Moving along...
The neighborhood view reminded me of something from a very lame Facebook game. The gray color was just depressing and it kind of made me sad. Now, I know that people complained how the open world in Sims 3 caused lag, but I found that the Sims 3 neighborhood was colorful and vibrant. Sims 4 neighborhoods are dull and bleh. There are so few options for places to start and there was no way to customize a neighborhood.
I noticed that the game auto-saved, which I wasn't exactly happy about but maybe its something I would like if the game crashed. I didn't like how hard it was to try to switch to a different Sim or to get back to the Create-A-Sim menu if I wanted to make more families or something. But I know a lot of the issues about which I'm complaining are related to my lack of familiarity with the interface. Keep in mind that I've been playing video games on computers since I had an Apple II E with monochrome screen and the games had to be run in DOS. So maybe some of it is my lack of familiarity with some of the newfangled stuff that kids these days are playing (and those kids better stay off my lawn). :smiley:
Anyway, I liked that build and buy mode were together and I was starting to figure out how to find certain categories, but I was still a bit confused. It took me a tick to realize that once I made a shape that I had to manually add the walls by telling it to build them. One oddity-- and I don't know if it was the settings on my friend's computer or what.. the walls came out different colors and when I applied a certain wallpaper, I couldn't get them all to be a uniform color. Nothing I tried seem to fix this issue.
I got frustrated with the build mode once I couldn't get beyond that color issue and I had to leave so I didn't get to play with build mode as much. I plan to go in to town later and will see if my friend will let me take another crack at it-- if he hasn't uninstalled the game. He was very disappointed with it as well.
If I get to play it and have any new thoughts I'll share them. I have to say that I am glad that I didn't buy this game yet because I would want a refund. I will have to wait and see what features are added and if it is possible to make it interesting and have more desirable features before I consider the purchase.
I'm hoping it is not too late to implement some of the changes that I would like to see. If not, then I guess I'll have to hold out for Sims 5 and hope that they decide to give us something that isn't 10 steps backwards.
Yes, I know that this is an overwhelmingly negative review when I haven't even gotten in to gameplay yet and I know some people will dismiss me because I don't have the game on my own PC yet (I really would like to think I'll get it eventually, but that hinges on any updates to it-- and probably a massive price drop), but I do hope that EA will listen and consider these things. I'm still hopeful for some improvements in the future.
For now, I'm going to stick to Sims 3 and continue to try to make some CC.
EA Staff (Retired)
