Your sims packs years review

Growing Together 7 out of 10 I’m not big on family game play. I love the world but I really think townhouses rentals should introduced in this pack. San Sequoia is loosely based on SF and SF is mostly all townhouses. The world and game play now makes so much more sense for me with For Rent. this is my new favorite world to play in. All my young starting out families rent townhouses with a little backyard for toddler stuff. It beaters depressing starter homes and it nice sense of community for parties. I never use the community center lot it makes no sense to me. I like the planned stay over but it's glitchy sometimes they don't stay if I leave home or they dont stay the full duration. But it's fun!

Horse Ranch 8 out of 10 I don’t understand how people are not for this pack. This pack has brought me so much joy and so many endless hours of gameplay on the ranch. IF only the Equestrian Center was a gameplay experience, what I would imagine to be like Get Famous work studios meet the Finwich fair in Cottage Living like the Plumbob Pictures Studios in get Famous, it would then be a 10 them. The world is gorgeous and so big. I really love playing here. I never would imagine I loving a western them pack so much but this game always surprises me.

For Rent 6.5 out of 10 Really they could not make a pack more up my alley then this one. This has been my building style all along, and I’m so grateful they made a pack on multi - family residential lots as official game play.
However, I have been faced with so many bugs and glitches, it’s become nearly impossible to play. I’m hoping the iron out the kinks. I myself and still learning and testing the mods folder. The argue about HR not being an expansion pack, While I entirely feel that is not true about HR, but in the case of this pack, with such a small world and small lots, and nearly no other gameplay other than the new system, this feels like a game pack, not an expansion pack. I still feel it add value and essential gameplay and is needed for experience of this type of game.

I think the world is gorgeous, it’s like Sulani, but with a little touch of San Myshuno - Who could ask for anything more. Spawning on the streets is not the same as the other worlds which makes it feel less lively- a criticism for HR, but Tomarang street population is far more sparse.
I was most heartbroken about the rabbit holes. The Animal Sanctuary with real animals could have made this thee best pack ever. Also multi purpose lots would have made this game golden. I ‘m still discovering it so I have yet to experience the pet drive. There is no way to trigger it to happen. The cave always kicks me out and I can get no progress. I really see no point in the rabbit holes.

The expansion is a lifesaver and has solved my housing crisis, and allowed me to play the game the way I want to though.

Home Chef Hustle 8 out of 10 I enjoyed this a lot. Cooking feels more fun. Pizza and waffles are my favorite cuisine and my food mods for this were slowing my game. So grateful they added it officially.



Greenhouse Haven 8.5 out of 10 Possibly my favorite kit- it’s right up my alley. I love gardening in real life and I love gardening in the sims. This allows me to garden in the world that have 4 seasons. I guess you could have always done it, but it didn't work for me until this pack came out. I love the windows in there. They are proper floor to ceiling and I use the swatch with a lot of mullions for my my historic French Quarter house renovations. They really had floor to ceiling windows in those types of homes in New Orleans and I feel the responsibility to restore that in house renovations especially.in Willow Creek. The gave us screen doors and windows finally. You can even have a built in screen door porch if you wanted. So cute!!!
Only way they could improve on this is if they added functional gameplay to objects and more objects and selections. It is excellent pair to the Blooming kit. I used them together and hand in hand


Book Nook 8.5 out of 10 This makes every house like fantastic, and finally, libraries can look like real libraries, with walls stacked even at double height. If you want to add richness to any build, make a fantastic library. It’s also perfect for the dark academia aesthetic. I love the furniture. The game really needs more contemporary style couches like this and of this quality of textures.

I must say they quality of the build buy in these later packs have really gotten so much better than the previous packs. Especially Horse Ranch, it made me want to go back to all the older houses and renovate with the new build buy. The gave us proper shutters. ::sighs in happiness::

I don't own it yet, but I think I about ti get it- Modern Lux is next on my list to get. While I have endless custom content installed, I always gravitate to and an prefer the official build buy items. The quality is better and maxi match is less jarring on the eyes.

