Previous sims games have an uncanny valley quality to them and are a bit eerie. You never know what lurks behind the corner. Things aren't as easily attainable and you want to play to discover the secrets and achieve different things, be it wealth or building up complex family relations. In the sims 4 there's not much incentive to do anything. Nothing is scary, everything is controlled, and you just perform activities to look at animations. No characters are mysterious and unattainable. Want an alien? Just make one in CAS, no need to first come across one and build a relationship. You can do everything so easily that you wonder what's the point of playing sims 4 at all.
I agree with you here for sure. I adore playing rags to riches challenges, but every time I start a new one, I find myself falling into the same super quick methods of making money such as painting, writing, or planting dragon fruit farms. Where is the challenge or incentive to try different ways of making money which are slower / less efficient? Once I've made the money and build a big house - what then? I usually get bored and drop the household all together until I get the itch to do it all over again in a few months. Thus is the shallow gameplay cycle of the Sims 4. Thanks so much for your inciteful comment! :)
I absolutely hate how EA advertised that Sims are “smarter” now. I have to turn Autonomy off every game save on TS4, while the other games you would work with autonomy. I get so frustrated with my sims in TS4 that I don’t even want to play most of the time.
@@YasminsCorner it’s so frustrating because when i don’t use quick cheats for their needs they’ll die since the sims are constantly glitching and not performing the actions
i'm sorry but the idea that no open world=running better, is something almost very simmer has been gaslight into believeing, sims 3 was just horribly optimized and made to run on older systems, if you ran sims 3 on an old computer it'd actually work better than a modern gaming pc. also, if sims 5 were to have open world, it'd be much better optimized and yknow, made in 2025 or later. dont settle for less gameplay cuz ea's lied and says its for a good reason cuz its not
I totally agree with you. The spaghetti-code mess of the sims 3 ran poorly on lower end machines.. but it’s incredible to see dedicated simmers working to fix the game even now! Here’s really hoping we get the best of both worlds with the sims 5: an open world which runs smoothly … but somehow my scepticism for EA at the moment is making me think that may not happen 😞 thank you for your insight ☺️
@@LeoDeStino No wonder the game runs like trash even on a computer that has 16 GB of RAM. I can easily run new AAA games and get a silky smooth gaming experience, but TS3 still feels like that only a NASA supercomputer can run this thing...
Sims 4 is definitely a game for kids, while Sims 3 and 2 were more mature with interesting lore. I started with The Sims 1 when I was a kid, and it had more mature content but funny in the same time, it was truely a game of gestion and simulation. The gameplay was built around that. I know it's a lot about your own imagination and making stories, but everything seems so childish in the Sims 4... They removed burglars, what the heck. I'm quite afraid for the Sims 5 tbh. Damn I miss Maxis.
I definitely echo your fear for the Sims 5 - the continued financial success of the Sims 4 has set the precedent that fans are willing to buy sub-par content simply out of our love for the series and our hope that the next piece of DLC will be the one where EA decides to clean up their act and give us something fun and re-playable. I think EA needs some real competition in the life sim genre to get them innovating again, and to force them to do better. Thank you for commenting!
@@aviendha1154 I don’t really see what’s the issues with “adult” mods. They’re humorous and purely used for imaginative fun. I highly doubt your child will start drugs because their sim ingests marijuana lol. Many kids had “adult” mods and are now completely functional adults.
I don't even think kids like ts4 tbh. It doesn't take a genius to realize there's nothing substantial to play with, and with a kid's limited access to money they can't even pad their playtime with glittering garbage. Being stuck with the base game and maybe a few packs will make you realize this game is vapid and a waste of time quick
@@aviendha1154 why would you let your child have unfettered access to the internet long enough to access and download the sex and drug mods is the real question of the century
I would LOVE to play sims 2!!! However it’s so difficult to a hold of these days, as well as even getting it running!😭 I wish I’d downloaded it when EA were giving it away for free years ago 🙃 hopefully I’ll get to try it one day though ☺️
@@YasminsCorner I am pretty sure that The Sims 2 is considered abandonware by this point (as EA isn't actively distributing/selling copies anymore). It's easy to find on the Internet Archive, someone packed it into an installer. I'd be extremely surprised if EA still cared so you might just download it there and enjoy the odd charme. ♥
YES! Not only that the sims in the sims 2 are just so... sassy idk. They actually seem like living breathing person, with actual personality. When I was younger I played for ages, created full stories and family trees. Meanwhile sims 4 five minutes in Im already bored 🤣 And to this day sims2 holds up really well!
True, Sims 2's lore is also more integrated to the pre made characters as well. Love how they have detailed character stories, photo galleries, stats and even prompting scripts when you play them. And plus, they even have well written relations with other townies too!
As a geriatric sims player (I’m 30, started playing with I was 13), Sims 2 was a real treat. It was goofy, raunchy, crazy, and addicting. Things mattered. Like when my sim cheated on her husband, their son ran into another room and started crying. We had burglars. You had to have an alarm or else you might have been robbed. It was just so fun. I’d playing it for DAYS non stop. I still love The Sims. So I still play it. But it does feel so cleaned up, and at times child like. The charm is gone. It’s just a basic life simulator which is a far cry of its heyday with TS2.
You still can play Sims 2! It's considered "abandonware" so it can be downloaded from the internet without breaking law AFAIK and Pleasant Sims had some guides on how to make it run on newer computers too!
Now I feel old, basically the same story +2 years and I started with the Sims. I do miss cat burglars tho. And memories. Like a life time achivements list.
Right? I started playing the franchise back in 2001 when I was 6. The quirkiness of the TS1 and TS2 made it so captivating for me. It was something that really drew me i, and I play it religiously for years on end.
@@magdajabonska537 Dude, any game can be pirated/downloaded from the internet/ No one cares about that. If you think 'breaking laws' matters, you must be a 5 year old
Sims 4 is definitly the definiton of a ''lowest common denominator'' game extremely sad that the worst game in the franchise gets the longest run in terms of updates and dlc. I think the only reason Sims 4 is lasting this long is the relative monopoly of this kind of simulation game EA has, i really hope some other developer comes and breaks the monopoly up otherwise i think sims 5 is going to be equally bad
I agree with you for sure. I know a lot of people in the community are excited for Paralives - and I am too - but I think it has had a lot of expectation put on it to ‘be the next sims game’ which could be a slippery slope if that makes sense. Overall though I think you’re right, EA definitely needs some competition to light the fire under their butt!😂
@@YasminsCorner I think, despite what they say, EA/Maxis is waiting for Paralives before coming out with a Sims 5 so they can "prove" they make a better game. They came out with curved walls just because of Paralives have it and totally couldn't pull it off.
@@nedrane297 I’ve been tracking Paralives from the start and each time they showed what they were working on EA put it in sims 4 😂 Like showing off the different angles their stairs can go and EA updated their stairs a week later maybe not even 💀 I’m still shocked curved porch/landing stairs aren’t a thing. Curved pools aren’t a thing despite being in TS2 and TS3 along with spiral stairs. “Best building game” for some people but still misses so much that the previous games have. Treehouses, trampolines .. I can keep going. And this is the longest running game missing these items. Smh.
They're making the base game free because almost all of the profit comes from the packs. They're just removing the 4 or something euro entry fee, casting a bigger net on potential buyers of the packs. It's another thing about the Sims 4 that bugs me: pervious games were stand alone games you could fully enjoy without any extra content. Meanwhile, TS4 base game lacks so much that you simply need packs to play it. Anyways, great video!!
I totally agree. It’s an unsurprising change tbh - the game is literally 8 YEARS OLD!!! I don’t think I’ve seen the base game being sold on steam or CDKeys for more than £8 in a long time. It made sense to make the game free, but yes - it is sad that the base game is so lack lustre that new players will probably feel compelled to buy more DLC to improve their experience 🙃
I'm glad it will be free because I plan to dump shitloads of CC into it and never touch the actual live mode. No way am I paying money for a make terrifying buildings and creatures simulator. I may get the packs that unlock mermaids and aliens purely because i love how they look in cas. I will absolutely wait until they are on sale though.
I was considering mentioning these households / stories in this video - but the script was getting too long! I totally agree: sadly, I couldn't imagine the devs revisiting their backstories now when considering the wishy-washy, boring households we have had introduced in the Sims 4 :(
They have striped away lore and backstory that it feels too childish. There’s no consequences, gameplay, or passion. It’s a blank blob that gets boring so fast.
They were my favorites! I always ended up pairing Nervous with one of the guys from that household with the three roommates and one gets abducted and impregnated by aliens
the sims 4 is so imcomaprable to other games, I think in other games the most appealing factor of the sims games was the gameplay and actually playing with the sims but now the most appealing factor is build and cas mode, and gameplay is the least appealing, out of my friends who play sims they all say they only make sims and build the houses then stop playing, its sad to see really
I agree!! In the video I referenced near the start, I talked about how I felt like: in the sims 3, you feel like your sims are dropped into a bustling world and you need to find your place in it. While in the sims 4, you start a new game and the entire world revolves around your household. I hope this is something they get right in sims 5 whenever that comes out 😅
@@YasminsCorner so tru thats wut made it fun ! U didnt hafta seek a challenge they ALWAYS find u, in sims 4 i had my sim adopt 2 toddlers & within 7 days of aging there was no challenge again ugh sims 4 suckkssss
Interesting take, I’d say it has to do with the fact that the sims 4 has the best build and cas style of all games. Plus the sims 4 has a much wider demographic than the past games. People came to play the game, but now people can come to play dress up, or to decorate. The sims 4 created the most different ways to play in that instant, but it is sad to see that gameplay is on the back burner.
I miss when the sims were more raunchy. I miss when sims would go clubbing, have nudist homes, tons of adult jokes, and genuine backstories. The sims 4 just doesn’t even feel like the same game franchise. I remember growing up feeling so cool playing the game Sims Bustin Out! I don’t even play the sims 4 anymore cause it just doesn’t capture that magic other sims games have.
My GOD YES! Bustin' Out was amazing! Even from the very start of the game, your created sim has more personality than every sim in 4. Not to mention the interconnected relationships between townies and goal setting it gave you.
all i have to say is unmodded, sims 1 2 & 3 can all be thoroughly enjoyed and played, they are just as fun with or without mods or even expansions sims 4 you NEED mods or expansions to enjoy sims 4, that base game is oof that should tell everyone something
So much yes to this! I never had any expansion packs before TS3, and even then I played only the base game for years without getting bored. The World Adventures pack broke my computer, so I had to return it unfortunately :( Later, my cousin passed 3 of his expansion packs to me - the get to work one, university, and pets. Those 3 packs made TS3 a full simulation game for me, and when I had to move and couldn’t take my desktop PC, I was heartbroken to have lost TS3 - my laptop has no CD/DVD player, and when I purchased it through Origin, it wouldn’t run :( I miss TS3 every day, I still had so many new things to look forward to despite playing for years! TS4 with all the packs is still boring as hell, and I hate that I can’t even play as the pets, which was my favourite anxiety healing thing about TS3: while my Sim was at work, instead of fast forwarding time, I’d play as puppies and make them play fetch or run around, and it gave me so much happiness. I miss TS3 every day 😔💕
I personally need packs to enjoy TS3. I LOVE TS3, but I need a few packs to enjoy it, especially before I started using CC because the base game clothes/hair are so ugly.
@@darlingstarsgaming i mean, yeah the basegame CAS is super tragic, but i had only basegame for a good two years before i got WA, seasons and fastlane, i had so many mods before i got those expansions i had to get rid of most of them just to have room to install the expansions theres lots of basegame CAS and build thats super amazing, most of it is unfortunately on TSR but meh, i dont mind redownloading now that you can for free but i still remember having a ton of fun with 3 without the mods too, mostly with my little bro and making meme sims to have fun i dunno i guess with all sims games its how you make your own fun right? you can be happy with the basegame so long as the kinda fun you want to have doesnt really require mods
For me, one of the notable things missing in TS4 is the lack of unexpected risks, like burglars, annoying neighbors, death in early life stages, and how it was difficult to earn simoleons and how it was easier to lose them. Oh, and TS4 has no notable NPC.
The strangest part is that they very easily could have tied the seperate universe of Sims4, into the larger universe of Sims1, 2 and 3. Which in turn might have have a good setup for Sims5 even. One way they could have done this was with the help of previously already established easter eggs. In Sims3 there is a pretty interesting easter egg involving a purchasable book by the name of "Murder in Pleasantview", with the author of that book being none other than Alexander Goth (son of Bella Goth). This should be impossible however since Sims3 takes place 50 years before Sims2. And that's where time travel comes in. So what I think they could have done is just make it so that according to the lore, Alexander went back in time and wrote a book about his mother's disappearance and in doing so created a new time line, seperate from the main time line. A time line where Bella never got abducted in the first place, hence why she is still living with them in the new Sims4 time line. And if they ever bring preset occurrences back like they did in Sims2, they could have made it so that when you load in the goth family in Sims5 (now made up of an older Cassandra and Alexander), the household starts with Alexander hoping out of a time machine and subsequently continuing the story from Sims2. Sims team just got really lazy imo.
