I have played all the Sims PC games and I am trying really hard to like this one. I get that it is just a base game, but with every previous version something added that really grabbed me and made me drop the previous version without hesitation screaming "Screw Mods and expansions, this is awesome". For example with Sims 3 the open world just blew me away. But with this one, I still haven't found anything that makes me feel that way.
The Good:
1. Multitasking is cool
2. some of the CAS changes like being able to manipulate individual body parts
3. Looks pretty and runs smooth
4. Being able to change worlds is awesome and will only get more awesome as more worlds are released. Great idea. Give whoever though of that a raise. This almost makes me able to get over the loss of the open world ..... almost.
The Bad:
1. Load screens - replacing an few long load screens with a short one every ten minutes isn't really an improvement. If I could roam in the entire five lot neighborhood this might not be so bad, but having a load screen just to go next door is really annoying.
2. the world is tiny - since there are load screens, I really don't understand why the world can't be larger (meaning more lots to build on)
3. few normal careers - how much coding is involved in a career?
4. I'm not going to get into all the things that were left out because I'm sure you've heard enough about that. But .... yeah.
5. faces in CAS are sort of awkward to work with
6. Sims are still all the same height
7. the public lots are sort of boring
8. Sims 3 felt like your Sim was in a living changing world, this is more like Sims 2 (which admittedly was an awesome game, but I expect sequels to evolve not repeat like Call of Duty)
The Meh
1. The emotions - cool for about an hour, then "meh"
Overall - For the first time I am actually sort of disappointed in a new Sims game. Maybe it will grow on me in time, but it just hasn't grabbed like 3 or 2 did.
What might change my mind? A FREE dlc pack and with some additional content (careers, pool, more clothes, etc) that cost nothing, and is FREE. Wait did I mention FREE? Or if the expansions are FULL of really cool things that improve gameplay, instead of things that should have been in the base game (like that watery thing that I'm sure you have heard enough about).
I really want to like this game.
EA Staff (Retired)
