[reined-in jazz music] [computer buzzes, beeps]
Well boy howdy, this was only a matter of time.
Ever since EA decided to leave horses out of the Sims 4 pet pack, Cats & Dogs, and the
Cottage Living farm life pack, myself and countless others theorized horses
would be sold on their own.
And here it is: Horse Ranch, the fourteenth Sims 4 expansion, and the final full expansion
for this 9 year old game.
Okay, probably not, but I can dream.
Anyway, the horse pack is yet another example of them taking a feature that was previously
part of a larger pack and yanking it out to sell as a separate slice of $40 content.
I mean, it also adds miniature goats and sheep, though this provides me miniature levels of
enthusiasm, so whoopty-doo.
But I’m already here so lemme brew a dump truck load of coffee
and fein interest for the next few minutes.
[sips coffee] Okay!
So!
The Horsie Ranchero pack sets off with the new equine-optimized world of Chestnut Ridge,
a southwestern US-themed little town packing three neighborhoods with 3 to 5 lots each.
Rider’s Glen, Galloping Gulch, and New Appaloosa.
And despite this reminding me of the Sims 3 Pets world of Appaloosa Plains, from halcyon
days when pets packs had *all* the animals at once...
I still seriously like this map, it’s one of the nicest,
most appealing worlds in the game to date.
The Ridge of Chestnuts here goes hard with gorgeous environments and set dressing that’s
darned pleasant to look at – while also being largely devoid
of interactivity, as usual.
Other than a neat text adventure cave, a welcome little surprise indeed.
But yeah, it’s a shallow yet very pretty landscape, putting one in the mood for some
horsin’ around with its copious open fields and well-worn riding trails.
And ya can’t hit the trail without appropriate attire, and CAS mode is full of the expected
hairstyles and apparel befitting such an expansion.
Including several sweet staches, beards, big hats, handkerchiefs, leather, and denim.
Oh so much denim, this may as well be the Canadian Tuxedo pack and I’m all for it.
There are also two new aspirations and traits suited to ranchy horsecraft.
The former two being Championship Rider and Expert Nectar Maker, and the latter being
Rancher and Horse Lover, guiding forces aiding in the new skills of Riding and Nectar Making.
But this time humanoid sims aren’t the only ones with fresh traits and skills, we’ve
also got the mane event: horses, which can be created
and customized alongside other family members.
A good 35 different horse breeds are available from the starting line, but just as with the
Cats & Dogs pack, breeds can be mixed and genetically randomized to create all-new crossbred
concoctions with amusing results.
More my style though is the excellent paint editor, which I always wanted to see more
use of in the game and here we are.
As with felines and canines, our long-faced friends can be painted up and slathered in
completely custom designs of your own creation.
Patterns, decals, freehand nonsense, it’s all on the table allowing each horse to be
entirely unique, for better and worse.
Naturally they can also be equipped with bridles, halters, blankets, wraps,
western and English saddles, and so on.
Nothing too ridiculous, I’d welcome some taco suits and grilled cheese heads
to be honest.
Although unicorns are a thing, returning from their Sims 3 Pets pack introduction.
But here, they’re simple cosmetic add-ons placed on their head like a party hat, not
a wild magical arsonist creature like they were before.
I mean, they still set off sparks at least, but that’s less fire magic
and more of an electrical problem.
Horses also have up to three traits by default.
Things like Friendly, Aggressive, Mellow, Needy, Fearful and such
affecting overall disposition.
As for acquiring a horse, unless you create one then ya gotta buy one, since wild wandering
horses are no longer a thing.
Just hop in your pickup truck with the horse trailer attached and go--wait nope, still
can’t use vehicles in The Sims 4.
Instead just order a horse and it’ll magically poof into existence in your front yard.
You can either grab a brand new horse for a bit more money,
or adopt a janky old used horse for less cash.
Either way they’ll come with their own random traits and four skills which are really more
like attributes: Temperament, Agility, Endurance, and Jumping.
These can be leveled up through practice and training as you’d expect, and the better
cared-for they are, the quicker they’ll improve.
As with dogs and cats, there’s no directly controlling horses here, so instead you’ll
do your best to socialize, nurture, and encourage them to level up the way you’d like.
Some of it’s enjoyable nonsense like having them pose for photos, but a bunch of horse
care is straight-up farmyard busywork, so hiring a Ranch Hand sim is recommended if
you lack the time and have the funds.
Though oddly this is only an NPC job, there’s no way to take on a rancher career
as I figured you might.
Nor is there anything like a farmyard vet or a horse doctor, which seems like it’d
be a fun add-on to the existing veterinarian career.
Ah well, you do at least get quite a bit to do with regards to riding and competition.
Again it’s not a job exactly, but more of a side hustle activated at the Equestrian
Center downtown.
Still a rabbit hole building unfortunately, there’s only a black void inside where you
have to trust that your sims are competing against others doing amazing horse stunts
that you’ll never see.
Though you can at least see certain activities if you do them outside of competitions, but yeah.
