List Your Sims 4 Pros and Cons
Every game has its glowing virtues and horrible sins, and TS4 is no exception. This thread is a place to name our most favorite and most despised aspects of The Sims 4. My list?: Pros 1. The ...
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Pros:
Cons:
There's so much more, but I'll end it here. The more I type, the more unhappy I become.
- Wonderful Sim Creation
- The Sims themselves, even the ones generated by the game, are quite attractive with, generally, realistic proportions
- Build Mode is intuitive and easy. However, there's nothing for the advanced users. Leaving out the constrain elevation cheat was a danged shame.
- The graphics are crisp.
- The team quickly came to their senses and created a 64-bit .exe!!!
- Toddlers are cute as all get out. Although their legs look unnaturally long whenever they sit, their standing proportions and animations are lovely.
- The most recent worlds have quite attractive and have more variety in elevations.
- The club system is surprisingly powerful and versatile. The marketing team dropped the ball by not featuring it, like, at all.
- Up until the C&D EP, objects were blocky and butt ugly. They are finally improving. Thank the maker!
- Voidcritters was an inspired creation.
- Sims don't need as much space to move around in the world. For example, I really love that I only need three tiles for a double bed and the Sims will still be able to enter from both sides. That's a nice touch.
Cons:
- EPs aren't the huge, game-changing bonanzas that they used to be. I really don't like the way that the game has been broken into little nouvelle cuisine type pieces. Sure, it's pretty, but I'm still left feeling hungry.
This game is mostly style over substance and quantity over quality. Double-digit stuff packs (and counting) do nothing to alleviate the problem. Though I keep hoping, they never do. Add to that, game packs are too encapsulated to make up the difference. Less than a handful of interesting, in-depth game play doesn't make up for the rest. Rather, it only serves to accentuate how superficial and empty the rest of the game is. A few cohesive EPs, chock-full of game play and content could help. Only, EPs have been treated like the ugly stepchildren this time around. Pieces keep getting lopped off and what's left is maimed and sad. (See: Cats & Dogs.)
- No Create-a-style.
- No Create-a-world. I constantly feel starved for new real estate. I hate that I need to switch out lots in order to have all of the venues that I would like in the worlds that I want them to be. For example, I love city Sims. There just aren't enough lots for all the venue types and varieties that should be present in a city. There's no room for all kinds of shops, theaters, clubs, hangouts, etc. So, I need to keep swapping them out and it breaks my immersion every. single. time.
- There are no terrain tools.
What?!
I can't make a pond or a lake on a lot unless I use the pool tool? Even then, there will be no fish?
Really?
Plus, the one object that serves as a pond is quite unattractive and unnatural-looking. Boring.
- Collectibles spawn in the same exact place, every time. Also boring.
Once I explore a world, there is no reason to ever do it again because I know where I'll find everything. It's just a matter of camping long enough to get it. That's too similar to an MMO for this player's comfort.
- No way to customize your play style by playing in different worlds. Everyone's game is exactly the same.
- There's no way to edit public spaces. If we're all stuck with the same worlds, I should be able to edit the public spaces to make them uniquely my own. Also I should be able to add content that was released after the world was created. For example, I can't add toddler equipment to any of the existing playgrounds. I would have loved to add some of that stuff to the lone set of monkey bars in San Myshuno.
- The microscope, telescope, and playground equipment are unnecessarily and obnoxiously huge. I would have preferred individual playground objects that I can arrange the way that I like, not one huge object. I prefer small lots. My play style is hampered because everything tends to have such a huge footprint.
- Playgrounds are missing most of the things that I associate with playgrounds: swings, slides, merry-go-rounds, see-saws...
- Child Sims have precious little to do. Most of the focus is still on the parents (adults).
- Babies are noisy furniture.
- If the emotion system is working as intended, for me, it has been an utter failure.
- There aren't enough interactions and there is more repetition than ever.
- A lot of the animations are way over the top. For once, I'd love for my Sims to have a conversation that isn't so...giddy and ecstatic or steam-coming-out-of-the-ears angry. The subtlety of the previous games is missing.
- The overall feel of the game is too juvenile. Everyone is happy all of the time, even when they really shouldn't be.
- Traits don't make a difference.
- Whims do not differ much from Sim to Sim.
- Chance cards don't make enough of a difference one way or another.
- I can't put my finger on why, but some of the joy is missing from the careers. I feel no real sense of progress or accomplishment. They're a grind and no matter the Sim, the careers unfold in exactly the same manner.
- The decision-makers seem more interested in memes and current trends. In theory, that's fine. But there is too much of it in the game. There are no allowances made for period players or players who prefer more traditional play. Not everyone sits on the computer all day. Not everyone feels the need to chronicle everything with a selfie. Everyone doesn't own a cell phone. Not everyone whips out their phone at the first available opportunity. There aren't enough of the more classic and timeless things, like landline phones, newspapers, and every-day-Joe types of careers/jobs, and vehicles, for goodness sake. Please stop it.
- There is no natural affinity or attraction to other Sims as friends or lovers. Where interactions are concerned, one Sim is just as good as any other.
- Default interactions are rarely neutral. They're always over the top HAPPY!!!
- Life is full of unforeseeable setbacks. TS4 has none. Onward and upward is the only way to go unless I force the issue.
- There is little distinction between age groups that goes beyond the very superficial.
- Romantic Intimacy is not a thing in this game. The interactions are so junior high, it's insulting. I miss spooning and cuddling in bed and real make out kisses, as opposed to the tentative pecks that we have now. There is no familiarity with long-term/married couples. They have no interactions available to them that you wouldn't see with, say, a couple who are newly dating. Where are the goose and make out standing up interactions?
- As much as I like the Voidcritters, the game can only be played by the kids. I can't make an arcade with the battle stations because the kids won't play together autonomously. So, on community lots, the game amounts to nothing but expensive decorations.
- I loathe the way that community lots work. Sims should choose activities according to their traits, not the function of the lot. I can't say this enough so I'll say it again: Sims should choose activities according to their traits, NOT the trait of the lot.
As a player, I should be allowed to create any lot that my mind can imagine with the objects available to me. Then, the Sims should be able to utilize them all. If I want two bars on a lot, both bars should work. If I want food stands on a lot, they should work, automatically. If I want to put every danged object on a single lot and call it Cynna's World of Joy, it should work dang it. Period. Full stop.
There's so much more, but I'll end it here. The more I type, the more unhappy I become.
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