This is a temporary review, as it's late at night. The Sims 4 (TS4) seems like it can be a really good game, and has the potential for much more. Right now, the game feels very...bare. A lack of depth in areas to the game. The following are my main concerns at the moment:
- When Sims leave their homes to go to work, they now disappear into a black hole. I thought it added more depth to the game in Sims 3 when you could watch them drive all the way to their work, or at the very least see where they work. Any interaction with their workplace has been completely removed, it seems. This seems like a big step back from TS3. I can understand reasoning for no open world, and that's not a huge deal to me. It's just the lack of features, or depth, to the Sim's life by not even seeing their work.
-If your family is a single Sim, being at work renders you helpless and unable to plan. The basic needs panel and others that have been present since TS1 are completely blocked now, and you cannot view them at all. You can tell your Sim to work harder, or take it easier, but you do not know how they are doing with their needs or performance in their career in order to make decisions.
-Town size is terribly small. It was a huge disappointment how many fewer lots there were in an entire town. That was a major put-off for me. Living in individual neighborhoods within the town is fine with me, although I would like there to be a few more homes grouped together. It seems like there are only up to 4 homes maybe in one lot? It would be nice to have about 6, or just have the 4 and be able to freely visit each of the homes in that neighborhood without a load screen, like miniature open worlds. Not huge, resource demanding worlds with all the people working at once, but enough things located together within one load screen to make the game seem to flow more smoothly and be more interactive between the different families. If you could freely move from one house to another, the neighborhood having only 4 homes would be much more livable. Overall, it still really needs more homes within the town.
-It would be nice to have more community areas, like beaches and parks to visit, and areas to explore. Being unable to visit places you see on the town map was really saddening. The backdrop scenery for the edges of the town seems a bit more interesting than the town itself, with the structures drawn. They seem like they'd be nice to visit. The town seems a bit..bland...for things to do and see.
There are a lot of things that I like, but these are the major concerns which I have. I'm hoping some get addressed in one way or the other. Very honestly, I do like this game and plan to give it a real try. It just feels pretty bare in some ways, and there are some major step backs in the series, as mentioned above. It feels like this game should not be this bare like you "have" to get an expansion pack to make it feel like all the basics are covered.
I'll try to write later about the things which I really like.
EA Staff (Retired)
