Hooray.
The 73rd Stuff pack to the Sims 4 is here.
This one is imaginatively titled Toddler Stuff,
costing its usual $10 or your regional equivalent.
EA once again hooked me up with a review code for the pack,
but, goodness, is it hard for me to care at this point?
I have genuinely lost track of the number of Stuff packs by now.
And as for the community,
Well, all anyone seems to be asking my opinion on these days
is the upcoming Cats & Dogs pack, with no mention of Toddler Stuff.
Even Ralph can't be bothered.
I don't even know where he is today.
But while Ralph has the right idea,
I'm here to give you my evaluation,
whether you want it or not,
So let's dive into The Sims 4 Toodle-oo Pack, or whatever it is!
As you can imagine,
pre-child-age children, AKA toddlers,
are the focus of the pack.
So you get an assortment of new hair and clothes just for them.
And I mean just for them,
since I don't see any items for any other age range.
You get fox and bee costumes
and things like that, so it's fine by me.
Although I am not a fine judge of toddler fashion,
or any fashion for that matter,
so take that with a boulder of salt. (advise against that.)
Once your vessels self-destruct from excess sodium intake,
you'll realize there are now playdates for toddlers in the game.
This is accomplished through the phone,
like most every other social interaction,
and it basically lets toddlers join forces to cause mayhem together
without having to organize another type of gathering.
Whether or not the event goes well
is mostly up to the parents and caregivers,
as you might expect,
being their responsibility to take care of messy diapers,
serve snacks and juice, tell stories,
and generally postpone the Angry Toddler Apocalypse.
The remainder of the tots pack
consists of around two dozen Build Mode objects,
Including a bright looking fence and matching gate,
one single chair,
a couple pillows that act as a chair,
five balloons tied to non-chair pillows,
a string of lights on two sticks,
a colorful grill, a picnic table,
non-moving wagon cooler
and a non-functional picnic clutter item,
a set of sail shades,
these rugs that are so massive,
I couldn't fit them anywhere but outside,
not one, not two, not three, but four
non-interactive and confusingly designed stumps,
and a small assortment of play items for toddlers,
including yet another toy box
with a slightly different paint job,
a small plastic slide and a giant wooden doll house
with a slapdash mushroomy design.
(laughs) And then there's the ball pit.
Aw, man, this thing.
Was this modeled and textured in 1997?
Like, I knew The Sims 4 was coming to consoles,
but I didn't know that meant the PS1!
I've seen better ball pits at DashCon.
All kidding aside, this is atrocious.
And I am not a graphic snob
when it comes to the Sims games,
since they've never really been about pushing the boundary of realism or anything.
And I am not just gonna call them out as lazy
or say that does it look like this due to performance optimization.
Maybe one of those are true, but I don't know.
All I'm saying is that this ball pit
is objectively distractingly hideous
compared with the other game assets.
Not only that but you also get two toddler jungle gyms.
One of which has that freaking ball pit again!
Seriously that flat-textured,
low-poly monstrosity made it into the pack twice!
(chuckles)
At least you get some pretty fun imagination effects here,
with toddlers conjuring up images of ocean life and spaceships,
which is pretty neat.
And admittedly I still think that the toddlers themselves
are the best they've ever been in the series.
The interactions with them are fun,
the animations are cute,
and watching them grow up and develop
into more fleshed out young Sims
than ever before is a real treat
for family-oriented players.
But this pack?
I just can't be bothered
and I cannot recommend it, even at $10.
The best features to play with
regarding toddlers and these new items
are already in the game,
and those were added for free
in a Toddlers patch a while back.
It might have been worth a look
if it included something desired
by a broader spectrum of fans,
like bunk beds for instance,
but nope.
Unless you're really into the clothing additions
or the wibbly-wobbly ball pit rendered in 1997,
the Toddler Stuff pack is one of my most thoroughly
ignorable packs to date.
And that is saying something!
(smooth sax music)
Well that was a quick review,
but I mean there's not much to talk about here.
It's what you saw.
That was what it was, but anyway,
I hope you enjoyed this regardless.
And if you did,
there's new videos every Monday and Friday,
so stick around and watch more LGR.
And as always, thank you very much for watching.