This is such a great idea - and the simplicity of it makes me sad that the devs couldn't have done this when the Sims 4 was released. I really would like to give the sims team the benefit of the doubt, and hope that it wasn't just laziness that forced them to make the alternate timeline decision (instead, being pushed by crunches and deadlines from higher up)... but with every year and sub-par piece of DLC that goes by I am struggling to give them that. I think its a good sign that the devs are bringing in prominent sims content creators in to help with content such as builds in new packs - but I hope for the sims 5 they bring them in (and take feedback from the wider base of players) from the very beginning to develop the lore and stories. Thanks for your comment! :)
@@YasminsCorner Yeah it's really sad seeing one of my favourite game franchises fall from grace like it did, but I'm hoping (praying even) that they can do better with sims5. And thank u for replying😁
Really well researched video! I’ve always interpreted that quote “support and nurture our communities long term” to be corporate speak to mean “Drag out a game as long as possible to avoid the costly development process of a new game and suck every penny out of consumers that they’re willing to spend on one game”
Right now, I'm playing a lot of sims 3. I barely have any mods outside story progression. And i'm amazed at how much there is to do. How much fun even basic gameplay with families is. The sims 4 gets boring to me even with mods. I get bored after a couple days and will stop playing for months ( I also have all sims 4 expansions). overall, its just sad to see what has happened to the series.
I agree! Yesterday I started a new household in the sims 3 and went to one of the World Adventures worlds... its crazy to me that in the Sims 3's first expansion pack we got three pretty much full worlds to explore in a way which is totally different to the home worlds. Compare that to the tiny worlds we get in the Sims 4 which are more or less entirely made of unexplorable set dressing! Here's hoping the Sims 5 will be a return to form for the series... thank you for commenting :)
@@YasminsCorner I truly wish they would give up on pushing out more packs. After High School Years, I’m done. Werewolves was mid, but still pretty bad. I hate how they’re separating occults into these tiny ass worlds with little gameplay for the occults. I don’t understand why they are regressing to the original Sims formula, but even shittier. They need to stop and start all over with TS5. People have been begging for the TS5 for years. They really think they can get away with TS4 for another couple of years and have no plans for TS5? Pfffffft, I’m over it.
My absolute favorite thing to do in TS3 is have my sim wander the world collecting seeds and take them home to plant straight into the dirt. They’ll have a great day out on their little journey, seeing everything in their town and make plans for what to do after working on their garden. And YC is right, World Adventures was absolutely amazing, I loved how immersed I could get into the gameplay of TS3. Just thinking about it makes me excited for when I’ll be able to play it again. But whenever I think about any of my TS4 saves, any excitement stems from exploring mod features I haven’t touched yet or looking for new CC/mods.
going through the comments and seeing people talk about how The Sims used to be a little raunchier is bringing back a particularly fond memory: having adult swim playing in the background and seeing a commercial for Sims 3 Late Night. i don't remember seeing another commercial anywhere else.
Thankyou for such an informative video. For me, one of the best examples of "sanitizing" was the sexy dancer who popped out of the cake in Sims 1. While Sims 2 and 3 didn't have them, one can see the (in my opinion) Innocent sexy animations fitting into the 2 and 3 world. Where as , were the Sims 4 to do it, only a klutzy , goofy clown would probably pop out of the cake. The over the top goofiness was the reason I stopped playing Sims 4. The heavy lean toward "Young Children Only" sucked. I don't miss the sims 4. AT ALL. lol
Thank you for watching and commenting! :) this is such a great example. It really is interesting to see how the level of 'raunchy' / suggestive content in the sims games have changed over time, compared with the audiences of the games (and especially thinking about the older audiences who have the money to buy all the DLC being pushed out). As a young adult I have still found a lot of enjoyment in the sims 4, but I agree - most goofy things are mildly amusing once, then bordering patronising every time after. I hope this is something they tune better in the sims 5 when we eventually get it!
It is funny that a game turned into this kid friendliness goofy cartoony joke doesn’t even have many sim kid objects, hairs, clothes - content in general 👏💀
I recently bought old copies of the Sims 1 and 2 and several expansion due to nostalgia and being bored with 4. And to my surprise it is just as hard to keep the Sims alive and happy as it was when I was a kid! Everything is much harder and more lively than in 4!
I've watched a few videos of people playing Sims 1 recently and they all talk about how damn hard it is. God, I remember making friends and keeping them just being the worst, even when you only needed *household* friends instead of friends for each person. Even with one sim just dedicated to making friends to support someone else's career it was rough.
One of the things I can't believe they changed is the colour customizer. You used to be able to pick a unique hair colour or change the colour of furniture items. There literally isn't a hair colour that's accurate to mine (in my opinion) and its frustrating I can't add roots or highlights like before. I know that's a small thing but that's exactly why I don't understand why they never added it. Another thing is I used to love sending sims into lighthouses or making them explore. I don't feel the need to do any of that in the sims 4... there's not much to find.
This feels like a fair and balanced analysis. Going backs to sims 1 (my first sims game) I was amazed just how edgy it was, but sims 3 is my favourite.
I’m still ridiculously mad about the Calientes, especially how they completely stripped away their Arab heritage, apparently it was because Nighats name was inappropriate??? Just change her name to another Arab name
I don't think changing the name would be right either! Why would you censor a foreign name just because it sounds similar to something innapropriate? I understand that it's an unfortunate coincedence, but... The English language is not more important than others, I guess :') (not disagreeing with you at all, I'm more talking about EA!)
The Sims 1 and 2 were openly making fun of hyper consumerism but The Sims 4 is soulless product that we are pouring hundreds of euroes into just to have some gameplay
As someone who's not played the sims 1 and 2, I really appreciate this interesting observation! What a shift the series has gone through over the years...
I might be alone in this but I really miss when the sims had a story mode with levels like busting out or the sims 1 on game cube. There was all kinds of unique challenges and characters for each level it genuinely felt engaging and at some times even difficult but in a way you still felt incentive to keep going and keep trying to get to the next level. There was actually a sense of reward and accomplishment in everything you did weather it was unlocking a new item or getting to a new career level. it had *weight.* I miss that so much 😭
Great video! I actually enjoy sims 4 but that’s because I use a lot of cc/mods. Without those, the game is lackluster and requires way too much money for packs that are disappointing
Thank you!! Believe it or not I do enjoy the game too: I checked on origin and I’ve clocked in over 2000 hours!😂 I agree though - I definitely need to get back into the mods and maxis match CC game for sureeee!🥰
Agreed! I had to explain my frustration to my husband (who hears me complain about the game constantly). I don’t hate the game (I actually prefer the graphics, and I think CAS and Build Mode are fantastic) but to get any kind of good gameplay I need to mod it. This is the first sims game where I’ve felt this need.😢
Great question! I am by no means an avid CC / mod user but I find Pinterest to be a great place to find them - they will often direct you towards creators who have sites or blogs where they post all their stuff! Also people make great videos on TH-cam of their CC hauls which I used to love watching - especially for CAS stuff. Hope this helped! :)
seeing bridgeport makes me nostalgic, that was my favorite pack. i’m lucky that my ancient laptop can run the sims 4, but if I could go back to 3 I would
I dont know if it made a diff to the team but I wonder if they changed Caliente twins mums name because they've a blanket ban on names beginning with "Nig". It wouldn't let me upload a ts2 fam with Nighat, or Ophelia Nigmos' real name (notice their own official recreation of the specter fam gives her the wrong surname of Spector. A name her aunt got of her third husband)
I'll say it's my opinion 4 is on an alternate timeline just like the vid says, scrapped half their game and scrambled to get something somewhat suitable for release. Also why none of the stories in the bios are actually reflected in game.
It absolutely blows my mind that sims 4 has been around for that long. I grew up with ts2 and ts3 and for some reason I feel like those were way longer. But numbers don’t lie! It’s just one of those things I mentally can’t accept 😂
right? sims 2 came out in 2004, and even though you can't buy it as easily anymore, people still think it's the holy grail and it's nearly 20 💀 wtf is maxis doing
The Sims on PC and The Sims on consoles were originally seperate universes. But now The Sims 4 is the same game on both PC and consoles. We basically have a multi-platiform universe covering both PC and consoles now. But every game in the main series to date eventually got released on consoles, they are always made as if they are going to be a PC exclusive. IDK.
I feel like a Sims game for a broader audience (including children) could work if they'd dip more into that cozy Slice of Life aesthetic. All these shenanigans with cowplants, depressed clowns, etc. matched with the quirkyness worked perfectly in the earlier games but now, in The Sims 4 it kinda feels out of place. Don't get me wrong, I love stuff like that and I would like it if TS4 would decide to add more mature jokes. But what they kinda do right now feels like they can't decide in what direction they should go. As if they can't decide if it should be completely child-friendly and fit everyone or if it should cater to players who are there since the earlier games. Maybe that's why cottage living is one of my, if not the, favourite packs. Since it knows what it's going for. There isn't the Awkwardness of a few raunchy jokes in between this otherwise so child-friendly and calm environment. It knows what it's going for, it works fine (at least I never really experience bugs because of CL) and yes, it's different from the older games but it manages to handle it well. Also the references like Agnes Crumplebottom don't feel forced onto you. Because with some references and characters I feel like Sims 4 is screaming at you "HEY SEE! DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? YEA WE HAVE THAT TOO!!" I wish they could decide if they want to go for a cute calm game or a game similar to the older games. Oh and also make it work because I feel like everytime a new Update comes, one bug gets fixed and four new occur.
This is such a valid point: since writing this video and considering the more child-friendly direction of the Sims 4, I have considered doing a deep dive into who the target audience of this game really is. Like you say: younger audiences, or those of us who have already experienced previous games in the series? I totally agree with you though, it seems like the Sims 4 is a jack of all trades, but a master of none in terms of the vibe it is trying to achieve... the Cottage Living pack certainly felt like an example of when the devs had a crystal clear idea for the outcome they wanted to produce: I hope this is something they are able to achieve with future packs! :)
Agreed! I honestly hate how they’re trying to make the Sims child friendly. They already have that with My Sims. The Sims is rated T, not E and I don’t understand why they are trying to go that route. I played The Sims since I was 4 and I turned out fine. I wish we would stop catering for helicopter diaper sniffing parents. What happened to if you don’t like, don’t buy it?
Bro I've said this for years! Sims 4 has a problem with establishing game atmosphere because it lacks details. Those cooking animations in the Sims 4 are a crime, not to mention they've completely ripped out reality to work in lazy game functions. Seriously? Our Sims don't go to stores because it's too much work for the gamer? I believe it's too much work for EA! Today, the Sims 4 is afraid of being mundane or slow. Everything has to have effects or cut back. There is no way the Sims 4 is going to convince me to buy a "bust the dust" pack for vacuuming when they couldn't even get their act together to code a pathfinding animation so that our Sims could actually move when vacuuming the floor! Rarely any of the animations that comes in packs are unique or try to add detail, but why would Sims 4 even care about detail if they can hide behind fans shouting that the low poly, unfinished models they give us are part of the aesthetics. So many people crap on the Sims 3 for being ugly, and you can call the base models that, but the game itself is GOREGEOUS. The details in textures, lighting, shading, effects and I personally love putting my graphics on the highest of settings. This new style is totally a crutch and a lazy way out of crafting something genuine with care. People say ts2 and ts3 age badly, but I disagree. I disagree greatly infact when you can go into the game and still appreciate the smaller life like details that sets the mood. We don't have those details anymore which I'd argue are necessary for a LIFE SIMULATION game. Hell, it's the reason so many people scout for alpha cc and "realistic" mods when adding cc to the game! I feel like people _want_ realism but they're okay with the "stylistic" choices of Sims 4 because "it's so cute" but even looking at these fake Sims 5 trailers people put together, there is always an admiration towards the look of realism.
Are there even children who play TS4? I feel like the majority of their audience would be young adults who have grown up with the franchise. Dumbing a game down won’t attract children if they aren’t already interested; also, EA makes war games and whatnot that children actually play, so I don’t buy their “child-friendly” excuse.
I'm 27, and over the years I've played the sims chronologically, starting with the original sims game. The first two games and it's spin-offs had this specific feel, idk how to explain it, tongue in cheek humor that got lost on the way. It was very campy, with plenty of adult humor and a ton of lore. The thing is, this started to change earlier, when The Sims 3 was launched. While the base game release was well received (although many had problems running it without lagging and incredibly long loading screens), we all noticed a shift starting to happen with the release of later expansion packs. Timelines changed within each neighborhood, lore was ignored, etc. We were all very excited for The Sims 4 to come out, and to see the many flaws of The Sims 3 improved and the gameplay expanded upon, since most of us fans perceived it as a downgrade from The Sims 2. And then...yeah, we all know what happened.
TS4 has longer loading screens and makes you never want to leave your house. TS3 has long loading screens, but it’s open-world and loading screens don’t happen often.
this is very true, I also played the sims chronologically kinda from the sims 2 but that's cuz I'm only 18 and my bday is the same year as sims 2! things didn't rlly look good from the getgo w sims 4 and the stuff w Bella in sims 3 lunar lakes, and how the creators just couldn't explain it.. lol
@@mclijah6472 now that computers are a lot faster than the bricks we originally played sims 2 on, the loading screens are A LOT faster than TS4. Mine is almost instant and that’s with mods and CC. Saving and everything insanely fast. But I do have a very new new computer. I think even a decent computer in todays standards would still run TS2 super smooth and very quick.
