My final thoughts on The Sims 4...

Note: This is my views and my views only. Also please beware I did not play the whole game. This is just a review on what I briefly experienced. 

So here's my review....

Edit: I forgot to mention the camera controls and the UI. That alone deserves a mention. Check under gameplay before glitches.

From what I did get to play, it's not exciting. Maybe for some, but to me it's the same crap over again with a crappy cartoon wrapping.

Gameplay- It consist of sitting in the house, building relationships slowly, traveling to the 4 or 5 community lots, skill building, collecting, frantic emotions that effect the sims, multitasking, a few romantic options that aren't really new, having object babies, and loading screens. 

Notice I said nothing significantly new or different from it's previous predecessors?

Yes emotions are new. They are a little different from moodlets, but in a sense they are still moodlets and frantic ones at that. I've seen sims become happy one min and sad the next from just talking to another sim, which to me is a bit unrealistic. Multitasking is also new and actually a pretty cool idea. Little things like talking while sitting on the bed was cute, but eating while talking made the interaction drag on though. 

The sims also are only allowed 3 or 4 traits, which is limiting. The walking styles are stupid. The voices were actually neat. The teen age looks exactly like adult, which is confusing. The kids are cute. The YA age could of been left out, because it serves no purpose and it's really redundant with YA looking like teens in the game. There's no toddlers. Babies jump out the bassinet into children.

The game overall silliness is overdone. It's obvious they are trying too hard to be TS2. Some things made me chuckle (not out loud mind you), but some things made me roll my eyes. Like the "gotta pee" walk for example. The TS4 team seem to love toilet humor. *sigh*

The sims in the town walk around aimlessly to make the town look lively. They are so few of them, because of the town size that it tends to get weird seeing the same sims walking around all over the place. It almost felt like I was in the twilight zone at times. lol 

Then we can't forget about those loading screens. Everything that's a community lot or another section on the map is a loading screen. You can be in the nightclub next to the gym and just going next door will result in another loading screen. Those loading screens for me were short, but I have no doubt they will get longer the more that's added into the game.

I also thought the world map or whatever you call it looks cheesy and poorly done.

Added: I must mention the camera controls as well. They're horrible. Even on TS3 mode. The camera is hard to turn and it's just a pain. I didn't want to explore, because of it. This is a brand new mouse, so it definitely wasn't the mouse. The UI also sucks. It's too small and I just hate it. 

I did see some glitches too. One particular glitch with bartender was especially annoying. She kept charging me over and over again for a drink. I had to cancel the interaction just so she wouldn't charge me. Oh and the routing is not much better. With so few sims in town, you're not going really run into many routing issues anyway, but when I did the sim walked through the other sim. I guess that was there solution to the problem. 

Overall the gameplay seems to be more gear to completing goals and skills. The sandbox feel/openness and story telling of the game is pretty much gone. There's little to no creativity. The camera controls also make the game difficult to control.

Graphics- The graphics are cartooney with no textures and look low end even on high. Sims lose even more detail outside of CAS. The lighting in the game is either too bright or too dark in some places.

I seriously hate the graphics. Like a lot! I could get pass cartoony if they were done well, but they're not. The sims also incredibly goofy with over exaggerated expressions. You can try to make the most grumpiest sim in the world and he will still be smiling like an idiot. It makes all the sims look creepily alike. Furthermore nothing about these sims are realistic and the art style isn't flexible at all.

The scenery is uninspiring. Katy Perry pink trees and painted on backgrounds that are clearly there for show. Everything looks fake. Nothing looks real. Even some of the furniture looks oversize and fake. 

The lighting is crappy. I could excuse the starter house being dim, but even the community lots are dim. You need at least 3 more lights to brighten up the rooms. The lighting outside is ridiculously bright and glossy.

Overall the graphics are low end and can't compare to other games on the market. I can't help, but think the rest of gaming world would laugh at such absurd graphics. I turn my settings up on high just to see if they would get better, but they didn't. Did I mention I hate them a lot. lol Those graphics are really an acquired taste I guess, but ughhhhhh my eyes.

The Content- They have a cupcake machine and a rocket, but they don't have dishwashers, bunk beds, game consoles, or lockable doors to name a few. They also have no ncp's. Well a bartender, but they don't have firemen, mailmen, police, or repairmen. Then hospitals, schools, and jobs are invisible rabbit holes. You won't find them on the map. Oh and no cars. The ones you see driving aimlessly are fake.

There's a lot of stuff that's missing and I know they want to make a buck, but it's getting really ridiculous. Pff it's already ridiculous! I'm appalled that they couldn't even bother to add fireman or police. It's really disgusting how much was left out. I thought maybe I could ignore those things, but it became quite clear how important some of things were to me.

Overall the lack of content makes for an empty game. You'll find yourself looking for something and realize it's not there at least once. With no ncp's though the game feels empty and it's just freaking weird. Why have the criminal career with no police? Then the careers will have you wishing they at least had a building for it. I felt like my sim got kidnapped almost. I also missed cars. Seeing my sims magically appear at places was just weird. 

Finally, the overall game was quite disappointing and BORING to me. I knew what I was getting into, but I had no idea it was that bad. There's literally no improvements. I got bored within the first hour and TBH I couldn't play, but more than a hour due to being so bored. I even looked at my phone a couple times while playing. There's just not enough there and too much of the same.

I can't see EA being able to save this game really. A poor base doesn't bode well. It makes me wonder how many gamepacks will you need to make this game feel full. How many 20 dollars or so will make this game complete? A lot I'm sure. Maybe even more than TS3. I for one am done giving EA money.

As for people who like it, we can agree to disagree. I'll be over here playing TS3 in the meantime. ;P Happy Simming all!