I cannot believe this is still being hashed out, oy! It’s been 7+ years now. TS4 is what TS4 is and yes the base game may have been lackluster and devoid of pools and toddlers but man alive things have changed the game is much bigger now and @Stormkeep is right. Your idea of “lacking” is likely very different from someone else’s. What was important to you in past iterations may not hold value to someone else. For instance I don’t give a hoot about:
- Dragons
- Werewolves
- Cars
- Vibrating heart shaped beds
- Heart shaped hot tubs
- Body hair
And many other things people are forever wringing their hands over on here. I don’t find the game lacking for those things at all, and as far as “deep meaningful gameplay” goes. What in the world is anyone even talking about? I have TS3 and I play it on occasion and it’s click, click, click, click, sim performs action, sim speaks gibberish, sim nods and smiles, or grimaces and yells, and if I am not click, click, clicking sim stands about or wanders off to some random thing that may or may not get them killed. Between the 2 iterations I see no discernible difference in “emotional depth” between the pixelated little beasts at all. I like that my UI isn’t cluttered up with astrological star signs that mean nothing to me. Mary Sue wasn’t born under a sign she was built in CAS. She has a personality, the one I
imagine for her, no more no less. It’s a digitized doll house, and 90% of the story takes place in your imagination and the reason past iterations carried you so far away is because you were younger then and more capable of suspending reality and living in your imagination for hours and hours on end. Some of us outgrow that, some don’t. If past iterations still capture your imagination likely because of deep sentimental attachment then play them, love them and enjoy them and stop forever throwing cold water on the enjoyment other people have for this iteration. It’s become an unhealthy obsession at this point. I don’t see those who genuinely love TS4 over on the forums for 2 and 3 constantly bashing them, and it’s not necessarily because they love those games too some TS4 fans actually prefer it over 2 and 3, and yet don’t feel the need to spend hours, days, weeks, months, or even
YEARS trashing them and convincing the players that they’re out of their tree for enjoying them. Seriously there must be something else you can do. Like oh, I don’t know…playing TS2, or TS3 since you profess to love them
so very much.