While there are a number of cas kits I want, I really wanted to get all the build buy first, but I think the Grunge Revival kit is so cute, right up my alley and I will get it soon.

I only came back at the end of 2023 but I am back and I did get some new content. (I had to replace my gaming laptop and for a while, I only had a Switch for gaming but now I have a nice gaming laptop). Prior to this I left off with the amazing Cottage Living. I'll admit that a side of me is definitely cottage core and I do some family play but I'm not all "boring" at all. I also switch up my playstyle at times and I like having different options for how to play. I'm also still exploring some of the packs including from 2022.

About the EPs: I like all of the EPs this year though I think they need to patch For Rent soon to address the issues like switching a lot out of Residential Rental status. I could see myself doing that so I hope they fix that soon.

Growing Together - I like it. I'm not all a family player all the time but I do like playing with complex multi-generational families and this pack improves that. I like that it pays attention to different life stages and adds more activities. There was a loud contingent that lobbied for "freeing the babies". I wasn't one of those but the infants do add to the game. I age children through the different stages at various times depending on the situation or how long I want to play them, so I sometimes skip through. When I do play them though, it isn't too repetitive. There's a lot of customization for different households and personalities. There's a lot more to do with them now. Also, toddlers seem more independent now. There's more of a transition. I do like San Sequoia which is obviously the Bay Area but I like most of the worlds. I would love it if they would add a feature to be able to convert some of the deco houses into playable ones. I get that maybe they can't but that would be great.

Aurelio Robles has kind of joined the large group of teens that are growing up in my game. I think Aurelio will be in my regular rotation and is in some teen drama now. I'll be clear that I don't only play with teens, I just have probably 20+ of them now. Teen - to - YA gameplay is dominating my game right now so I'm exploring High School Years.

Horse Ranch - I'm still exploring this pack but I'm glad that they added horses. I can't comment on the horse gameplay yet except that I remember a rabbit hole horse race in TS3. I look forward to riding around in the countryside worlds. Also, I think that Horse Ranch and Cottage Living are obviously very different styles of countryside so I'm glad that they added both. Honestly, it wouldn't surprise me that since castles won a recent vote that they may add a playable medieval world or theme where horses would also make sense. The style of countryside in Horse Ranch is the American West, yes, but it is also found in some other countries as well so it's actually not just American.

For Rent - Waiting on the next patch to play with residential rentals - Tomarang is cool and I'll play with it some more. I did add vacationing to it since that makes the most sense for my rotational gameplay. I agree that it could have more townies but I like the parts of the world that I've explored. I really like the night market and would send sims back there. I will be building a rental hostel there for some of my sims to live there for a bit while traveling. I do actually like the botanical garden and while we can't enter the tiger sanctuary, it's a cool concept. Tiger gameplay is fun. Maybe they will add playable tigers and maybe they will listen to the requests for more boats. It's an alternative Asian travel world to Mt. Komorebi for my sims.

Home Chef Hustle - I like the added objects. I haven't done the home chef gameplay but I've used some of the new ways to cook with prepped ingredients and the new recipes. I like having more types of pizza and waffles. It might seem repetitive to some people but I switch between a lot of households so I don't want them to all have the same meals constantly. It's not the only gameplay for me at all but it adds to the coziness of each household that they have their own foods and routines. That's a backdrop for other gameplay. I could see having some sort of competitive home chef gameplay at some point, that could be fun. Put them in a house and have them compete against each other like on tv. If I need something to do, I might try it.

About kits - I really subscribe to the "like what you like" opinion. I love the Book Nook. When I got that, I thought it was a random pick for me but I've read some favorable opinions from others. I think it's a sleeper hit, a great kit. Sure, I love some bookish, nerdy writer sims so it suits my gameplay. I like the encouragement to build cozy libraries. I've also used the pre-made rooms to install an "instant library". Great kit.

I don't have some of the other kits but might add them eventually. I'm not in a rush to have every kit. I did get Modern Luxe during the sale and I've used some of its objects. I have some "rich sims" as well though so the added luxury made sense for my game.

