The Sims – one of the most recognisable series in the industry, and one of the most successful too, has boasted sales of over 120 million copies in total. 2014 marks the franchise’s 14th birthday, followed by the 4th instalment in the series; The Sims 4. Much like its predecessors, the game has the same ability to have your Sim live their life in the same monotonous way – eat, sleep, work, repeat (and perhaps fix the broken shower at 4am in the morning after they wake up and cry about their bladder issues for a little while). However, there has been change in The Sims 4, some changes that could even be considered as a step forward in the series. For example, your Sims are more interactive with their surroundings, family members, friends, and strangers – but they are much moodier too, just like real people.

The series has brought the lovable Sims a step closer to being more Human, though unfortunately and infamously sacrificed numerous game features with the idea of player-Sim relationships being the focus of the game instead of burglars coming to steal your kitchen counters and bedside lamp. The pacing of the game has also been rethought, with skills taking longer to develop, bills being higher, objects being somewhat more expensive, and birthdays creeping scarily closer (even more so with less life stages than in the previous games).

Our story starts after I’ve created a new Sim. Having previously played it for a couple of hours to familiarise myself with it, I enter the game confident that my Sim – Sheldon Wilder – will live a nice, prosperous life as a professional e-sports gamer (yep, that’s a career now). As with every Sims game, the sun is shining, the grass is green, the water is sparkling blue, the neighbours are happy and chatting – it’s a haven (especially in comparison to the dreary and grey neighbourhoods of Britain).

I’ve build Sheldon a house which you can see below, the building interface is nice, sleek, modern, and very clean. In some ways you can see that The Sims 4 has inherited its User Interface from SimCity 2013. The new building features in The Sims 4 allow you to build houses even easier, giving you the ability to drag walls, raise the ceiling height, raise and lower foundations, make stairs wider or smaller, drag and drop pre-made rooms with furnishings and lights, and you can even add in skirting decorations around the roof or decking. As a player who loves building in The Sims, I found this to be a nice and refreshing feature, allowing me to make more complex and attractive houses fairly quickly.

Furnishing houses is also similar, you can make it easier on yourself by placing the aforementioned pre-made rooms (which are usually themed, such as modern, rustic, or industrial), or do it the old fashioned way. The catalogue has a broad selection of furniture, clutter and electronics, from a penguin-shaped TV to virtual reality gaming systems. The ability to customise furniture like you could in The Sims 3 do appear to be present, instead you’re given a choice of different presets for that item of furniture. Slightly disappointing, as I wanted to make a solid pink living room for my future e-sports world champion.

Overall, however, building and filling your house with pretty things is easier than ever, yet offers master builders a broad selection of tools to create better houses than ever before. Placing small items can still be a bit fiddly (I struggled to place a pot of cooking utensils properly, it kept insisting it wanted to sit right on the edge of the counter), however you can place things very precisely, changing the heights of wall lights and other wall-mounted objects to your liking will be pleasing for the detail-oriented players of the franchise.

In previous titles, I always found playing my Sims in their houses to be fairly boring. It was the same routine, get a job, sleep, eat, and wash, pay bills, repeat. The Sims 4 offers a new way of playing your Sim’s life, some fancy (and intriguing), new mechanics change the way your Sims will act, behave, interact with the world, and best of all, and it’s excellently integrated with the older mechanics. The only issue is that whilst they’re new and refreshing, they’re not all that compelling.
Sims are moody now, gone are the boring moodlets from The Sims 3, a new mood mechanic has been ushered in by Maxis.

Your Sim will gain moods based on different factors, including their needs being met or abused, their personality traits, other Sims around them, the environment, and what they’re actually doing in the world, and whilst there are a plethora of things to effect what emotional state your Sim is in, there isn’t a whole lot of impact from those moods. Your Sim won’t rampage or start an anarchic state (there’s no police force to fight that, either) or angrily wee in the toilet (though you can wee like a champion, if the mood applies). From those emotions comes different ways to interact with the rest of the world, angry Sims can vent or complain about their issues with other Sims in conversations, inspired Sims can play instruments and develop creative skills much faster, and flirty Sims will have unique romantic interactions they can perform with others.

The emotional traits is certainly a mechanic Maxis pushed, it could be considered as a main selling point of the game. It’s certainly innovative and a refreshingly new way to play the game, but that’s not all. Your Sims are no longer restricted to one activity, they can no longer only use one hand to interact with things. They have evolved into beings that understand how to multitask and carry 2 objects at once. Gone are the conundrums that Sims have when deciding if they should carry a book or their food, Sims can carry both now! They can also have a conversation and eat, or eat and watch TV, listen to music and eat/play on the computer, multitasking has added in new animations and useful and interesting ways to play (as well as being another contributor to the emotions mechanic).

But that’s not all, other nice and subtle mechanics include your Sims gaining weight alongside them gradually aging, their smartphones are the centre of their lives (just like in reality, huh?), you can observe your neighbours and other Sims wander around the neighbourhood and you can go outside onto the street to exercise and talk to them, and their needs will degrade more realistically. There are other activities to do outside too, such as fishing and gathering. Whilst these new additions to the game are a step forward for the series, the game still hasn’t brought anything genre-defining to the world. The Sims may be more interesting, but they still don’t have much to do. If you let them live their lives completely on their own with no input from yourself, then they’ll still play games for hours until they starve, they’ll still manage to burn eggs and burn their house down, and they’ll still spontaneously argue with strangers.

And of course, there are bugs. The pathing isn’t perfect, Sims can converse with people on the other side of a wall, they’ll forget or ignore commands you give them at times. I’ve not encountered any game-breaking bugs though, there’re some silly ones which unintentionally fit in with Maxis’ wacky themes. There are also a couple of irritating things, such as the return of everyone’s favourite loading screens. If you visit a house on the same street, you have to go through a loading screen, if you want to visit another street; you need to go through a loading screen. I honestly thought we were past that with the wonderful open world of The Sims 3. Another is the fact that lights appear to be very dull and quite dark, which ushers the need to have more than 2 lights in a room to have it feel a bit warmer.

Not only that, but one of the biggest issues people have with The Sims 4 is its lack of features that were present in previous games. For example, there are no burglars, police force, or fire-fighters, you can no longer own a car; build basements and – perhaps worst of all to some people (for some reason) – no swimming pools or toddlers. It’s disappointing that features are missing; it made me wonder if the game would be any fun at all before I played it, but alas I was fortunately wrong. I have had a lot of fun in the game, and I would strongly recommend this game to anyone who enjoys The Sims, even if they’re just putting spite aside and giving it a go for an hour.

Maxis have created the framework for something that has the potential to be great; they’ve vastly improved the way the game looks, feels, and plays. You’ll find yourself spending hours playing with these fun and dorky creations. Undoubtedly this framework will be improved and – eventually – filled with wonderful and exciting things to do in the form of DLC, the same cycle that every Sims game has followed since its first release 14 years ago. Many will complain, but will still invest; such is the tradition with EA’s business strategies.

The Sims 4 is a wonderfully refreshing take on the series, whilst it may not provide anything that can be deemed as GOTY-worthy, it’s certainly a sound investment for anybody who enjoys sitting at their computer, and playing The Sims and watching their Sim also play The Sims in a strange sort of inception-esque moment. It isn’t perfect by any means but – as previously mentioned – the framework is there. Now it’s up to Maxis and the modding community to fill in the gaps.

Do you want reveal the Review Score?