I absolutely love this game. It's getting a lot of negative feedback, which I don't think all of it is necessary.
This is a new installment to the Sims franchise, and they way you guys went about it I thought was very good. The way Sims act now with their moodlets and the multitasking makes it seem more lifelike. I enjoy how my Sims can bring their coffee to the toilet with them, or how another Sim can bring her book on the couch, talk to her husband while he watches TV. I started cracking up when my daughter came home from school, was super pissed, and instead of using the toilet normally, she had to take an angry poop.
The building tools are completely flawless, I don't ever want to go back to old style building. I feel like making houses are so much more customize-able and it makes them look more lifelike. I find myself making more dreamlike houses, or more simple houses just with the new added features - I don't need to use pesky mods or cheats to get the roof exactly how I'd like it, or to get foundations and walls working properly. When I pick up Sims 3 again, whenever that will be, it's definitely going to be hard to readjust to building.
Now, for negative feedback, like I said not all of it was necessary, but there are a few things I miss from the older games that I feel as though should of been included in this new release.
Missing NPCs. I'm not entirely sure why for example Firefighters were not included, NPC's of this sort could of been left out on purpose, but i'd at least like to know why. For example, I started a legacy family (one single sim), she went to cook her first meal on her first day, her kitchen caught on fire and while she tried to extinguish the flames, she died. I realize there is the sprinkler wall system implemented, but in some of my homes I feel as though it doesn't fit having a large blue box on my wall. The fire alarm is nice that it warns all the sims to get out of the house, but then the house will continue to burn and the fire will get even larger, making it harder to extinguish the flames.
The lack of color customization - I almost want to kick myself for saying this. I'm pretty sure that there will be added color customization in later expansion packs, and even though this is the vanilla Sims 4, I felt as though I was a bit too limited to choosing.
Grey'd out menu bar when a sim goes to work/school. I like being able to see my moodlets dropping while my sim is at work, or at least be able to check on friend relationships while I wait for them to get home.
Lastly the only thing that I find kind of aggravating is that my sims' daily routines are all but the same - get up super early to make breakfast before work, while taking a shower, then working, coming home, eating dinner, (maybe squeezing in homework before bedtime showers and last minute working on the fun moodlet) and then sleeping. Unless my sims have a day off from work, I find it's hard to manage all the moodlets with having a lot of extra time to do just about anything. I feel as though that it's essentially harder to raise the moodlets for sims this time around, and i'm so focused on doing that I find myself scrambling for time to do other things. Keeping friendships is harder as well for me to manage because of all of this, or gaining skills.
Overall, for being a base game for an entirely new franchise, I give the Sims 4 an 8/10. I cannot wait to see what you guys continue to come out with for this new series, it's so innovative and I feel as though things will only go up from here. And I'd also like to thank you for the hard work you guys put into this installment, I feel like the team needs to receive more credit for everything they've done this time around, along with the past series as well.
EA Staff (Retired)