In regards to sanitization of the vibe. I think it’s a combination of wanting to appeal to everyone to rake in the most money, but also wanting to make sure anything that might be construed as non inclusive or offensive be scrubbed to try best to avoid the professionally offended. That said, I also think the person that said it was a different time where we accepted different things for teens is also true. I’ve been saying how 80s/90s teen movies seem to treat their audience with more respect than modern ones. Modern teen movies feel the same, extremely sanitized and all ages friendly, compared to a Breakfast Club or something. Like it almost feels like they’re made for 13 year olds as opposed to 16 year olds. It’s funny because I remember being a kid and feeling like The Sims was even more risque than something like GTA, cos my Sims could do it and stuff. That was part of the appeal.
The sims 2 was way ahead of its time. Out of the clumsyness of the sims 1, evolved and felt really new and fresh. The sims 3 expanded into worldbuilding and simulation, while feeling authentical Sims experience. But sims 4 feels... Like a downgrade. Even worse then going from sims 3 to sims 2. Its like the sims original but with more content and paywalls.
When I was younger I played sims 3 pets on console (no expansions or anything) for YEARS then when I finally got sims 4 on console I bought every pack as it came out and loved it but now that I've gotten into PC and bought the sims 3 ( and every pack) I see how much the sims 4 was a rip off. Build mode is it's only redeeming factor imo there's next to no gameplay in it
Interesting, in the brazilian portuguese version the goth family is called Família Caixão (Coffin family) Bella's name is Laura and Mortimer is Vladmir
Personally I choose to believe that fan theory with Alexander goth time travelling, thus creating the sims 4 timeline. It makes it more fun and it gives some depth to the game in my mind at least. I agree about the other comments about lack of lore, sanitization, color wheel, and soulless gameplay. I also believe all this happened because the game was meant to be online multiplayer and not because of laziness !
Sims 4 feels like it's catered to people who want TOTAL CONTROL of the stories they tell with the Sims, and to me that feels the same as having no story at all. If I have to deliberately introduce challenges by hamstringing them myself... it means there's no challenge. With previous Sims games, you didn't always know who would get along, what you might find, or what strange or unexpected thing was coming around the corner, and there was a lot of weirdness spread throughout it. I miss that, but the direction seems to be taking it into even more sanitized territory, which is... impressive in a sad way.
About towns and loading screens. I remember living through anticipation of that as well. The weirdest thing for me, looking back now at all of those experiences with Sims 4, isn't "they're not free-faring, open towns are better", but rather an amount of web-game identity each area has. And it makes sense now - it WAS supposed to be a multiplayer game which use this exact sort of style for locations. For me personally Sims 3 wasn't a very nice experience, I played it quite a bunch, yeah, but there were so many complicated and necessary buildings that just weren't mine and I didn't want for them to be. Sims 4 continued that trend and gave you all those towns without, again, a lack of ability to create your own neighbourhoods like Sims 1 and Sims 2 did. Only Newcrest in a base game was... "empty", but it was stuck with a name of a town that doesn't work, that can't be personalised, that can't be made into a completely new town, names have weight, that's why every sim is called by the player (excluding unwanted Walkers Walkers as I've renamed them) rather than every sim being Lucy Lue that is just that type of a new Lucy, not a new name. Every town had a forged identity, it's own "attractions" and buildings on the background that don't match the style of your own constructions, and therefore you couldn't shape something your own from the ground, though with this pretty simplified direction you should've have. You can't just destroy every weird little lamppost, outdoor grill and benches to make the place your own, it's rather a shape of a certain part of the real world that always throws you off while trying to imagine any other style. Base unmodded clothes have a similiar weirdness to them - they're all in a certain style of hip normcore, which I started to notice only when I started studying fashion more seriously. That style matches a fantasy that people who imagined base neighbourhoods live in rather than something people would actually put on their sims. I don't mean nobody would, but I've seen so many people even on youtube complaining that the fashion is just not okay this time. Including the exclusion of the colour wheel from Sims 3, it's like creativity is just not allowed this time. Even Sims 2 had custom coloured clothing, yes it's in a pack and hand-made with only one base, but it was something you could pick, like, any colour of, rather than colour palletes that allists think look good (colour is so individual, and neurodivergent/autistic people can have a special reaction on colour - dislike bright colours, like only bright colours, be psychically partially colour blind, be colour hyper-sensitive, relying on a certain colour pallete, like I do). It's all unwanted identity for a game that's supposed to be about creativity. Nobody asked for that identity. People asked for the opened towns (I - for customised ones) and colour wheels. And toddlers, apperantly, the time when toddlers in Sims 4 weren't real was not a dream.
I tried to make a character recently who wears a lot of orange clothes. Hot damn that was nearly impossible. Even when I found orange stuff it either didn't match her style or they were completely different shades of orange.
Very interesting and on point. I've been playing since sims 1 and still play 1, 2 and 3 to this day. When Sims 4 came out I bought a few expansions but soon gave up. There's some great stuff in it but overall it lacks the soul of the other sim games. And yes, I agree it feels very much targeted at children. If you haven't played sims 2 I would highly advise it. The performance is excellent. There are tons mods out there and you'll never have to worry about updating them because it's a finished game. Plus the gameplay is chef's kiss!
I feel you! I think the lack of soul is definitely what makes me leave the sims 4 so regularly. Yes, some amazing folks in the comments here have pointed me towards how I can get the game today given that EA don’t give it away anymore 😭 I’ll definitely be trying to play it ASAP!❤️
@@YasminsCorner Thank you very much for your reply! It amazes me that EA doesn't sell TS2 anymore. I'm sure it will sell very well because younger people didn't get a chance to buy the cd's back in the day. I hope you'll get it figured out and would love to see a video of your reaction! 💖
Agreed. I regret buying every pack for TS4. I thought that with each new pack, it would get better like all the other games, but it didn’t. TS2 and TS3, you could play the base game nearly all on it’s own without getting bored or frustrated fast. The packs were just add-ons for more fun. But, TS4 feels more like you need all the packs just to play. The only thing I like about TS4 is the building. Everything else sucks.
It's because of the EA/Maxis absorption and drama. From the 2000s-2013, basically Sims 1-3, Will Wright and the original development and production team were still involved because EA continued to let Maxis be an independent studio, relatively free to design and develop games as they wish, hence why it had a more adult/black humor/satirical theme and tone and also why they were more challenging. After the failure of Spore and the 2013 SimCity reboot, EA pushed out and away Wright and all of the original producers, devs, writers, etc, shutdown all of the Maxis studios, laid off most of the staff, and essentially replaced them with their own people, and hence why we have this game: designed by committee and focus groups, made safe to appeal to everyone and to the make shareholders and investors happy; lack of content because it was initially meant to be an online/multiplayer game only, but after SimCity 2013 failed, they scaled it back to single player and just made up for it by $900 worth of DLCs and stuff packs. So yes you are right that Sims 4 is effectively a reboot as far as a new Sims game under new management and dev teams and more directly under EA's control and meddling.
Thank you so much for all this great behind the scenes info! I think a lot of it will come in handy for the next video I am writing! I was wondering if you had any references to articles, interviews etc which discusses this more in-depth? No worries if you don’t though! Again thank you for commenting, and I hope you enjoyed the video! :)
It's so ironic that they said they wanted TS4 to run better on low end PCs when the whole game until now was massively monetized. I also think TS4 is childish and imo, if your game had a rating for teenager but the largest audience is between their middle 20s and 30s, you gotta find the way to make them happy without violating the restrictions, and that honestly doesn't sound so hard, most people don't even pay attention to risky things
Ah yessss!! I 100000% recommend the Sims 3! Just be sure to look elsewhere (other than Origin) for expansion packs as EA are still selling them for full price - I believe Steam sells them cheaper :) If you do pick it up, I hope you enjoy it!!
The Sims 3 is worth your times, you will roam around the world to find a collectibles or simply watch another sims everyday life. And compared to The Sims 2, you could have a big family while focused only to one sim because of better AI, slower needs decay, and faster need filling interaction (eat, peeing, talking, etc). You will get more thing done to do something else that The Sims 3 expansion packs offer.
This is very interesting video for someone who didn’t play older sims - really good video. I would say this is not so uncommon in gaming. A lot of the big franchises got reboots between the PS3/PS4 gen - The Sims, Mass Effect, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Dragon Age. All are okay games but they all lost a little something something in terms of the characters/lore etc. The look got spruced up and it’s mostly the same but there’s a little something missing from the heart and soul. I think the developers in general are trying to steer away from things they saw as problematic, push more of their politics at the sake of gameplay and steer towards monetisation and I don’t think we’re ever really going to go back to those good old days of gaming. I don’t think new devs have the passion older devs used to have and aren’t there for the right reasons.
Thank you for sharing this interesting observation! I've only played the 2013 Tomb Raider - so I'm not too familiar with changes which occurred in those series. Although, I will say that I noticed a similar shift between older Animal Crossing games, and Animal Crossing New Horizons. Many of the old NPCs were missing, as well as many tasks which old fans of the series were used to seeing. Its a sad thought relating to the present / future of the gaming industry, but I expect you are right :(
I completely agree with this. Look what’s happening with Saints Row rn and hopefully doesn’t happen to GTA6. That game is in my prayers. These newer games lack so much that I’m stuck playing older games, at least I’m saving money though I guess.
Yasmin this was quite a good take!!It is quite clear they are catering for younger audiences- hell most of the generation who started playing as kids with ts1 and onwards are in the thirties and mid-thirties now (myself included in that braket). When you talked about the raunchy aspect, definitely try the ts1 and ts2, those romantic interactions were something else 😆 do keep these videos up gal x
the sims 4 makes me sad. ive been playing the games for as long as i can remember (mostly the console games, and ts1+ 2) and it means a lot to me and so does its stories. all of that backstory and theory crafting was thrown away with ts4, we probably won't see the main story as it was again. my favourite sims are pascal, nervous and olive and i just KNOW they would never give nervous' story what it deserves. yes, it's incredibly dark but thats why it's so interesting - it WASNT obvious! it was a very subtle kind of horror that made you curious enough to dig deeper. ts2 and ts3 COULD be enjoyed by kids but really feels like it's for an older audience. ts4 feels like the opposite to me. everything about the sims 4 makes me so sad. the over monetisation, gameplay downgrades, sanitisation and basterdisation of the lore.
I didn't know about Project Olympus, to me that makes sooo much sense why Sims 4 is so bare bones. Lack of Cars? Sims 4 being an intended Online game, probably was intended to drive around in an online World with other players and the mechanic with it was scrapped when the project became abandoned. The obsession with loading screens was most likely a quickly rushed mechanic on the Sims 4 engine during Sims 4 development. None open world? Same applies, rushed effort to the point things were poorly implemented in the engine development. Cartoony graphics? Project Olympus was probably intended to be a cross platform for multiple Consoles, of which some didnt have a strong hardware system. Explains why lack of Create a Style, explains why no lot size modifier option and so much more.
I dunno what to think anymore. I loved Sims 2... I didn't like Sims 3 immediately, but grew to really enjoy it. I remember really disliking the Dev house builds and non-cc color swatches etc (every house was poorly designed and looked like a granny lived there). I was able to run Sims 3 on an average but decent PC at that time and only had major issues with extreme builds and... having a lot of things in my pocket... I defended Sims 4 at first because it had a fantastic build mode which kept improving and I really enjoy building in the game. However, I just cannot defend the gameplay anymore. It's so meh. I just don't enjoy playing in the worlds I create. I'll let ya'll put your finger on it, but I just enjoyed playing in Sims 2 and 3 a LOT more.
Honestly one thing I hated straight off with Sims 4 and hate to this day is how small each world is. They are *tiny*! I just went and looked up Monte Vista from the Sims 3 and it has a total of 37 pre-built residential lots, plus the community lots, plus something like 20 empty lots (15 residential and 5 community). Then I looked up Brindleton Bay in Sims 4 and it has 11 residential lots - 7 pre-built and 4 empty. Even worse something like Mt Komorebi that only has 6 residential lots unless you count the rentals. Any time I want to move one of my families to a better house I have to spend about 10 minutes going through every world just trying to find the small handful that are both unoccupied and in their price range, and if I want them to actually live somewhere with a specific vibe? lol you must be dreaming, half the time you need to evict someone because every single property in that town is occupied. There's barely even any choice in starter homes. Also hate that PlantSims are a temporary life state. They've always been one of my favourites and now they're not even a real thing. I've been trying to get the Sims 3 running again over the last few days with no real luck, but honestly, 2 and 3 were both pretty good. I might just install 2 tomorrow.
Even the Sims 2 had larger worlds... mostly because you could build them yourself! You could even import worlds using Simcity 4 and make them as large or as tiny as you wanted!! It was incredibly innovative for it's time!
I tried so hard to like TS4, I gave it so many chances, but i cant do that anymore. if they are going to continue to babyfie the game and not do simple bug testing i cant give you any of my money. It sucks because i have been playing TS1 base game it has been with me for my entire adult life and i have watched it go downhill.
I find myself spending hours in builmode, witch is a lot easier to use than previous versions, but then I start playing and quickly get bored of the gameplay and leave it for months at a time. I've been playing since sims 1, I just find sims 4 too easy, not interesting, not challenging, my favorite is sims 3 even if I have to read a full book while it loads
This has been going on for a long time tbh. I don’t have any personal experience with TS1, but TS3 is more sanitized than TS2. Some of the old TS2 launch trailers are interesting when comparing it, particularly the ones meant to show off the aging aspect and aspirations.
