I actually got TS4 for free on Origin but for the longest time it just sat there since I had no inspiration to try it out. Yesterday I was hit by a sudden sims-mood and finally did. Well, I already feel bored with it. Granted, it's just the base game but previous tittles in the series managed to keep me interested far longer without any Eps so this should be no different. While it runs WAY better than TS3 and I like its' visuals, there's just something so... "constricting" about it, I don't know how to describe it. Like, the world feels so small and I have no incentives to go anywhere so I'm just going through the motions whereas in TS3 the world was open so you could seamlessly do tons of stuff or even just observe your neighbors. Also, the Sims themselves feel far more generic in their behavior because the emotions system overwhelms everything, even their traits. I hardly notice any differences between the behavior of my two sims... except some random moodlets, whoop-de-freakin'-doo. If anything the system makes them all feel equally bipolar since the emotions switch around so rapidly. I guess I'd need to experiment more but, for now, I'm not exactly feeling motivated so it's back to TS3. Someday I might bother to get TS4 some new content but I'm debating it because it's not exactly a good sign how quickly the basegame bored me so it might end up a waste.
I feel like the "hook" is missing. TS1 was the first of its' kind so it was enough of a hook, for TS2 it was the aging system (+ other improvements), for TS3 it was the open world (+ traits), for TS4 it's... ????. Well, I guess performance could be a selling point since the optimization of TS3 is pretty horrendous and forced me to use mods but that's not an actual hook. You don't play a game just because it runs well. You need something to draw you in.
