"ignominiusrex;c-18029536" wrote:
Sims 3, Bridgeport (Late Night Expansion Pack) is excellent for that, because all the buildings are places you can go, and there is no loading screen when you leave your building: you just either walk, bike, or drive a car or motorcycle (or helicopter if you can afford one) to your destination and walk in the door, and downtown is full of clubs, bars, you can take the subway (that's a rabbithole though), and you can travel with your Sim, over bridges, down streets, to the riverside where you can fish or swim (depending on what packs you have I think) and it's all very immersive.
You can also get all of The Sims 3 til Jan 5th for I forget, maybe it was $65? on Steam, or on Origin each pack that is usually $20 or even more, is like $10 for now, but if you want a lot of or most of them you'll spend several times the $64 even doing it on sale, on Origin, compared to that incredible Steam deal.
With Sims 3 there are a bunch of NRAAS mods you have to run to keep the game maintained but there are super helpful people here as well as Youtube videos all about which mods those are, and what steps to do to keep the game running well.
In case you're interested. Sorry if that was too much detail but I know what you mean about wishing San Myshuno were a "real" city like Bridgeport. San Myshuno is great to look at and has a lot to offer, but most of it you can't really interact with.
There is no loading screen in TS3 because most of the businesses are rabbit holes. It doesn't matter that you can hop to any lot on the map without a loading screen because, once you get there, you are stuck outside on the side walk any way. That's not gameplay. And the clubs and bars in TS3 are always either deserted of sims or just closing if not already closed so you can't enjoy them. And if you visit them in due time you get stuck in the elevator until closeout time anyway.
