Now that Sims 4 is on the shelves,
Taking a look back at all the disks on my shelf - and yes, I hold my hands up. I AM an addict. I bought every single EP and SP. But EA have had enough of my moneyI've bought and tried Sims 4, don't like it.
TOP EXPANSION PACK: I LOVE WA! That's definitely my No.1, closely followed
by Ambitions.
WA is enhanced by NRAAS Traveller Mod, which I'm still exploring. You can use
other (even custom) worlds as holiday places. That adds a great deal even at
this
late stage. Tombs are great and I'm still learning how to build them. There
are too many WA bugs which EA STILL haven't fixed. I advise using AwesomeMod,
NRAAS mods and the bugfixes you can find on More Awesome Than You. Warning
- the more WA places your Sims visit, the more bloated your main save becomes.
SECOND: Ambitions. Not much to say, good, seems fairly well-coded (for EA), interesting careers, objects. Those careers, the ones that aren't broken, are fun. Photography OUGHT to be fun but, well. Buggy.
THIRD: I like Island Paradise, its world and its possibilities, but like most people, have found it almost unplayable in its original form. I had to remove the clouds from the islands, and some of the houses, and now have a modded version of the world. I keep it sparsely populated, but it still lags.
FOURTH: I like Late Night though these vampires were disappointing. Even the Supernatural vampires are. I want my vampires, if I play them at all, to BITE! There are mods for this. I like the "city" feel of Bridgeport.
FIFTH: Pets. I was looking forward to horses (for my Royal Family!) but they just - don't do it for me. They take so much work and so much SPACE to get them to a good standard. Sims with horses HAVE to live on a huge Lot. Love the dogs and cats - would have liked LARGER dogs, like real dogs, even their "large" dogs seem very small to me - but the animations for the animals are cute. Annoying when every game has wild horses running in and out of the city streets.
SIXTH: Supernatural is another disappointment. The supernaturals are cute but dull. I can't stand the way werewolves look and move, and I had expected to like those. I like alchemy. Again, some nice objects. And that dark world, Midnight Hollow? that came with Supernatural? I couldn't STAND it. The only good thing there was the Observatory building. Oh and the Plants vs Zombies add-ons. You know, the sunflowers and peashooter things.
SEVENTH: I didn't expect much from Showtime and didn't get much. I never have and never will send Sims to perform in other people's games. The performance careers themselves are quite fun and again a couple of decent buildings - the big theatres, etc. Events in parks - well, I feel quite sorry for the performers - turning up and only 1 Sim in the audience, if that. Also, why couldn't we have MUSICIANS apart from singers in Showtime? You know, BANDS? or ORCHESTRAS? Buskers playing a violin? More instruments? Piano accordion or even a one-man-band kit? Disappointing, haven't really spent enough time in the world to say it's good or bad.
EIGHTH: Seasons was disappointing, not being as well made IMHO as Seasons for Sims 2 - I suppose I had expected it to be better. My Sims love gardening and this was just not good enough. Greenhouses? More plants? WHICH INSTEAD OF INCLUDING THEM WERE MADE INTO PAY CONTENT? Gah! Appaloosa is a great world though. Weather, well... what's this "FOG"? That could have been done a lot better. It looks like thick white paint and stops at the ROAD. Real fog doesn't do that, believe me. Also, snow is lovely, but slows my computer to a standstill in a large world. Again, could have/should have been better.
NINTH:Generations: I completely agree with LGR - most of the content SHOULD have been base game, and I never play daycare, so meh.
TENTH and NEXT TO BOTTOM is University Life. I had expected it to be, but it really is Dullsville! Some cool objects help make up for it. I HATE that I have to be locked into University life for the whole period my Sim is at Uni - unlike Sims 2 where I can play a little Uni at a time and not get so frammin' BORED. The Influence thing - I tried to play Uni again after learning there are more careers for those who top the influence tree, but it beat me. I just can't keep working on it. Starting a Sim at Uni kills that world-save for me. Again, very buggy. Sims who go to Uni also don't come home, in many cases.
ELEVENTH and BOTTOM Into the Future is one that I had hoped to like, as a lifelong SciFi reader, and actually dislike quite strongly. What I had hoped for would be something like WA but set in a future world. However, it isn't even properly integrated with the other packs, so that if you go into the future you get messages telling you WA quests and other opportunities will be lost. The future world - well, the black hole buidings are nice, but they look to me as if they have been pulled straight out of the very similar Future pack in SimCity. WHY would Sims families look so much like today's Sims families? And even live in THE SAME HOUSES with THE SAME FURNITURE as today's Sims? There aren't even any new interactions? Sigh. They did a little better than Lunar Lakes (which is pay content) with the future world but not much. Also I've found my game is far more likely to crash since installing ITF.
STUFF PACKS
A confession: I actually like SOME of the stuff in the Katy Perry Disaster
- or Stuff Pack. A very small amount of it. In very small quantities. One of
the Lots, and a couple of the furniture objects. The clothes are fun for dressing
up.
To my great surprise I enjoyed the Fast Lane stuff pack, probably most of all
the SPs in terms of how much I use the stuff. Also Decades and Master Suite
Stuff (agree with LGR about the names of the objects - but that's nothing new,
look at Sims 1 objects!) Why wasn't Fast Lane developed more? We could have
had car races? Speeding fines? REAL learning to drive? Car accidents? Traffic
cops? That should have been an EP.
Sita June 6, 2021