The Sims 3 was absolutely where the big problems with the series started, but it's a good enough game on its own that I'm personally willing to overlook those flaws. The same cannot be said of The Sims 4.
Really liked this video. Im glad to hear other Sims channels talk about EA's issues and the over pricing. I often dont hear a lot about it. Although I am happy that the Sims 4 is going free-to-play, I can't help but think that it's about damn time. Sims 4 came out in 2014 as a very stripped down Sims game. Sims 3 had a glitchy release but it was still a game with lots of content in it, even without the expansions. Sims 4 felt unfinished and rushed, and I remember thinking it did for the first 3 years it was released. In my eyes, the Sims 4 didn't feel finished until they had slapped enough 40 dollar expansion packs onto the game that just should've been in the game *in the first place.*
The Sims 4 is a GREAT architecture simulator with VERY barebones life sim elements lol. I really want Paralives to be a genuine sims competitor, but I’m afraid that judging by the soft pastel art style it’s just gonna be another feel-good game like TS4. We’ll have to see.
You should be paying more attention to the features they’re working on and the open communication they have with their base than the art style. That alone already tells me that even if that were the case, Paralives would much more be worth my time, unlike EA that bullshits and lies whenever it’s convenient and uses its player base as unpaid testers.
@@vvvye and depends on modders to fix their own game and add features they don’t have time for or are too lazy to do themselves. It’s like having their own personal unpaid group of people making content for their game to keep the player base from completely ditching the game. When 1 modder on their spare time can do more than a whole multibillion dollar company’s team = sad.
Honestly makes me sad to play the Sims 4. I can only handle TS2 and TS3 now, because TS4 is so... family-friendly. There's no spice or substance, just a cash grab. Makes me sad I grew up more on TS4 than older games.
I am traumatized after that hs dlc for the sims 4. I can't believe how overwhelmingly disappointing it was. I haven't played the sims 4 since. Instead, I play the sims 3 and I truly realized everything I was missing. I don't think I'm going to go back anytime soon.
I've been playing The Sims for many years and I have the same feeling, the later version is less adult... I don't think that's bad, that's just different. Awesome video!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏
Yes I do have weird issues recording the sims 3 through OBS - I’ve noticed other creators have it too! By default it comes up very dark in OBS so you have to play around with the colour correction settings to brighten it - I think I’ll need to play around with them a little more next time I record any sims 3 😅
I really believe Sims 4 did an alternative universe just because they wanted to show familiar faces with no issues with timelines, allowing them to place these families at any expansion with no issue if the timeline fits.
I have to say that the alternate timeline is something that I prefer because it's unsustainable for said timeline to keep moving backwards as it did from sims 1 to sims 3 whilst *also* having the technology improve. Of course, they could've brought back the sims 1 or sims 2 time and resume flow the correct way, but then, I think it mostly comes to the lack of lore in this alternate timeline - had it been as fleshed out as sims 2 - or even sims 3 - I don't think nearly as many players would've complained about the Alternate Timeline idea.
Conceptually, there isn't anything wrong with TS4 being set in an alternate timeline. However, a good concept can be poorly executed, and that's exactly what happened...
The Sims 4 originally being an online multiplayer game kind of frames everything wrong about the game, to be honest. The foundation of the game was meant for another kind of game to be played, and the long-time length of this installment and the obscene amount of content being released in increments really feels like a DLC model more tiered towards microtransactions (kits). It’s just a very sly repurposing of what they already were going to do combined with the game release model from the older games, but for a Single Player Experience
I have played every sims game even before sims 1 came out I played just sims where you build amusement park and I played sims city 🏙 but when sims 1 came out I was hooked and loved the game so much more then sims 2 was bedder and sims 3 was my favorite ❤ have not been a huge fan of sims 4 since it came out 😢 tried it hated it would not play it again for years till pools and toddlers came into the game but still felt it was missing things 😢it finally feels like it has more to play now after 8 years and there’s so many bugs in the games 😢 makes me sick to finally have all the games to play and all the bugs with them! Disappointed in EA for sure that they haven’t done better with sims 4 than they did with sims 3 😡
I remember seeing the sims 2 woohoo cutscenes and wondering how ts2 got a 7+ rating fjcjc sims 4 could never. one thing i also remember was playing ts2 on my dad's laptop and making my sims try for baby and gettining paranoid that my dad would walk in I'd have to awkwardly explain what i was doing. I miss the personality of sims 2. It was fun, weird and out there. It had a lot of attention to detail to it and all the sims had personality I have one word to sum up the reason why sims 4 sucks: capitalism EA being too greedy and stripping the game down to bare minimums for the lowest common denominator and ignorring why players love the sims. EA splitting expansion packs down into game packs and design packs and packs and packs.
No one seems to ever talk about how even more content than usual was cut from the Sims 4 compared to the other sims games. Babies and pools used to be base game content. They cut them out to sell them to you in 4 😡 oh and as for alternate timelines and other fan theories, I bet the explanation is way simpler than all that, the devs just had no clue what they were doing.
It definitely doesn't help that a lot of the developers who worked on the original Sims games, probably aren't working at Maxis anymore. I mean, Will Wright was the creator and he left shortly after the Sims 3 base game was released!! Meaning he wasn't even involved in the Sims 4 whatsoever.
I’m 30 and probably among the oldest in the fan base. I was starting to think it was all in my head and that I’m simply expecting too much from a children’s game. But you’re right, the older games were more mature.
You are no way near the oldest, we have lost some simmers due to dying of old age. suitcase, drink and hula zombies await them, as for those gone too soon. A sad loss each and every time.
I think a lot of the problems do boil down to laziness and knowing that no matter what they do they’ll have people that’ll buy it (seemingly especially when it’s something that should’ve just been base game or included in a previous pack). Every time I think about the gameplay quality drop I’m reminded of the ways in which games have changed, specifically this one. The Sims used to be a CD computer game. They had to make sure everything was up to par before sending these packages out, 100%, because otherwise that would mean a recall and a loss of time and profit. However, now, through Origin, they see fit to update whenever they please and as such seem to feel no need to spend the time testing and making sure they’re sending out a product that they can actually be proud of when instead they can make their player base do that for them instead for free. It’s absolute bull, especially with the game breaking updates some packs have resulted in. Aside from that, I’m confused about the Caliente “white washing”. I definitely noticed it with Bella’s original TS4 design, but I don’t see anything wrong or otherwise off about those two. If anything they just don’t strike me as being as pretty as their TS2 counterparts. Meanwhile I’m confused about the redesign choice for Alexander Goth; what was wrong with him taking more after their pale father? Edit: As for Sims 5, quite frankly I don’t want to see it. If this is what they have to offer now then I can’t see them doing any better because that means they’d actually have to start listening to their players. Not to mention the fact that games are often representative of the times, and I very much so fear what TS5 would look like should our society (societies?) continue to head in the puritanical direction things seem to be headed.
I appreciate that TS4 runs better, Ts3 burnt my laptop to a crisp. But really I miss the charm of the old games. Bustin Out, the Urbz, TS2... Now it's mostly fun for house building and adult mods like basemental... Etc. ;)
For a long time up until just recently I was under the impression that TS4 actually had a different ESRB rating than the previous games. I guess in retrospect I should have known that TS4 would still have a T rating because it still contains mature themes but it definitely seems way more tame when compared to it's predecessors, especially TS2.
I feel like one aspect the sims 5 needs that I think people don't really mention often but kind of group it into "gameplay" but, I Job progressions need actual difficutly. My sim can go from being rank1 in a career to the max rank in a day of playing the sims. Just being in a good mood and having the skills to progress so rapidly kills momentum and gameplay. Take the sims 1 as an example. Your sim starts off in a shithole, you get a job and make minor funds to just slowly build your house up. Then you start getting promoted, you can relax a bit as you have some decent stuff. Then you hit the progression wall which is "Friends/networking". This system encourages you to go out, make friends and socialise but it also made job progression DIFFICULT. You no longer were able to just jump from rank 1 to rank 6 in a day. You had to actually work for the money at a certain point.
The way I see it, EA is clearly just trying to widen their audience as much as possible, to maximise profits, and usually when companies do this with their beloved franchises it ends up alienating their core fanbase. There's a good chance that there are people working on the game who feel the same frustrations we do with the game being sanitised and overly toned down, but don't really have much of a say on the matter. This is why I'm hopeful that we'll start seeing more competitors like Paralives coming out, at the moment the sims is the only big game franchise we have in the life sim genre, and I think some competition could benefit the genre as a whole. I wouldn't mind the sims 4 being a toned back, child friendly game if I had other options beyond the sims 3 (since the other 2 aren't even available for purchase anymore) that catered more towards my playstyle. Although it's nice to see the resurgence that the sims 3 community has had in recent years.
Back in the day I used to have just TS3 base game with Generations and Late Night without any CC or mods. Oh my... I was addicted playing sims and I had so much fun with only those packs. I could go hours even days playing with my families. Now even if I have Sims 4 with a bunch of packs and kits it's feeling lacking and super easy to achieve that sometimes I ask myself "what the hell I'm supposed to do now". Even the worlds in Sims 4 feel empty to me. I was totally surprised when I could revive my sim with the wishing well meanwhile in the Sims 3 you have to work your way to revive your sims and same with other things like careers, relationships, money even skills. Sims 3 has a very special place in my heart as my first sims game and even with every new gameplay I discover small details that makes me appreciate it more. And I know that I have to try Sims 2 too!
making the basegame free is definitely to get more people into the game and to buy the actual packs. i got my basegame free in 2019 when it was offered for like a few days, and i havent bought any packs bc theyre really expensive and the basegame by itself is just really boring so the temptation is there
TL;DR: I don't think Sims 4's artstyle (and style in general) is bad for being "unrealistic", I think it's bad for being comedic that it didn't deserve. Sims 4's art style, in my opinion, is not "unrealistic", it's simply comedic. Sims 2 was comedic as well, but it was a much more surreal experience, the format of 3D being new, it is more haunting than actually comedic in the end. Sims 3's art style is nothing but un-comedic. And Sims 4's art style is comedic to the bone, including these cartoony "emotions" on the profile picture of the sim. Constant cartoony comedic sighs, looks all around with a tired smile, goofy walks (a ton actually) - all of this comedy with no punchline or surrealism Sims 2 offered. Play-doh look could've worked if it wasn't so "stand-up" hip. It feels like an in-joke between devs rather than something aimed at players. That's my take and my preference in life-sim art styles and tone. You can't take a game seriously if it doesn't take itself seriously as well. Sims 1 and Sims 2 are excused because they were doing a new thing, they needed this humour as coping with weird mechanics. Sims 1 was an "adult doll-house" vision, Sims 2 had that 3D and generations, Sims 3 knew it didn't offer much new and used seriousness to it's adventage, but Sims 4... it's a... yeah. Humour is a huge thing for the Sims franchise, so for many years that thought didn't occur to me. When I was a child, reading Sims 2's descriptions of funny chairs and doors was quite amusing. The humour never really have hurt back then, it was all new, and it was early enough so the joke didn't wear off yet. Now "funny descriptions" are in almost every second game, you can't surprise a player anymore by being witty and lamp-shading. Sims 4 have lost a lot of lore, so this lore in descriptions have lost a marvel for a lore-seeker, remembering all those Bella Goths and Langraabs (I still figure what's their genealogy and which Landgraab is mentioned in any description). All that's left is the game's itself "comedy" which falls flat because the game's fanbase have grown, jokes grew old and more immature (since kids don't recognise old jokes and it's a new experience to them), stereotyping becomes more apperant, and identity with uniqueness become more needed than ever. Back then when Sims 3 came out and it was a bit of a flop for some, we grasped for Sims 4's premise and wondered what it would be. What great feature would be implemented? It's not like a sequel would need any new feature, but it was the Sims - the ultimate Life Simulation genre, there is no reason to think less than invention. And what we've got? "Emotions". I didn't get it at first, I was happy because it was sorta kinda new, and I was falling off the series anyway. But now I understand that each "emotion" is a seperate joke. Happy smiles (who asked to smile?), angry is cartoonishly angry ooh poor boy, sad whimpers though emotions are a common thing to be bullied about, inspired gesticulates in it's body portrait, it's all a poor choice of an art style to begin with. Cartoons aren't bad, I've watched a ton of them in my life, and none of them were bad for being "unrealistic", they were simply bad because they have had bad directions and poor vision. I was blinded by pretty places and body shaping (right! another thing that we were glad about, and now patented, well thanks EA, very inventive of you). Now body shaping seems more like a chore than an addition, there is no reason to use anything but sliders. Body shaping comes with a lot of Oblivion'esque monstrosity-fests, not in a body-shaming sense, but in a different kind of body-shaming sense - for people to make unconventional or unrealistic body proportions and laugh at them rather than to use the tools to their full potential and be serious about it. Being capable to change body shapes doesn't come with innate understanding what those shapes should be. Emotions and body-shaping were more like brainstormed catchy ideas rather than a proven working vision, and they were both comedy-related. They didn't really have a soul. And this comedy never really goes away, even if there a presence of a "lack" of features. It's rather too much. Too much comedy the game didn't earn. If you take away all of this goofiness, you'll be left with a rather less annoying experience, I presume.
