Alright, I’m in bed sick and bored today. Let’s do this.
Spoilers y’all.
1: Only if by ‘story’ you mean the aspiration. There are 2 ways to end the infection (kill the Mother or befriend her), you can also kill then mother than bring her back, have either an infected or non-infected sim befriend her, and there are several ways to get a keycard or the military scanner. So, while it has its linear points, it does actually allow for some variety to allow more sandbox players to tell the story they want with that set up.
Also because there are multiple ways to end the infection, I know me and others find a decent bit of replay value in it for what amounts to 10 bucks of worth of the pack (story is main feature, yeah, but that gives the world about 25%, career 15%, and all the remaining doodads the rest).
2: cliche isn’t bad. Tropes are not the enemy. Tropes are tropes for a reason, ‘specially considering the two things you quoted are classics. And it brings sim sensibility and weird humor to the table. And allows players to craft their own narrative in it.
Heck, considering this was the FIRST storyline ever released in the main Sims game, uh. They probably wanted to make it as bare bones as possible? Because frankly if I suddenly had a RPG style story in my game I would’ve been annoyed. It still felt like I was playing the sims, which is good to a lot of players. They needed a flexible skeleton which players could do whatever they wanted to with (as far as tech and time allowed).
3: The scanner did get a bit grindy, less so when I realized the lab was where it was at. But of course you are talking to other sims? It’s an investigation? And see point 1 for ‘the aspiration seriously isn’t the whole story’. Like that was the “intro to pack and town” aspiration.
Also reminder kids do play this game. So having easy instructions means a lot for them. Not everything is about us adults who’ve been playing RPGs forever.
4: once again, sand box. If the story killed off sims without player input... oh dang. Uh. People would RIOT. As such players can decide what happens to who. And that was about 20 special effects you listed and frankly the cloud of doom and spores and weird lighting set the mood GREAT considering this was a plant invasion.
This isn’t a story game like castaway, it’s a story-based pack designed to integrate as seamlessly as possible with the main game.
5: this personally wasn’t a issue for me, but then again we have established our play styles are polar opposites.
6: Once again, see #1. That’s only for the aspiration.
7: ok I PERSONALLY thought that was hilarious but point. I do like they added military animations, sparring, and the whole infected animation tho. Those were not lazy.
8: How does this compare to other game packs? Because we could debate all day about less items vs a bigger liveable world, or what deserved more time. The amount we got seems reasonable with everything else in the pack. But Your Mileage May Vary on this one.
9: I totally get the criticisms of the laptop, but by the same token I really think the best game to compare 4 to is 2 in regards to what the game is actually even capable of. Which then gets into the thorny debate of which we shall never escape. (I do hope they make it more moble tho).
10: as you said, huge for a GP. Which is the comparison we should be making, otherwise this point would’ve Plummed the Vampire Pack to the grave. I mean, this world is as big as Del Sol Valley, and (personal preference here) far more detailed and gorgeous. The lots are about the usual maxis standard tbh. This is why I remodel everything.
