
expanding on the ideas and gameplay of those games.
And just look at my channel. I'm often a huge fan of retro throwbacks,
but that's not what I wanted here,
and I don't think a lot of Simmers did, either.
The Sims 4 is a good game, it's just not good enough to merit the price,
and as flawed and as buggy as The Sims 3 was,
it's still my preferred Sim game to play.
So if you're looking to try this new Sims game
and want my subjective opinion, here it is:
The Sims 4 is fun.
For what it offers, it pulls it off without too many problems,
but as it is on launch, it's not enough to a longtime Simmer like myself.
I would recommend just holding off until the price comes down quite a bit,
and I think you'll be happy that you did.
[music plays]
And if you enjoyed this video on The Sims 4
and would like to see other Sims 4 stuff that is inevitably coming,
or stuff on the previous Sims games, which I've covered a ton of,
and just a bunch of other things,
well, you're in the right place.
I do more videos every single week,
so subscribing is a thing that you can do
as a YouTube user.
It lets you know when more videos come out.
You can also interact with me, and other viewers,
on Twitter and Facebook.
You could also choose to support LGR on Patreon,
which lets me continue the show and gets you some perks
like being able to see videos before anyone else.
And as always, thank you.