Man, if I had a nickel for every time the sims games get crippled under their own weight when you have every DLC, I'd have 2 nickels. Not a lot, but weird that it's happened twice Wait no it's not, EA is fucking lazy and forcing these games out when they should take their time and make a game engine that can actually HANDLE being supported for 5+ years.
I started in Sims 2. But spend most of my time on 3. 4 had too little content or was too expensive to upgrade from so i really havent play much of it. Overall i like the customization of 3. But i miss the IA in sims 2. How can a more primitive game have sims that feel more alive.
I don't get why everything has to be for kids these days. Take Pokémon for example. Obviously it was always aimed at kids but in the older games there was at least some challenge and you had to use your brain a bit. Now it's so easy and holds your hand so much I couldn't even finish brilliant diamond
This video is great, SO spot-on! Sharonia is absolutely right; everything is so walking-on-eggshells nowadays, and people treat teenagers now like literal children instead of... teens. Teenagers know about all kinds of stuff, whether from media (like me, who was totally unsocial in my teens) or from real-life experience, so why is the T rating now used like it's aimed at a younger audience than it is? We're not asking for it to be like freaking 'Euphoria', we just want it to be like The Sims again!
Tried sims4 a few times, idk, I never grew attached to anything and left me feeling frustrated. There are some things I enjoyed but not enough. I still play sims 3, there is just so much to do and explore. It feels to me, it was their peak and I'm not really excited for a Sims 5.
the only reason I'm still playing sims 4 is honestly the multitasking feature tbh other than that... it's modded to the gills to make it enjoyable 🤷 unfortunately I've invested too much time into it 😔
I actually think that there has been a shift in the gaming industry overall. When The Sims 1 and 2 came out, it was never expected that they would be popular among child/teen audiences, it was just sort of a happy accident that so many of us became interested in it at such a young age. PC gaming was largely targeted toward adults; it was rare for a household to have a computer unless they needed it for work or were interested in gaming already, which meant that the majority of PC users were adults. Building a PC back then wasn't very accessible, it was expensive and it was harder to get information than it is now. Not everyone had internet back then, either. Early consoles were made to bring popular arcade games home, and these games were always marketed towards children & teens who were already into arcade gaming, while PC gaming stayed marketed towards adults. Gaming on the PC was inaccessible too, and games were really experimental, clunky, and had loads of rules that needed to be followed to enjoy them. Before TS1, the most popular genres were FPS, simulator, strategy, or MMORPG, all of which weren't particularly easy to get into for children. TS1 was one of the first casual games to be created for the PC, which made it accessible for all ages, and made it one of the first franchises popular among kids rather than nerdy teens and adults. TS1 became the most popular PC game of all time back then, which opened up the market A LOT. TS2 was even bigger and attracted even more kids. It took a long time for the PC gaming industry to realize kids were their own market. Now that PCs are more mainstream, and pretty much every household has the internet, there's plenty of kids who play PC games. It really got big with the success of Minecraft. I think The Sims 4 is the result of the "happy accident" that TS1 and TS2 had being popular amongst kids, along with the gaming industry as a whole shifting towards children. Naturally, TS4 had to be sanitized as hell to be able to meet industry standards and stay within the T for Teen rating. I agree with Sharonia's post about adults being far too protective of their kids when it comes to video games, and this is a reflection of the gaming industry's sanitization as a whole in order to be absolutely marketable and unproblematic for children.
A lot of people have already talked about the maturity lacking in 4 so I won't go into much here (but I wholeheartedly agree with it!) Another big problem I have with 4 is that everyone just is just the same. If you let your sims have autonomy, you can find that even sims who have things like "mean" or "jealous" traits can be just as easily befriended (even romanced) as other sims. The emotion sytem seems to just be about how sims feels about certain rather than how they would react. I like the system in theory, but I feel it needs a second axis operate on. In prevous games with the moodlet system, sims seemed to act apporate to their mood. With one bar of the negtive modifyer basically being them annoyed. While at times they could act rude, they still were failry normal to each other. But at the complete 4 bars of the negative moodlet. Sims with this effect were actually mean to each other, hard to please, and just difflcult to talk to----even for well established relationships. It also prevented you from getting promotions. You had to find ways to "fix" their mood as they usually didn't end after 3 hrs. That's not the case for Sims 4. So I think a hybrid of the systems would be ideal, leading to Sims with even more complexity and varied reactions, thoughts, and feelings. It's really jarring in Sims4 since I like to set up my world with planned friendships, rivalries, relationships, etc. only for me to look away and suddenly the husband whose wife cheated on him with his co-worker/friend is still getting phone calls about going out to eat with said friend. Nothing matters. Sure, sims get "angry" or "embarrassed" but in a couple hours, it's like nothing happened.
A bit unrelated but about the quitkiness of the original Sims: In The Sims 1 when a lightbulb went out, you could get electrocuted rather easily trying to fix it. As a result whenever that happened I just either bought a new lamp or called the repairman. On one such occasion the repairman came, got electrocuted and died. You would think that the game would spawn a new repairman but no, from that point on if you called repair services, a GHOST would come to repair stuff. He would walk in a straight line through the walls to his objective but orherwise behaved the same. Except if you called him towards the end of the workday if the repair took long enough he would stick around at night haunting the place. It was wild.
im honestly so close to just switching over to the sims 3. i started with 4, have gotten very bored and modded my game to the point it barely works just to add substance, and the only reason why i haven't switched is because i literally don't have room on my computer for both games + all my cc lol
My mom used to be a simmer, and she knows how the previous games were more inappropriate for younger children, and how sims 4 is more like an E10+ game. So she lets my little sisters play that one
I only played the first Sims that came out in the early 2,000s. I made my own character and it was difficult to figure out what to do. Though I did enjoy building my own house.
My first ever sims game that I played was sims unleashed and the last one I played was sims 3 island paradise. Sims have become far more sanitised which is disappointing, but also watching other sims videos it feels like EA has given up with the idea of the creating lore and just using the iconic characters from previous sims game for cash grabbing reasons.
Long-time Sims 1/2 player here. I got the Sims 4 back in 2018 and played it for about a week before I got bored of it. It just felt like it lacked the soul the other games had and there was never anything to motivate me to keep playing. The only thing I really enjoyed about it was making the sims themselves, since the customization options are a bit more robust than 1/2. (I can't comment on the lore of the premades, since I rarely ever play them.) Ever since then, I've been wishing some indie dev would make their own Sims-esque game. Think what Planet Coaster is to Rollercoaster Tycoon, or what Cities Skylines is to Simcity. (And it needs to have extensive modding tools!)
that's not bella goth in the sims 3 trailer. you can see mort's parents in part of the trailer, like their character outfits and appearances were already decided. they just changed mort's shirt.
I've been playing sims since the very beginning, I agree with you. Sims 4 is a "watered down" version. Honestly I rarely play anymore as it just doesn't have what I originally came for anymore. Waiting on another team to come out with a better game. Sims 4 just fails to hold my interest the way the past games did and I'm no longer spending money on it; I feel at this point that the modding community does a better job than EA. Of course this is all just my opinion. Great video. Be blessed
Previous sims games have an uncanny valley quality to them and are a bit eerie. You never know what lurks behind the corner. Things aren't as easily attainable and you want to play to discover the secrets and achieve different things, be it wealth or building up complex family relations. In the sims 4 there's not much incentive to do anything. Nothing is scary, everything is controlled, and you just perform activities to look at animations. No characters are mysterious and unattainable. Want an alien? Just make one in CAS, no need to first come across one and build a relationship. You can do everything so easily that you wonder what's the point of playing sims 4 at all.
I agree with you here for sure. I adore playing rags to riches challenges, but every time I start a new one, I find myself falling into the same super quick methods of making money such as painting, writing, or planting dragon fruit farms. Where is the challenge or incentive to try different ways of making money which are slower / less efficient? Once I've made the money and build a big house - what then? I usually get bored and drop the household all together until I get the itch to do it all over again in a few months. Thus is the shallow gameplay cycle of the Sims 4. Thanks so much for your inciteful comment! :)
@@YasminsCorner yup, I recently started playing the sims 3 again being fed up with how luckluster ts4 is. Thanks for the great video!
I absolutely hate how EA advertised that Sims are “smarter” now. I have to turn Autonomy off every game save on TS4, while the other games you would work with autonomy. I get so frustrated with my sims in TS4 that I don’t even want to play most of the time.
@@YasminsCorner it’s so frustrating because when i don’t use quick cheats for their needs they’ll die since the sims are constantly glitching and not performing the actions
Well said. Sims 2 was scary at times 😂 you really never knew what could happen, and that just made it so interesting.
i'm sorry but the idea that no open world=running better, is something almost very simmer has been gaslight into believeing, sims 3 was just horribly optimized and made to run on older systems, if you ran sims 3 on an old computer it'd actually work better than a modern gaming pc. also, if sims 5 were to have open world, it'd be much better optimized and yknow, made in 2025 or later. dont settle for less gameplay cuz ea's lied and says its for a good reason cuz its not
I totally agree with you. The spaghetti-code mess of the sims 3 ran poorly on lower end machines.. but it’s incredible to see dedicated simmers working to fix the game even now! Here’s really hoping we get the best of both worlds with the sims 5: an open world which runs smoothly … but somehow my scepticism for EA at the moment is making me think that may not happen 😞 thank you for your insight ☺️
Yes! My 2012 Macbook runs sims 3 perfectly but my 2021 imac does not /// even w the 64?bit update.
@@YasminsCorner on sims 3?
Thank you, the open world argument is driving me crazy! Let's not forget that Sims 3 can use only 2gb ram
@@LeoDeStino No wonder the game runs like trash even on a computer that has 16 GB of RAM. I can easily run new AAA games and get a silky smooth gaming experience, but TS3 still feels like that only a NASA supercomputer can run this thing...
Sims 4 is definitely a game for kids, while Sims 3 and 2 were more mature with interesting lore. I started with The Sims 1 when I was a kid, and it had more mature content but funny in the same time, it was truely a game of gestion and simulation. The gameplay was built around that.
I know it's a lot about your own imagination and making stories, but everything seems so childish in the Sims 4... They removed burglars, what the heck. I'm quite afraid for the Sims 5 tbh. Damn I miss Maxis.
I definitely echo your fear for the Sims 5 - the continued financial success of the Sims 4 has set the precedent that fans are willing to buy sub-par content simply out of our love for the series and our hope that the next piece of DLC will be the one where EA decides to clean up their act and give us something fun and re-playable. I think EA needs some real competition in the life sim genre to get them innovating again, and to force them to do better. Thank you for commenting!
Oh id never let my young kids play 4. The adult mods are waaaay to easy to access and install. Sims 2 and 3 don't have WW and basementalDrugs
@@aviendha1154 I don’t really see what’s the issues with “adult” mods. They’re humorous and purely used for imaginative fun. I highly doubt your child will start drugs because their sim ingests marijuana lol. Many kids had “adult” mods and are now completely functional adults.
I don't even think kids like ts4 tbh. It doesn't take a genius to realize there's nothing substantial to play with, and with a kid's limited access to money they can't even pad their playtime with glittering garbage. Being stuck with the base game and maybe a few packs will make you realize this game is vapid and a waste of time quick
@@aviendha1154 why would you let your child have unfettered access to the internet long enough to access and download the sex and drug mods is the real question of the century
If you think Sims 3 has a lot of interesting lore, man, you'll be into a ride with Sims 2. No game has ever fascinated me as much as that game.
I would LOVE to play sims 2!!! However it’s so difficult to a hold of these days, as well as even getting it running!😭 I wish I’d downloaded it when EA were giving it away for free years ago 🙃 hopefully I’ll get to try it one day though ☺️
@@YasminsCorner I am pretty sure that The Sims 2 is considered abandonware by this point (as EA isn't actively distributing/selling copies anymore). It's easy to find on the Internet Archive, someone packed it into an installer.
I'd be extremely surprised if EA still cared so you might just download it there and enjoy the odd charme. ♥
YES! Not only that the sims in the sims 2 are just so... sassy idk. They actually seem like living breathing person, with actual personality. When I was younger I played for ages, created full stories and family trees. Meanwhile sims 4 five minutes in Im already bored 🤣
And to this day sims2 holds up really well!
Ah thanks so much for the tip, I’ll absolutely be checking it out!!!
True, Sims 2's lore is also more integrated to the pre made characters as well. Love how they have detailed character stories, photo galleries, stats and even prompting scripts when you play them.
And plus, they even have well written relations with other townies too!
As a geriatric sims player (I’m 30, started playing with I was 13), Sims 2 was a real treat. It was goofy, raunchy, crazy, and addicting. Things mattered. Like when my sim cheated on her husband, their son ran into another room and started crying. We had burglars. You had to have an alarm or else you might have been robbed. It was just so fun. I’d playing it for DAYS non stop. I still love The Sims. So I still play it. But it does feel so cleaned up, and at times child like. The charm is gone. It’s just a basic life simulator which is a far cry of its heyday with TS2.
You still can play Sims 2! It's considered "abandonware" so it can be downloaded from the internet without breaking law AFAIK and Pleasant Sims had some guides on how to make it run on newer computers too!
@@magdajabonska537 game changer!!!!
Now I feel old, basically the same story +2 years and I started with the Sims. I do miss cat burglars tho. And memories. Like a life time achivements list.
