The Sims 4 Bowling Night Stuff.
Of all the stuff packs nobody asked for, this is right near the top of the list, right next
to Broom Stuff and Deflated Football Stuff.
Okay, so sure, bowling has been in The Sims series since The Sims 2 Nightlife and was
revisited in The Sims 3 University Life expansion pack.
But those were expansions, complete with hundreds of other items and activities alongside bowling.
Is the activity of bowling alone really worth becoming the tenth stuff pack to the Sims 4?
Let’s ask Ralph!
Oh...
Uh hey! Looks like they’ve added a new main menu through a recent patch at least,
seemingly with the goal of making it painfully obvious how much DLC you have.
Though I’m not sure whether having all of it or only a little of it is more shameful at this point.
Speaking of shame let’s dive into the clothing, which in the bowling pack
is rather on the low side.
Kids get a paltry amount of stuff, with only a couple shirts and a pair of shoes, while older
sims get the same basic stuff in addition to some more shirts, pants, a glove or two, and a
hairstyle or few.
It’s all classic bowling attire, and a bit of ‘50s chic thrown in for good measure,
so I’ve got no complaints other than the relative scarcity going on.
There are also some new objects, floor tiles, wallpapers, and unlockables, totaling just
shy of 40 new items.
And yes, among their number are a trio of chairs a pair of benches.
All of this stuff has a pretty excellent mid-century design that I am hugely fond of in real life,
so I can absolutely see myself going back for these items in the future.
But that’s enough of that -- start polishing your balls and call up your “cahzeen,”
because bowling is the main course for the rest of the pack.
Plop down the pre-made bowling alley that it comes with, or create your own because
that’s how this works!
You can also convert pre-existing bars, lounges, nightclubs, and general community lots to
a bowling alley, which makes sense seeing as the only thing that makes it a bowling
alley is the alley itself.
That’s right, a lot of the other stuff is just non-functional set dressing.
You can’t swap your shoes for bowling shoes using the rack, you can’t choose a bowling
ball initially, and you can’t even type in immature names into a scoreboard
(which is half the fun of bowling!)
Not that there even IS a scoreboard, that’d just be too much to ask for I guess.
Heck, your sims don’t even bowl a full frame when it’s their turn.
They only get one chance to do well per frame and if not, too bad, it resets the pins for
the next sim.
I guess they couldn’t spare the time to add spares to the game, a decision that’s
total balls if you ask me.
I know it’s the same kinda thing we’ve seen in prior Sims games with bowling, but I really hoped
they would flesh it out this time seeing as bowling has it’s own freakin' pack dedicated to it.
Getting my mind out of the gutter though, and there are a few things to dig about bowling.
For one thing, bowling is a minor skill now, meaning that sims get better at it the more
they play, up to level five.
Along the way they’ll improve their odds of getting strikes, learn trick shots and
unlock new bowling balls, and break out in a geeky dance number when they succeed.
Midnight bowling is a thing as well, which does its part to liven up the atmosphere and
is a welcome aesthetic compared to the drab-looking, flat-lit lanes you see otherwise.
I would kinda like a true blacklight effect though, it’d be neat to see sims’ clothing
light up and everyone’s teeth look weird. Er, weirder than normal.
Also, this pack makes me really miss the copious arcade machines and pinball tables from previous
Sims games.
I don’t know about you but to me, bowling alleys and arcade machines go hand in hand,
and while you do have this hulking ugly thing from the Get Together pack, there’s a major
lack of anything else like this in The Sims 4 without mods.
Anyway back to smackin' balls against wood, where up to five total sims can bowl a lane
at once, competing for the best score and generally jerkin’ around in-between.
Unfortunately you don’t get to keep track of progress in real-time since as I mentioned
earlier there’s no scoreboard, so all you get is a weak little message at the end saying
who got the most points.
Lame.
At least with the Get Together pack installed you can also create bowling clubs, which is a neat
idea in theory but it doesn’t actually do much.
This just makes your sims earn club points for bowling, and it sadly doesn’t let them
compete against other clubs for points or keep track of who’s scored the most on the
team or anything like that.
But at least they’re still adding new skills for these clubs, that’s better than nothing.
And really, that sums up my feelings on The Sims 4 Bowling Stuff.
Better than nothing and ultimately harmless, but completely unnecessary
and not very inspiring either.
About what I expect for one of these $10 stuff packs at this point, but it still kinda...
...you know, lets me down.
It has some nice touches here and there, like the NuDisco radio station,
augmenting everything with an appropriately groovy bowling mood.
*groovy bowling mood music plays*
And again, I really dig the retro furniture and objects
so I welcome that stuff wholeheartedly.
But like, the title of the pack is "bowling" and the actual bowling is just... meh.
You click on an alley and wait until the animations are done automatically playing
until a notification pops up, while earning skill points along the way to unlock a few
new automatic animations and ball textures.
I know it’s a stuff pack and maybe I shouldn’t expect much.
But I still find myself hoping because man, The Sims 4 needs some engaging
fun side activities in a major way!
This is just an okayish distraction if you’re really into the aesthetic and atmosphere,
but when you’re done playing with your balls, what’s left?
Bowling absolutely could be worth having its own pack if it had more substance. But in
this pack I saw everything of note and maxed out the bowling skill in half an hour.
For that reason alone, I cannot say Bowling Stuff is worth 10 bucks whatsoever.
And my apologies if I sounded a little weird, I'm getting over some sickness at the moment
so, *cough cough* and all that.
But yeah, if you enjoyed this video why not check out some of my others. I've covered a lot of Sims stuff,
and do a bunch of retro tech things as well.
And as always, thank you for watching LGR!