I have a lot to keep me busy. If it seems like I'm someone who just likes everything, I mean, I like a lot about the Sims though not everything. I generally have fun and have a great time. I don't think everyone needs to play exactly like me. Eventually I'll work through various features and my approach is very much to do whatever I want.

I do still want a hobbies pack and more travel. I honestly like collecting the worlds because I always find uses for them even if I go in a different direction than official gameplay. I'm kind of open to suggestions that I might not have thought of. For Rent is an example of that. I do want more new ways to play the game, maybe some new optional goals for gameplay though I'm generally a sandbox player. Fix the bugs though.

I didn't buy a lot of the recent releases last year (wasn't too interested much), but I did get Growing Together, Home Chef Hustle, and Greenhouse Haven.

Growing Together was okay, but I was disappointed in the world functionally. Visually, it's amazing, but there were less fishing spots than I liked and not enough wild harvestables. I liked the milestone additions whenever I got them and the recreation center is pretty good when you're trying to avoid going back to the home lot out of boredom. I loved the new social events like sleepovers and stay-overs. The BB was decent with great walls and windows, although a bit scattered with objects that had some uninteresting swatches (everything fit the theme of the pack well enough though). The CAS was amazingly good across most life stages and loved the new skin details added. It personally wasn't a hit with me because I am not really into family gameplay, but I did want more fitting CAS and gameplay like the rec center and game table (they're REALLY good puzzles ...)

Home Chef Hustle was great. BB is really good with new appliances, especially the waffle maker. I like making use of prepped ingredients with the mixer, but I did find the new aspiration goals to be too tedious to bother with and the pizza oven stayed outside for a good reason! Anyway, I did have a increasingly personal gripe with pre-decorated shelving and surfaces. Food stands and sale events functioned decently enough, aside from some routing issues though.

Greenhouse Haven was great. I usually always have a played Sims as either a Botanist or Florist, so the kit goes very well in garden portions of builds. Good windows and walls, I do wish some objects were separated a bit more though and a little bit more on swatches.

I love Growing Together and Horse Ranch, so 2023 was an excellent year for me.

I'll reserve judgement on For Rent because I don't have it and we don't know yet how much is going to be fixed. It's too new to be ranked just yet.

Home Chef Hustle isn't my cup of tea, but I'll give it a heads up for the decent Stuff Packs revival.

Kits are not packs imho so I won't breathe a word on these.

This looks fun! I’ll be reviewing the packs I own:

Expansion Packs

• Growing Together - I honestly don’t think that I have ever played the Sims as much as I have since this pack was released. Seriously, I play it every single day, sometimes even getting up early just to get some extra simming time in, LOL. The gameplay, build /buy, & CAS (minus the hair) are all amazing. I love it all! This pack has been a game changer for me!
  
• Horse Ranch - I’m not into horses, but I really love the build/buy a lot more than I thought I would. The CAS is alright. I like the hairstyles better than the ones in Growing Together.
  
• For Rent - Again, apartments aren’t really how I play, but I think that they are a good feature to have in the game. The build/buy is kind of disappointing, but the CAS is really beautiful.
  

Stuff Packs

• Home Chef Hustle - This is one of my favorite packs ever! I can finally build my dream kitchen, the CAS is cute, & I actually use the pizza oven & waffle maker.
  

Kits

• Bathroom Clutter - While the graphics could be better, I use this kit in every single one of my houses.
  
• Greenhouse Haven - I love this kit just for the ability to make screened in porches.
  
• Basement Treasures - I use a few of the items, but overall, it’s just not my vibe.
  
• Book Nook - This is becoming one of my favorite “packs”, as the furniture is just so cute & cozy!
  
• Modern Luxe - This is, by far, one of my favorite “packs”, as well! The furniture is so beautiful that I find myself wanting to use it in every single bedroom, lol! The picture framed tv & the smaller record player are really nice additions, as well!
  

Overall, I’d say that it was a great year for the Sims & that the best packs were Growing Together, Home Chef Hustle, Bathroom Clutter, Greenhouse Haven, Book Nook, & Modern Luxe.