Right? I started playing the franchise back in 2001 when I was 6. The quirkiness of the TS1 and TS2 made it so captivating for me. It was something that really drew me i, and I play it religiously for years on end.
@@magdajabonska537 Dude, any game can be pirated/downloaded from the internet/ No one cares about that. If you think 'breaking laws' matters, you must be a 5 year old
Sims 4 is definitly the definiton of a ''lowest common denominator'' game extremely sad that the worst game in the franchise gets the longest run in terms of updates and dlc.
I think the only reason Sims 4 is lasting this long is the relative monopoly of this kind of simulation game EA has, i really hope some other developer comes and breaks the monopoly up otherwise i think sims 5 is going to be equally bad
I agree with you for sure. I know a lot of people in the community are excited for Paralives - and I am too - but I think it has had a lot of expectation put on it to ‘be the next sims game’ which could be a slippery slope if that makes sense. Overall though I think you’re right, EA definitely needs some competition to light the fire under their butt!😂
they've set themselves up for a repeat of what happened to SimCity lmao
@@YasminsCorner I think, despite what they say, EA/Maxis is waiting for Paralives before coming out with a Sims 5 so they can "prove" they make a better game. They came out with curved walls just because of Paralives have it and totally couldn't pull it off.
Looks at Paralives
@@nedrane297 I’ve been tracking Paralives from the start and each time they showed what they were working on EA put it in sims 4 😂
Like showing off the different angles their stairs can go and EA updated their stairs a week later maybe not even 💀
I’m still shocked curved porch/landing stairs aren’t a thing. Curved pools aren’t a thing despite being in TS2 and TS3 along with spiral stairs. “Best building game” for some people but still misses so much that the previous games have. Treehouses, trampolines .. I can keep going. And this is the longest running game missing these items. Smh.
They're making the base game free because almost all of the profit comes from the packs. They're just removing the 4 or something euro entry fee, casting a bigger net on potential buyers of the packs.
It's another thing about the Sims 4 that bugs me: pervious games were stand alone games you could fully enjoy without any extra content. Meanwhile, TS4 base game lacks so much that you simply need packs to play it.
Anyways, great video!!
I totally agree. It’s an unsurprising change tbh - the game is literally 8 YEARS OLD!!! I don’t think I’ve seen the base game being sold on steam or CDKeys for more than £8 in a long time. It made sense to make the game free, but yes - it is sad that the base game is so lack lustre that new players will probably feel compelled to buy more DLC to improve their experience 🙃
I'm glad it will be free because I plan to dump shitloads of CC into it and never touch the actual live mode. No way am I paying money for a make terrifying buildings and creatures simulator.
I may get the packs that unlock mermaids and aliens purely because i love how they look in cas. I will absolutely wait until they are on sale though.
I don’t agree. I have no packs and I have been playing for years. There are plenty of people who disagree with you.
& tbh even wit the packs its nothing much
And I'm gonna go ahead and pirate the DLC, now with all credible features like the gallery unlocked, bad move EA
I just like to think the sims 4 is a world the aliens created in Bella’s head to have her stay asleep while they do research on her
Make 👏🏻 it 👏🏻 canon 👏🏻😂😂
The aliens added Jim Pickens to the simulation to keep Bella on her toes.
That's actually a really good theory... I like that
HAHAHAHAHA I love this👍
Yeah, there’s no way they’d bring back Olive Specter and the Beakers/Nervous Subject. I think they’d consider their back stories too dark.
I was considering mentioning these households / stories in this video - but the script was getting too long! I totally agree: sadly, I couldn't imagine the devs revisiting their backstories now when considering the wishy-washy, boring households we have had introduced in the Sims 4 :(
They have striped away lore and backstory that it feels too childish. There’s no consequences, gameplay, or passion. It’s a blank blob that gets boring so fast.
They were my favorites! I always ended up pairing Nervous with one of the guys from that household with the three roommates and one gets abducted and impregnated by aliens
They could have brought them back and just had super negative relationships
Sad because they are one of my favorite stories in the Sims, good that I don't give a cent to EA for their mediocrities
the sims 4 is so imcomaprable to other games, I think in other games the most appealing factor of the sims games was the gameplay and actually playing with the sims but now the most appealing factor is build and cas mode, and gameplay is the least appealing, out of my friends who play sims they all say they only make sims and build the houses then stop playing, its sad to see really
I agree!! In the video I referenced near the start, I talked about how I felt like: in the sims 3, you feel like your sims are dropped into a bustling world and you need to find your place in it. While in the sims 4, you start a new game and the entire world revolves around your household. I hope this is something they get right in sims 5 whenever that comes out 😅
I startedplaying sims 3 again and i felt so conditioned to only enjoying cas and build and its so refreshing to enjoy gameplay again
I don’t really play the game either because I get bored with it. It makes me sad because I invest a lot of time in building and in CAS lol
@@YasminsCorner so tru thats wut made it fun ! U didnt hafta seek a challenge they ALWAYS find u, in sims 4 i had my sim adopt 2 toddlers & within 7 days of aging there was no challenge again ugh sims 4 suckkssss
Interesting take, I’d say it has to do with the fact that the sims 4 has the best build and cas style of all games. Plus the sims 4 has a much wider demographic than the past games. People came to play the game, but now people can come to play dress up, or to decorate. The sims 4 created the most different ways to play in that instant, but it is sad to see that gameplay is on the back burner.
I miss when the sims were more raunchy. I miss when sims would go clubbing, have nudist homes, tons of adult jokes, and genuine backstories. The sims 4 just doesn’t even feel like the same game franchise. I remember growing up feeling so cool playing the game Sims Bustin Out! I don’t even play the sims 4 anymore cause it just doesn’t capture that magic other sims games have.
You can have a nudist home in the Sims 4. You can have nudist public lots in the Sims 4. You can go clubbing in the Sims 4. I'm just??
@@leahdavis9434 they aren’t the same, have you played bustin out?
My GOD YES! Bustin' Out was amazing! Even from the very start of the game, your created sim has more personality than every sim in 4. Not to mention the interconnected relationships between townies and goal setting it gave you.
@@Tijjain my favorite part was when someone could put the middle finger up to you 🤣
Can't do that when you're from PC culture "CommieFornia" as we call it
all i have to say is
unmodded, sims 1 2 & 3 can all be thoroughly enjoyed and played, they are just as fun with or without mods or even expansions
sims 4
you NEED mods or expansions to enjoy sims 4, that base game is oof
that should tell everyone something
So much yes to this! I never had any expansion packs before TS3, and even then I played only the base game for years without getting bored. The World Adventures pack broke my computer, so I had to return it unfortunately :( Later, my cousin passed 3 of his expansion packs to me - the get to work one, university, and pets. Those 3 packs made TS3 a full simulation game for me, and when I had to move and couldn’t take my desktop PC, I was heartbroken to have lost TS3 - my laptop has no CD/DVD player, and when I purchased it through Origin, it wouldn’t run :( I miss TS3 every day, I still had so many new things to look forward to despite playing for years! TS4 with all the packs is still boring as hell, and I hate that I can’t even play as the pets, which was my favourite anxiety healing thing about TS3: while my Sim was at work, instead of fast forwarding time, I’d play as puppies and make them play fetch or run around, and it gave me so much happiness. I miss TS3 every day 😔💕
I personally need packs to enjoy TS3. I LOVE TS3, but I need a few packs to enjoy it, especially before I started using CC because the base game clothes/hair are so ugly.
@@darlingstarsgaming i mean, yeah the basegame CAS is super tragic, but i had only basegame for a good two years before i got WA, seasons and fastlane, i had so many mods before i got those expansions i had to get rid of most of them just to have room to install the expansions
theres lots of basegame CAS and build thats super amazing, most of it is unfortunately on TSR but meh, i dont mind redownloading now that you can for free
but i still remember having a ton of fun with 3 without the mods too, mostly with my little bro and making meme sims to have fun
i dunno i guess with all sims games its how you make your own fun right?
you can be happy with the basegame so long as the kinda fun you want to have doesnt really require mods
For me, one of the notable things missing in TS4 is the lack of unexpected risks, like burglars, annoying neighbors, death in early life stages, and how it was difficult to earn simoleons and how it was easier to lose them.
Oh, and TS4 has no notable NPC.
BINGO. The "shallow kid-friendly experience" is exactly the problem. I'm dying for a game with TS2/TS3 gameplay and TS4 graphics.
The strangest part is that they very easily could have tied the seperate universe of Sims4, into the larger universe of Sims1, 2 and 3. Which in turn might have have a good setup for Sims5 even.
One way they could have done this was with the help of previously already established easter eggs. In Sims3 there is a pretty interesting easter egg involving a purchasable book by the name of "Murder in Pleasantview", with the author of that book being none other than Alexander Goth (son of Bella Goth). This should be impossible however since Sims3 takes place 50 years before Sims2. And that's where time travel comes in. So what I think they could have done is just make it so that according to the lore, Alexander went back in time and wrote a book about his mother's disappearance and in doing so created a new time line, seperate from the main time line. A time line where Bella never got abducted in the first place, hence why she is still living with them in the new Sims4 time line.
And if they ever bring preset occurrences back like they did in Sims2, they could have made it so that when you load in the goth family in Sims5 (now made up of an older Cassandra and Alexander), the household starts with Alexander hoping out of a time machine and subsequently continuing the story from Sims2. Sims team just got really lazy imo.
This is such a great idea - and the simplicity of it makes me sad that the devs couldn't have done this when the Sims 4 was released. I really would like to give the sims team the benefit of the doubt, and hope that it wasn't just laziness that forced them to make the alternate timeline decision (instead, being pushed by crunches and deadlines from higher up)... but with every year and sub-par piece of DLC that goes by I am struggling to give them that.
I think its a good sign that the devs are bringing in prominent sims content creators in to help with content such as builds in new packs - but I hope for the sims 5 they bring them in (and take feedback from the wider base of players) from the very beginning to develop the lore and stories. Thanks for your comment! :)
@@YasminsCorner Yeah it's really sad seeing one of my favourite game franchises fall from grace like it did, but I'm hoping (praying even) that they can do better with sims5. And thank u for replying😁
Really well researched video! I’ve always interpreted that quote “support and nurture our communities long term” to be corporate speak to mean “Drag out a game as long as possible to avoid the costly development process of a new game and suck every penny out of consumers that they’re willing to spend on one game”
Thank you so much! Hahaha yes, I definitely hear that too sadly 😪 here’s hoping they really won’t making us wait 15 years in total between titles 😭
Right now, I'm playing a lot of sims 3. I barely have any mods outside story progression. And i'm amazed at how much there is to do. How much fun even basic gameplay with families is. The sims 4 gets boring to me even with mods. I get bored after a couple days and will stop playing for months ( I also have all sims 4 expansions). overall, its just sad to see what has happened to the series.
I agree! Yesterday I started a new household in the sims 3 and went to one of the World Adventures worlds... its crazy to me that in the Sims 3's first expansion pack we got three pretty much full worlds to explore in a way which is totally different to the home worlds. Compare that to the tiny worlds we get in the Sims 4 which are more or less entirely made of unexplorable set dressing! Here's hoping the Sims 5 will be a return to form for the series... thank you for commenting :)
@@YasminsCorner I truly wish they would give up on pushing out more packs. After High School Years, I’m done. Werewolves was mid, but still pretty bad. I hate how they’re separating occults into these tiny ass worlds with little gameplay for the occults. I don’t understand why they are regressing to the original Sims formula, but even shittier. They need to stop and start all over with TS5. People have been begging for the TS5 for years. They really think they can get away with TS4 for another couple of years and have no plans for TS5? Pfffffft, I’m over it.
My absolute favorite thing to do in TS3 is have my sim wander the world collecting seeds and take them home to plant straight into the dirt. They’ll have a great day out on their little journey, seeing everything in their town and make plans for what to do after working on their garden.
And YC is right, World Adventures was absolutely amazing, I loved how immersed I could get into the gameplay of TS3. Just thinking about it makes me excited for when I’ll be able to play it again. But whenever I think about any of my TS4 saves, any excitement stems from exploring mod features I haven’t touched yet or looking for new CC/mods.
going through the comments and seeing people talk about how The Sims used to be a little raunchier is bringing back a particularly fond memory: having adult swim playing in the background and seeing a commercial for Sims 3 Late Night. i don't remember seeing another commercial anywhere else.
Thankyou for such an informative video. For me, one of the best examples of "sanitizing" was the sexy dancer who popped out of the cake in Sims 1. While Sims 2 and 3 didn't have them, one can see the (in my opinion) Innocent sexy animations fitting into the 2 and 3 world. Where as , were the Sims 4 to do it, only a klutzy , goofy clown would probably pop out of the cake. The over the top goofiness was the reason I stopped playing Sims 4. The heavy lean toward "Young Children Only" sucked. I don't miss the sims 4. AT ALL. lol
Thank you for watching and commenting! :) this is such a great example. It really is interesting to see how the level of 'raunchy' / suggestive content in the sims games have changed over time, compared with the audiences of the games (and especially thinking about the older audiences who have the money to buy all the DLC being pushed out). As a young adult I have still found a lot of enjoyment in the sims 4, but I agree - most goofy things are mildly amusing once, then bordering patronising every time after. I hope this is something they tune better in the sims 5 when we eventually get it!
