What I Like About Sims 4

To me The Sims 4 is a creative outlet. Most of the time I don’t really treat it like a game, it’s a tool that I can utilize in order to think more creatively about character design, architecture and story.
I play the game in Ultra. Highest settings. All effects on and all weather permitted!

What makes The Sims 4 Xtra special for me:

• Artstyle. It’s gorgeous. I must say there has been a huge improvement in the past couple of years. Colors are vibrant and textures are beautiful.
  
• Environmental Design. Worlds are stunning. Lighting is yum. Depth of field, yes! All this inspires me to travel and spend more time outdoors with my sims, rather than being stuck in a home. Which brings us to:
  
• The ability to travel to and build in different worlds within one save. I’m an open world kinda guy, but the fact that I can easily access different worlds does give me back that sense of freedom I was given by the open world feature in TS3. All I can say is give me more where that came from. (And CAW).
  
• CAS. Excellent. The only reason I love dressing up my Dollies so much, is because I have the ability to sculpt them first! Otherwise this game wouldn’t really be for me. I love the sculpting feature and I can give my sims so much more character because of it.
  
• Build mode. Excellent. Sure, give me a couple more nifty build tools, but it doesn’t stop me from building. I build with characters and stories in mind. Also, did I mention that I love build mode? I love build mode.
  
• Ambient Fx. The reason I enjoy the worlds so much is partly because of the ambient effects. That sneaky helicopter in Selvadorada, the dancing tumbleweeds in Strangerville, the floating bags in Eco world, airplanes, the micro dust storms in Oasis, the subtle moving curtains, the car coming to a halt as it gives way to Mother Duck and her ducklings so they can safely cross the road in Windenburg. Etc. Such wonderful details. I appreciate them all.
  
• Animations. Animated interactions are of high standard, especially given the fact that few or none are generated by MoCap. There have been a lot of complaints about re-used animations, but if you look closely, many of them have subtle differences that few people seem to notice. They deserve more appreciation.
  
• Rank / Perk / Value systems. Basically what vampires, spell casters, scoundrels, celebrities and (parenthood) kids get. It adds more depth and challenge to my game, plus it inspires me to tell different stories depending on where my sims are within that system. Vampires need a special mention of course. For me this pack set the bar when it comes to occults and Maxis can’t really go any lower than that.
  
• Music and sound. I find the music to be quite enjoyable in CAS, Build Mode, and on the radio. Obviously the latter depends on which channel it’s tuned to. For example S-pop = NO. ? Sound effects are great. The sound of crackling fire, stormy weather, the sail on a boat, rain, generators etc. Lurv.
  
• Toddlers. I’m not a toddler kinda guy, but they sure nailed them in this iteration.
  
• Chickens. They’re just so good. And funny.
  
• Pack refreshes. More of that please. It’s wonderful.
  
• CC & Mod support. Super easy. I love exploring the game without cc & mods and spicing it up with cc & mods.
  
• The release of new, different content that “nobody asked for”. I actually love that they did that with Strangerville and Journey to Batuu and I hope the team is working on more packs like that! It’s so refreshing, and even though not all content suits my play style or my sim’s fashion style *cough* modernmenswearkit *HATCHEE* pardon me, I do appreciate the team going for something unusual now and then. Indeed, we’re not all the same and even weirdos like me deserve something a little different.
  

Edit: I forgot to add something else that I really like in The Sims 4:
Lot traits, Lot Types and Lot challenges! Sometimes my builds have more character than my sims! ?