Unseen competition is the meat of horse ownership and is quite the time-consumer, since you
can only compete once per horse, per day.
It confusingly says “no horse on lot” if you’ve already competed that day, but
really it means you have to come back the next day to compete again.
Nothing stopping you from just buying more horses and competing with those though!
And the better both of your skills are, the higher the chances to win.
Which in turn increases your horse’s monetary value, making them significantly more profitable
should you ever decide to sell ‘em.
On that note, breeding is also a thing, accomplished by bringing together a mare and a stallion
and encouraging a little horseplay.
As long as their relationship level is high enough,
it won’t be long before a foal flops out.
And good grief those custom paint job genetics are strong, so breed wisely.
Although foals come with their own unique traits that are only available through breeding,
which means higher values, so you can keep that money train rolling
no matter what they look like.
Miniature goats and sheep also exist now, with quite the rainbow of preselected colors
and patterns to choose from.
They function sorta like a mashup of chickens and rabbits from Cottage Living, except that
sheep can be sheared and goats milked for money or resources, while also helping weed
the garden by grazing.
And they come with some bizarre quirks.
Like how they’re treated as objects, so they can be resized by pressing the brackets
keys to make them extra tiny, full-sized, or absurdly huge and ridiculous.
[low-pitched bleating]
They’re acquired like objects too, being ordered the same way as
books or groceries or whatever.
So you can order up to 99 of each type at once.
And as far as I can tell, there’s no strict limit, so your sim can walk around with hundreds
of goats in their pants and no one will be the wiser.
Until you decide to place ‘em into the world, that is, where they begin wandering around
doing their own thing.
Downright game-breaking in the truest sense of the term.
Again, there’s no explicitly-set limit here, it just lets you continue placing goats and
sheep into the world until the simulation breaks.
After a while, the game’s routines and AI simply stop working, with every sim freezing
in place and refusing to do any new actions, even after using a debug cheat to reset them.
They can walk but that’s it, nothing else works anymore and my savegame was ruined [chuckles]
So yeah, load up on goats and sheep at your own risk.
It may bring about the end of all free will.
Lastly there are a few activities and destinations worth mentioning.
Nectar Making is of course a big one, acting as one heckuva lucrative hobby.
Nectar being the teen-rated version of alcohol, more or less, and sims skilled in its creation
can mush down fine ingredients and feet juice into bottled concoctions ready for aging.
And the longer they age, the finer the quality,
to the point of seriously high prices per bottle.
It’s darned satisfying to fill up a huge wine rack of top-notch spirits, but it’s
even more satisfying to pay for all your kids’ college educations doing little more than
smashing berries barefoot.
There’s also the General Store rabbit hole that lets you buy all kinds of useful supplies
and ingredients, as well as sell off some of that homebrew hooch
for an even heftier profit.
And the Animal Day and Ranch Gathering events, functioning as a sort of petting zoo
and backyard cookout, respectively.
Along with Cowpoke Dancing where sims can trot along in time to the music on the new
dance floors available in Buy Mode.
Yeah, Buy Mode in general is full of western-themed goodies, like new campfires, barrels, grills,
Bear Grylls -- wait, what. -"I'm Bear Gryllsss"
Basically it’s a bunch of wooden everything as far as the eye can see, not bad.
Though I’ve gotta mention this TV stand and hutch furniture, because the copy-pasting
is about the most egregious I’ve observed.
Like I’m not going crazy right, that’s literally the same item twice?
[chuckles] It’s almost impressively lazy.
And of course, there are seven new chairs on offer here, plus two new stools.
Not counting the horse stool, you probably don’t wanna sit on that.
[flies buzzing, music kicks in]
And that is the horseradish ranch dressing pack!
The fourteenth $40 expansion that is, and I hate to be a neighsayer here,
yet another optional pile of fluff.
Horses are neat, the world is lovely, and I approve of the endless goats and sheeps,
but dude.
C’mon dude, dude ranch dude.
The price they’re charging is perplexing.
Even disregarding my own preferences, I do not see what merits $40.
Those spatterings of online simmer discourse writing off Horse Ranch as something that
should’ve been a cheaper game pack ring true in my view, and yet?
I fully understand why it’s an expansion.
Because they can charge more for an expansion,
especially one with such a wildly wished-for feature as horses.
The fact is it was a conscious design decision to leave out horses from the Pets and Cottage
Living packs, and instead plop down some barnyard-related western filler on the side to try and justify
selling it as a full-priced pack.
So as usual, my opinion as a burned out old school simmer is to not bother, or wait for
a steep discount if you’re turned off by the pricing.
But I also figure half the folks watching this already bought the pack anyway so whatever.
I’m not bothered either way, just ready to move on.
[downtempo music plays]
And if you’d like more Sims content from me, well, I’ve done a bunch of it in the
past and I guess I’ll continue reviewing the full expansion packs as long
as they keep making them. But dang it!
I am so ready for the next whatever, whether it’s a Sims game or a competitor.
And in the meantime I’ve got plenty of other stuff I cover here on LGR,
so stick around if you’d like!
And thank you very much for watching.