It is funny that a game turned into this kid friendliness goofy cartoony joke doesn’t even have many sim kid objects, hairs, clothes - content in general 👏💀
I recently bought old copies of the Sims 1 and 2 and several expansion due to nostalgia and being bored with 4. And to my surprise it is just as hard to keep the Sims alive and happy as it was when I was a kid! Everything is much harder and more lively than in 4!
I've watched a few videos of people playing Sims 1 recently and they all talk about how damn hard it is. God, I remember making friends and keeping them just being the worst, even when you only needed *household* friends instead of friends for each person. Even with one sim just dedicated to making friends to support someone else's career it was rough.
One of the things I can't believe they changed is the colour customizer. You used to be able to pick a unique hair colour or change the colour of furniture items. There literally isn't a hair colour that's accurate to mine (in my opinion) and its frustrating I can't add roots or highlights like before. I know that's a small thing but that's exactly why I don't understand why they never added it. Another thing is I used to love sending sims into lighthouses or making them explore. I don't feel the need to do any of that in the sims 4... there's not much to find.
This feels like a fair and balanced analysis. Going backs to sims 1 (my first sims game) I was amazed just how edgy it was, but sims 3 is my favourite.
Thank you so much, that means a lot! :) Ah I wish I got to experience Sims 1 as a kid, it looks like so much fun!
Remember the Tricou family and The House of Fallen Trees in The Sims 2? You won't find anything that dark in Sims 4, which is a shame.
I’m still ridiculously mad about the Calientes, especially how they completely stripped away their Arab heritage, apparently it was because Nighats name was inappropriate??? Just change her name to another Arab name
I don't think changing the name would be right either! Why would you censor a foreign name just because it sounds similar to something innapropriate? I understand that it's an unfortunate coincedence, but... The English language is not more important than others, I guess :')
(not disagreeing with you at all, I'm more talking about EA!)
Or even better how if you even try to enter Benazir (Nighats mother) into the name slot it wont let you.
Lol Calientes was Spanish names
@@PandoraWolveCrow Yeah their dad was Spanish, their mother was Arab.
@@haunting_bluejay what about portugese? Or Southern American?
The Sims 1 and 2 were openly making fun of hyper consumerism but The Sims 4 is soulless product that we are pouring hundreds of euroes into just to have some gameplay
As someone who's not played the sims 1 and 2, I really appreciate this interesting observation! What a shift the series has gone through over the years...
I might be alone in this but I really miss when the sims had a story mode with levels like busting out or the sims 1 on game cube. There was all kinds of unique challenges and characters for each level it genuinely felt engaging and at some times even difficult but in a way you still felt incentive to keep going and keep trying to get to the next level. There was actually a sense of reward and accomplishment in everything you did weather it was unlocking a new item or getting to a new career level. it had *weight.* I miss that so much 😭
Great video! I actually enjoy sims 4 but that’s because I use a lot of cc/mods. Without those, the game is lackluster and requires way too much money for packs that are disappointing
Thank you!! Believe it or not I do enjoy the game too: I checked on origin and I’ve clocked in over 2000 hours!😂 I agree though - I definitely need to get back into the mods and maxis match CC game for sureeee!🥰
Agreed! I had to explain my frustration to my husband (who hears me complain about the game constantly). I don’t hate the game (I actually prefer the graphics, and I think CAS and Build Mode are fantastic) but to get any kind of good gameplay I need to mod it.
This is the first sims game where I’ve felt this need.😢
what's a great place to find mods/cc? 😄
Great question! I am by no means an avid CC / mod user but I find Pinterest to be a great place to find them - they will often direct you towards creators who have sites or blogs where they post all their stuff! Also people make great videos on TH-cam of their CC hauls which I used to love watching - especially for CAS stuff. Hope this helped! :)
@@YasminsCorner a lot! Thanks! 😊
seeing bridgeport makes me nostalgic, that was my favorite pack. i’m lucky that my ancient laptop can run the sims 4, but if I could go back to 3 I would
I dont know if it made a diff to the team but I wonder if they changed Caliente twins mums name because they've a blanket ban on names beginning with "Nig". It wouldn't let me upload a ts2 fam with Nighat, or Ophelia Nigmos' real name (notice their own official recreation of the specter fam gives her the wrong surname of Spector. A name her aunt got of her third husband)
I'll say it's my opinion 4 is on an alternate timeline just like the vid says, scrapped half their game and scrambled to get something somewhat suitable for release. Also why none of the stories in the bios are actually reflected in game.
It absolutely blows my mind that sims 4 has been around for that long. I grew up with ts2 and ts3 and for some reason I feel like those were way longer. But numbers don’t lie! It’s just one of those things I mentally can’t accept 😂
right? sims 2 came out in 2004, and even though you can't buy it as easily anymore, people still think it's the holy grail and it's nearly 20 💀 wtf is maxis doing
My first sims game was the sims 2 on ps2 and while it lacks content it was still more fun then sims 4 lol oh and sims 2 castaway on ps2 was amazing
@@mclijah6472 maxis is (basically) gone lol
TS4 feels like it came out in 2018 lmao
The Sims on PC and The Sims on consoles were originally seperate universes. But now The Sims 4 is the same game on both PC and consoles. We basically have a multi-platiform universe covering both PC and consoles now. But every game in the main series to date eventually got released on consoles, they are always made as if they are going to be a PC exclusive. IDK.
I feel like a Sims game for a broader audience (including children) could work if they'd dip more into that cozy Slice of Life aesthetic. All these shenanigans with cowplants, depressed clowns, etc. matched with the quirkyness worked perfectly in the earlier games but now, in The Sims 4 it kinda feels out of place.
Don't get me wrong, I love stuff like that and I would like it if TS4 would decide to add more mature jokes. But what they kinda do right now feels like they can't decide in what direction they should go.
As if they can't decide if it should be completely child-friendly and fit everyone or if it should cater to players who are there since the earlier games.
Maybe that's why cottage living is one of my, if not the, favourite packs. Since it knows what it's going for. There isn't the Awkwardness of a few raunchy jokes in between this otherwise so child-friendly and calm environment.
It knows what it's going for, it works fine (at least I never really experience bugs because of CL) and yes, it's different from the older games but it manages to handle it well.
Also the references like Agnes Crumplebottom don't feel forced onto you. Because with some references and characters I feel like Sims 4 is screaming at you "HEY SEE! DO YOU REMEMBER THAT? YEA WE HAVE THAT TOO!!" I wish they could decide if they want to go for a cute calm game or a game similar to the older games.
Oh and also make it work because I feel like everytime a new Update comes, one bug gets fixed and four new occur.
This is such a valid point: since writing this video and considering the more child-friendly direction of the Sims 4, I have considered doing a deep dive into who the target audience of this game really is. Like you say: younger audiences, or those of us who have already experienced previous games in the series?
I totally agree with you though, it seems like the Sims 4 is a jack of all trades, but a master of none in terms of the vibe it is trying to achieve... the Cottage Living pack certainly felt like an example of when the devs had a crystal clear idea for the outcome they wanted to produce: I hope this is something they are able to achieve with future packs! :)
Agreed! I honestly hate how they’re trying to make the Sims child friendly. They already have that with My Sims. The Sims is rated T, not E and I don’t understand why they are trying to go that route. I played The Sims since I was 4 and I turned out fine. I wish we would stop catering for helicopter diaper sniffing parents. What happened to if you don’t like, don’t buy it?
Bro I've said this for years! Sims 4 has a problem with establishing game atmosphere because it lacks details. Those cooking animations in the Sims 4 are a crime, not to mention they've completely ripped out reality to work in lazy game functions. Seriously? Our Sims don't go to stores because it's too much work for the gamer? I believe it's too much work for EA!
Today, the Sims 4 is afraid of being mundane or slow. Everything has to have effects or cut back. There is no way the Sims 4 is going to convince me to buy a "bust the dust" pack for vacuuming when they couldn't even get their act together to code a pathfinding animation so that our Sims could actually move when vacuuming the floor! Rarely any of the animations that comes in packs are unique or try to add detail, but why would Sims 4 even care about detail if they can hide behind fans shouting that the low poly, unfinished models they give us are part of the aesthetics.
So many people crap on the Sims 3 for being ugly, and you can call the base models that, but the game itself is GOREGEOUS. The details in textures, lighting, shading, effects and I personally love putting my graphics on the highest of settings. This new style is totally a crutch and a lazy way out of crafting something genuine with care.
People say ts2 and ts3 age badly, but I disagree. I disagree greatly infact when you can go into the game and still appreciate the smaller life like details that sets the mood. We don't have those details anymore which I'd argue are necessary for a LIFE SIMULATION game. Hell, it's the reason so many people scout for alpha cc and "realistic" mods when adding cc to the game! I feel like people _want_ realism but they're okay with the "stylistic" choices of Sims 4 because "it's so cute" but even looking at these fake Sims 5 trailers people put together, there is always an admiration towards the look of realism.
Are there even children who play TS4? I feel like the majority of their audience would be young adults who have grown up with the franchise. Dumbing a game down won’t attract children if they aren’t already interested; also, EA makes war games and whatnot that children actually play, so I don’t buy their “child-friendly” excuse.
I'm 27, and over the years I've played the sims chronologically, starting with the original sims game. The first two games and it's spin-offs had this specific feel, idk how to explain it, tongue in cheek humor that got lost on the way. It was very campy, with plenty of adult humor and a ton of lore.
The thing is, this started to change earlier, when The Sims 3 was launched. While the base game release was well received (although many had problems running it without lagging and incredibly long loading screens), we all noticed a shift starting to happen with the release of later expansion packs. Timelines changed within each neighborhood, lore was ignored, etc.
We were all very excited for The Sims 4 to come out, and to see the many flaws of The Sims 3 improved and the gameplay expanded upon, since most of us fans perceived it as a downgrade from The Sims 2. And then...yeah, we all know what happened.
TS4 has longer loading screens and makes you never want to leave your house. TS3 has long loading screens, but it’s open-world and loading screens don’t happen often.
this is very true, I also played the sims chronologically kinda from the sims 2 but that's cuz I'm only 18 and my bday is the same year as sims 2!
things didn't rlly look good from the getgo w sims 4 and the stuff w Bella in sims 3 lunar lakes, and how the creators just couldn't explain it.. lol
@@antisocialal4799 I do remember sims 2 having bad loading screens but it also has way too many errors on its own imo
@@mclijah6472 now that computers are a lot faster than the bricks we originally played sims 2 on, the loading screens are A LOT faster than TS4. Mine is almost instant and that’s with mods and CC. Saving and everything insanely fast. But I do have a very new new computer.
I think even a decent computer in todays standards would still run TS2 super smooth and very quick.
@@MagnumPatrol true but once the game starts breaking the loading screens get longer, is what I was meaning lol
In regards to sanitization of the vibe. I think it’s a combination of wanting to appeal to everyone to rake in the most money, but also wanting to make sure anything that might be construed as non inclusive or offensive be scrubbed to try best to avoid the professionally offended.
That said, I also think the person that said it was a different time where we accepted different things for teens is also true. I’ve been saying how 80s/90s teen movies seem to treat their audience with more respect than modern ones. Modern teen movies feel the same, extremely sanitized and all ages friendly, compared to a Breakfast Club or something. Like it almost feels like they’re made for 13 year olds as opposed to 16 year olds.
It’s funny because I remember being a kid and feeling like The Sims was even more risque than something like GTA, cos my Sims could do it and stuff. That was part of the appeal.
All you have to do is watch The Sims 2 trailer and compare it with the god awful trailers with the annoying voiceovers for The Sims 4.
The sims 2 was way ahead of its time. Out of the clumsyness of the sims 1, evolved and felt really new and fresh. The sims 3 expanded into worldbuilding and simulation, while feeling authentical Sims experience. But sims 4 feels... Like a downgrade. Even worse then going from sims 3 to sims 2. Its like the sims original but with more content and paywalls.
When I was younger I played sims 3 pets on console (no expansions or anything) for YEARS then when I finally got sims 4 on console I bought every pack as it came out and loved it but now that I've gotten into PC and bought the sims 3 ( and every pack) I see how much the sims 4 was a rip off. Build mode is it's only redeeming factor imo there's next to no gameplay in it
Did you know that the goths lastname in spanish is lápida? Wich means gravestone, also mortimer is called homero and bella Elvira
Interesting, in the brazilian portuguese version the goth family is called Família Caixão (Coffin family) Bella's name is Laura and Mortimer is Vladmir
Personally I choose to believe that fan theory with Alexander goth time travelling, thus creating the sims 4 timeline. It makes it more fun and it gives some depth to the game in my mind at least. I agree about the other comments about lack of lore, sanitization, color wheel, and soulless gameplay. I also believe all this happened because the game was meant to be online multiplayer and not because of laziness !
I would definitely watch that 100 ways the Sims 4 could be improved video if you ever release it
Amazing, it will definitely take a lot of work, but its in the works! :)
agreed!
Sims 4 feels like it's catered to people who want TOTAL CONTROL of the stories they tell with the Sims, and to me that feels the same as having no story at all. If I have to deliberately introduce challenges by hamstringing them myself... it means there's no challenge. With previous Sims games, you didn't always know who would get along, what you might find, or what strange or unexpected thing was coming around the corner, and there was a lot of weirdness spread throughout it. I miss that, but the direction seems to be taking it into even more sanitized territory, which is... impressive in a sad way.
