Alright! I have been playing far too much of the game since it launched. I have netted in 42 hours of game time so far. Sooo here are my impressions of the game.
What I like:
CAS
Multitasking
Emotions
My sims feel much more alive
So far no routing issues
The many skills
Children being more fun and interactive
The graphics. The game is beautiful and I find myself so baffled when I see people complaining about them.
Willow Creek! I love it. It has a very New Orleans feel to it and I love it.
The build tools
The ability to place whole decorated rooms
Buy mode
Pregnancy!
Pregnancy test
No forced maternity leave
Socials with the baby
The music
The venues are fun
The new careers
The clothing
The small little neighborhoods. I like that my sim can explore around their general area without any load screens and can find other sims to talk to, parks, grills, plants, etc.
Texting
How alive the world feels even without being open world.
The connected neighborhoods. LOVE this!
The different workouts available
Aspiration achievements/progress
Many other smaller things I just can't think of.
Things I don't like:
The saving. It is horrible. I prefer to have more than one family on different saves entirely. One sim family here on this save, one here on a different game. My husband decided to check out the game and I accidentally saved over his entire save thanks to the saves not specifically being tied to the family like they were in the sims 3. Might not get this across properly, as it is hard to explain.
No cars. No pools. No toddlers. No seasons. No pets. (Yes I am aware that these will probably be added in on expansions but that is a HUGE annoyance for me. I have been playing the Sims since Sims 1 released. I bought all of the expansions for 1st and 2nd game. I bought less expansions with the 3rd because I feel this is a huge money grubbing tactic. Weather, cars, and pets should be included in the base games. You can bring all of the other stuff out in expansions and I won't care, but these three things are more fundamental to making the sims and their world feel more alive. They were in previous games, there is no reason they shouldn't be in the base game here. OR they should be added in early on in a patch or free DLC. It is ridiculous that we have to pay hundreds of dollars on a game just to get the same feeling we had in the previous games.)
Not enough to do. This also kinda falls in with the above, but only a little. I am sure there will be more things for my sims to do when an expansion comes out, and that shouldn't be the case. There should be more venues or something more for them to do at home. Something that helps when they actually have down time. Something that isn't going to cost even more money. We have already spent 70 dollars on this game, and it should be completed not in a state of flux waiting to be finished with 10-15 expansions and several years later. Purposefully holding things out just to bring them in on an expansion later is a horrible money grabbing scheme and we shouldn't have to deal with it.
Seemingly no jealousy. I find this really weird.
The days are pretty short.
The lifespan is crap. It is either insanely long or remotely short. I would like the slider back from Sims 3.
Jobs! There is not enough that actually makes sense for the sims I make to actually go into any of them. I love the new careers, but would like them to be expanded. Once again, WITHOUT paying money for something that SHOULD have been in the base game.
Needs decay way too fast.
Friendships are hard to maintain unless you want your sim to spend all day dealing with their friends and not building skills.
A color palate is needed!
A height adjustor in CAS would be awesome.
A family tree would be nice.
Dishwashers and trash compactors would be nice. Not in an expansion.
Repairman.
A better maid, unless they are supposed to only appear once a week or clean only when you leave the lot and then not clean everything.
The sims are slobs. They are always leaving dirty dishes all over the house, even without the slob trait.
The male hairstyle are awful. There are only 2-3 I like. The rest are horrible. Need better ones.
Eyelashes are horrible. Need better looking ones.
Indifferent:
I am indifferent about the lack of an open world. Part of me prefers it this way. I had a horrible time with the Sims 3 and experienced A LOT of issues and bugs until finally it just stopped working all together on my computer (for a reason that no tech helpers could figure out by the way). My saves were horribly long. I can only assume this was in part due to open world. My saves in the Sims 4 are fast. My loads are fast. I don't like the load screens because they suck, but I am not sure I want to deal with bugs and a breaking game just to be rid of load screens. I like the world, but I would prefer it if there was more. Maybe just making it to where the sims don't have load screens for visiting their neighbors.
EA Staff (Retired)
