A couple of things I like about TS4 is that the socialising side of it really has improved beyond recognition. This is actually helped by one feature that had me rolling my eyes when I first heard about it - the generic "hand swipe" for picking stuff up - lack of obvious animations for various things. In play however I appreciated it, when I found my sim could order drinks and chips from the bar without wasting the ENTIRE evening trying to get served like he would in TS3! :D
I also like that they have facial expressions more expressively than TS3, but without being the overexaggerated irritating gurning they did in TS2, so for the first time ever I find I can zoom in close to the sims without being so irritated it makes me want to close the game.
I am more dubious about the tuning of the emotion system. I don't like that you have to watch the emotion panel closely to make sure they don't die (yes I did have a sim die unexpectedly from it) Would prefer it went back to needs-related deaths. The other thing is that emotions seem very transient, and the game would seem more meaningful if important life events also left long-term memories like they did in TS2, and these had more long-term effects and remembering them at random times (or maybe when idle) would reinvoke the associated emotion. It feels to me like they get over important stuff too easily.
EA Staff (Retired)
