"SERVERFRA;c-17932562" wrote:
I never heard of the original SimCity back in 1989 or Sims 1 & 2 back in the early 2000s. However, I've heard & played Sims 3 back in 2011 when my daughter discovered it in EB GameStop store. I remember that Sims 3 didn't cater to certain particular lifestyle choice organizations. There wasn't any one organization or lifestyle only in Sims 3.
Sims 4 caters to only free love, LBGTQ, green peace & animal zealots. While leaving out cultural faiths/beliefs, one-couple only love & celebates. I call that prejudice. We as a human race are all different with different lifestyles, beliefs, non-beliefs & so forth. It should never be dictated to a particular types only. Whatever happened to free-will & human rights? It's very sad that in this day & age there's still prejudice. :'(
While I agree that TS4 offers options that allow those who want to include LBGTQ elements, free love, etc in their gameplay to do so, I wouldn't say it caters only to people interested in that. I feel it leaves it to us players to choose what to do with our Sims, so I'm really confused about what you said about free-will because my experience with this game is precisely that it lets me do what I want.
It's also worth noting that there are two love aspirations, one for Sims who will have multiple partners, one for Sims who will spend their life with their soul mate. That seems pretty balanced to me.
Personally, all my sims are either celibate (with no romantic life whatsoever) or in a long-term, monogamous relationship with a member of the opposite sex and lead very fulfilling lives with no parties, no sleeping around, but lots of study and rewarding hard work and creativity. I'm genuinely satisfied to play this way and I never felt the game pressured me to play in any other way than the way I feel comfortable with or inspired to play.
The game in my experience is not rigged to force free love or LBGTQ elements, quite the opposite. As an example, I have a family I've playing for months (a mother & her 2 YA children) and all of them have developed the hungry-for-love lifestyle since they spend a lot of time watching the romantic channel on tv together. In spite of that, they have never flirted with other Sims and have the chastest lives ever :lol: (they don't have the unflirty or polite traits either). And that despite the fact they belong to a popular club, travel often, go to restaurants and generally interact with many other Sims. So to me it really feels I am the one in control of the story and in control of how my Sims act, and interact with NPCs. If I don't want my Sims to lead a certain life, they won't.
With this particular family I've also added an extra layer of development that you could define as "spiritual" or related to their "beliefs" I guess. They frequently donate to charity (either simoleons or knitted items) and spend time volunteering together. The whole volunteering thing doesn't really add much gameplay because it's basically a rabbit-hole, but I like having them do that because it adds a layer to their story and personality. They also spend time outdoors in what we could call non-denominational "contemplation". So in a way we could say the game leaves some room also to create a layer of spirituality/beliefs, up to a point maybe.
But more explicit references to religion would be problematic and inappropriate in a game of this kind, I think.