About towns and loading screens. I remember living through anticipation of that as well. The weirdest thing for me, looking back now at all of those experiences with Sims 4, isn't "they're not free-faring, open towns are better", but rather an amount of web-game identity each area has. And it makes sense now - it WAS supposed to be a multiplayer game which use this exact sort of style for locations. For me personally Sims 3 wasn't a very nice experience, I played it quite a bunch, yeah, but there were so many complicated and necessary buildings that just weren't mine and I didn't want for them to be. Sims 4 continued that trend and gave you all those towns without, again, a lack of ability to create your own neighbourhoods like Sims 1 and Sims 2 did. Only Newcrest in a base game was... "empty", but it was stuck with a name of a town that doesn't work, that can't be personalised, that can't be made into a completely new town, names have weight, that's why every sim is called by the player (excluding unwanted Walkers Walkers as I've renamed them) rather than every sim being Lucy Lue that is just that type of a new Lucy, not a new name. Every town had a forged identity, it's own "attractions" and buildings on the background that don't match the style of your own constructions, and therefore you couldn't shape something your own from the ground, though with this pretty simplified direction you should've have. You can't just destroy every weird little lamppost, outdoor grill and benches to make the place your own, it's rather a shape of a certain part of the real world that always throws you off while trying to imagine any other style. Base unmodded clothes have a similiar weirdness to them - they're all in a certain style of hip normcore, which I started to notice only when I started studying fashion more seriously. That style matches a fantasy that people who imagined base neighbourhoods live in rather than something people would actually put on their sims. I don't mean nobody would, but I've seen so many people even on youtube complaining that the fashion is just not okay this time. Including the exclusion of the colour wheel from Sims 3, it's like creativity is just not allowed this time. Even Sims 2 had custom coloured clothing, yes it's in a pack and hand-made with only one base, but it was something you could pick, like, any colour of, rather than colour palletes that allists think look good (colour is so individual, and neurodivergent/autistic people can have a special reaction on colour - dislike bright colours, like only bright colours, be psychically partially colour blind, be colour hyper-sensitive, relying on a certain colour pallete, like I do). It's all unwanted identity for a game that's supposed to be about creativity. Nobody asked for that identity. People asked for the opened towns (I - for customised ones) and colour wheels. And toddlers, apperantly, the time when toddlers in Sims 4 weren't real was not a dream.
I tried to make a character recently who wears a lot of orange clothes. Hot damn that was nearly impossible. Even when I found orange stuff it either didn't match her style or they were completely different shades of orange.
Very interesting and on point. I've been playing since sims 1 and still play 1, 2 and 3 to this day. When Sims 4 came out I bought a few expansions but soon gave up. There's some great stuff in it but overall it lacks the soul of the other sim games. And yes, I agree it feels very much targeted at children.
If you haven't played sims 2 I would highly advise it. The performance is excellent. There are tons mods out there and you'll never have to worry about updating them because it's a finished game. Plus the gameplay is chef's kiss!
I feel you! I think the lack of soul is definitely what makes me leave the sims 4 so regularly. Yes, some amazing folks in the comments here have pointed me towards how I can get the game today given that EA don’t give it away anymore 😭 I’ll definitely be trying to play it ASAP!❤️
@@YasminsCorner Thank you very much for your reply! It amazes me that EA doesn't sell TS2 anymore. I'm sure it will sell very well because younger people didn't get a chance to buy the cd's back in the day. I hope you'll get it figured out and would love to see a video of your reaction! 💖
Agreed. I regret buying every pack for TS4. I thought that with each new pack, it would get better like all the other games, but it didn’t. TS2 and TS3, you could play the base game nearly all on it’s own without getting bored or frustrated fast. The packs were just add-ons for more fun. But, TS4 feels more like you need all the packs just to play. The only thing I like about TS4 is the building. Everything else sucks.
It's because of the EA/Maxis absorption and drama.
From the 2000s-2013, basically Sims 1-3, Will Wright and the original development and production team were still involved because EA continued to let Maxis be an independent studio, relatively free to design and develop games as they wish, hence why it had a more adult/black humor/satirical theme and tone and also why they were more challenging.
After the failure of Spore and the 2013 SimCity reboot, EA pushed out and away Wright and all of the original producers, devs, writers, etc, shutdown all of the Maxis studios, laid off most of the staff, and essentially replaced them with their own people, and hence why we have this game: designed by committee and focus groups, made safe to appeal to everyone and to the make shareholders and investors happy; lack of content because it was initially meant to be an online/multiplayer game only, but after SimCity 2013 failed, they scaled it back to single player and just made up for it by $900 worth of DLCs and stuff packs.
So yes you are right that Sims 4 is effectively a reboot as far as a new Sims game under new management and dev teams and more directly under EA's control and meddling.
Thank you so much for all this great behind the scenes info! I think a lot of it will come in handy for the next video I am writing! I was wondering if you had any references to articles, interviews etc which discusses this more in-depth? No worries if you don’t though! Again thank you for commenting, and I hope you enjoyed the video! :)
It's so ironic that they said they wanted TS4 to run better on low end PCs when the whole game until now was massively monetized. I also think TS4 is childish and imo, if your game had a rating for teenager but the largest audience is between their middle 20s and 30s, you gotta find the way to make them happy without violating the restrictions, and that honestly doesn't sound so hard, most people don't even pay attention to risky things
Yeah, I don’t even play the Sims 4 anymore. Just 1&2, but considering getting 3 seeing all the love it gets
Ah yessss!! I 100000% recommend the Sims 3! Just be sure to look elsewhere (other than Origin) for expansion packs as EA are still selling them for full price - I believe Steam sells them cheaper :) If you do pick it up, I hope you enjoy it!!
TS3 has amazing gameplay, but it does have long loading screens. But, I would take that over TS4 loading screens. 💀
The Sims 3 is worth your times, you will roam around the world to find a collectibles or simply watch another sims everyday life. And compared to The Sims 2, you could have a big family while focused only to one sim because of better AI, slower needs decay, and faster need filling interaction (eat, peeing, talking, etc). You will get more thing done to do something else that The Sims 3 expansion packs offer.
3 is the GOAT it’s fantastic !!
I hope with the sims 5 they continue with the old timeline (most likely not but I can dream)
This is very interesting video for someone who didn’t play older sims - really good video. I would say this is not so uncommon in gaming. A lot of the big franchises got reboots between the PS3/PS4 gen - The Sims, Mass Effect, Hitman, Tomb Raider, Dragon Age. All are okay games but they all lost a little something something in terms of the characters/lore etc. The look got spruced up and it’s mostly the same but there’s a little something missing from the heart and soul. I think the developers in general are trying to steer away from things they saw as problematic, push more of their politics at the sake of gameplay and steer towards monetisation and I don’t think we’re ever really going to go back to those good old days of gaming. I don’t think new devs have the passion older devs used to have and aren’t there for the right reasons.
Thank you for sharing this interesting observation! I've only played the 2013 Tomb Raider - so I'm not too familiar with changes which occurred in those series. Although, I will say that I noticed a similar shift between older Animal Crossing games, and Animal Crossing New Horizons. Many of the old NPCs were missing, as well as many tasks which old fans of the series were used to seeing.
Its a sad thought relating to the present / future of the gaming industry, but I expect you are right :(
I completely agree with this. Look what’s happening with Saints Row rn and hopefully doesn’t happen to GTA6. That game is in my prayers.
These newer games lack so much that I’m stuck playing older games, at least I’m saving money though I guess.
Yasmin this was quite a good take!!It is quite clear they are catering for younger audiences- hell most of the generation who started playing as kids with ts1 and onwards are in the thirties and mid-thirties now (myself included in that braket). When you talked about the raunchy aspect, definitely try the ts1 and ts2, those romantic interactions were something else 😆 do keep these videos up gal x
The disappearance of the birthday cake dancer is an obvious example of so called kid friendly (eyes rolling)
the sims 4 makes me sad. ive been playing the games for as long as i can remember (mostly the console games, and ts1+ 2) and it means a lot to me and so does its stories.
all of that backstory and theory crafting was thrown away with ts4, we probably won't see the main story as it was again. my favourite sims are pascal, nervous and olive and i just KNOW they would never give nervous' story what it deserves. yes, it's incredibly dark but thats why it's so interesting - it WASNT obvious! it was a very subtle kind of horror that made you curious enough to dig deeper. ts2 and ts3 COULD be enjoyed by kids but really feels like it's for an older audience. ts4 feels like the opposite to me.
everything about the sims 4 makes me so sad. the over monetisation, gameplay downgrades, sanitisation and basterdisation of the lore.
I didn't know about Project Olympus, to me that makes sooo much sense why Sims 4 is so bare bones. Lack of Cars? Sims 4 being an intended Online game, probably was intended to drive around in an online World with other players and the mechanic with it was scrapped when the project became abandoned. The obsession with loading screens was most likely a quickly rushed mechanic on the Sims 4 engine during Sims 4 development. None open world? Same applies, rushed effort to the point things were poorly implemented in the engine development. Cartoony graphics? Project Olympus was probably intended to be a cross platform for multiple Consoles, of which some didnt have a strong hardware system. Explains why lack of Create a Style, explains why no lot size modifier option and so much more.
I dunno what to think anymore. I loved Sims 2... I didn't like Sims 3 immediately, but grew to really enjoy it. I remember really disliking the Dev house builds and non-cc color swatches etc (every house was poorly designed and looked like a granny lived there). I was able to run Sims 3 on an average but decent PC at that time and only had major issues with extreme builds and... having a lot of things in my pocket...
I defended Sims 4 at first because it had a fantastic build mode which kept improving and I really enjoy building in the game. However, I just cannot defend the gameplay anymore. It's so meh. I just don't enjoy playing in the worlds I create. I'll let ya'll put your finger on it, but I just enjoyed playing in Sims 2 and 3 a LOT more.
Honestly one thing I hated straight off with Sims 4 and hate to this day is how small each world is. They are *tiny*! I just went and looked up Monte Vista from the Sims 3 and it has a total of 37 pre-built residential lots, plus the community lots, plus something like 20 empty lots (15 residential and 5 community). Then I looked up Brindleton Bay in Sims 4 and it has 11 residential lots - 7 pre-built and 4 empty. Even worse something like Mt Komorebi that only has 6 residential lots unless you count the rentals. Any time I want to move one of my families to a better house I have to spend about 10 minutes going through every world just trying to find the small handful that are both unoccupied and in their price range, and if I want them to actually live somewhere with a specific vibe? lol you must be dreaming, half the time you need to evict someone because every single property in that town is occupied. There's barely even any choice in starter homes.
Also hate that PlantSims are a temporary life state. They've always been one of my favourites and now they're not even a real thing.
I've been trying to get the Sims 3 running again over the last few days with no real luck, but honestly, 2 and 3 were both pretty good. I might just install 2 tomorrow.
Even the Sims 2 had larger worlds... mostly because you could build them yourself! You could even import worlds using Simcity 4 and make them as large or as tiny as you wanted!! It was incredibly innovative for it's time!
I tried so hard to like TS4, I gave it so many chances, but i cant do that anymore. if they are going to continue to babyfie the game and not do simple bug testing i cant give you any of my money. It sucks because i have been playing TS1 base game it has been with me for my entire adult life and i have watched it go downhill.
I find myself spending hours in builmode, witch is a lot easier to use than previous versions, but then I start playing and quickly get bored of the gameplay and leave it for months at a time. I've been playing since sims 1, I just find sims 4 too easy, not interesting, not challenging, my favorite is sims 3 even if I have to read a full book while it loads
This has been going on for a long time tbh. I don’t have any personal experience with TS1, but TS3 is more sanitized than TS2. Some of the old TS2 launch trailers are interesting when comparing it, particularly the ones meant to show off the aging aspect and aspirations.
The Sims 3 was absolutely where the big problems with the series started, but it's a good enough game on its own that I'm personally willing to overlook those flaws. The same cannot be said of The Sims 4.
Sims have such perfect lives in Sims4 that it's become boring to play.
If you've played the original 3 games, you know what I mean.
Really liked this video. Im glad to hear other Sims channels talk about EA's issues and the over pricing. I often dont hear a lot about it.
Although I am happy that the Sims 4 is going free-to-play, I can't help but think that it's about damn time. Sims 4 came out in 2014 as a very stripped down Sims game. Sims 3 had a glitchy release but it was still a game with lots of content in it, even without the expansions. Sims 4 felt unfinished and rushed, and I remember thinking it did for the first 3 years it was released.
In my eyes, the Sims 4 didn't feel finished until they had slapped enough 40 dollar expansion packs onto the game that just should've been in the game *in the first place.*
The Sims 4 is a GREAT architecture simulator with VERY barebones life sim elements lol.
I really want Paralives to be a genuine sims competitor, but I’m afraid that judging by the soft pastel art style it’s just gonna be another feel-good game like TS4. We’ll have to see.
You should be paying more attention to the features they’re working on and the open communication they have with their base than the art style. That alone already tells me that even if that were the case, Paralives would much more be worth my time, unlike EA that bullshits and lies whenever it’s convenient and uses its player base as unpaid testers.
@@vvvye and depends on modders to fix their own game and add features they don’t have time for or are too lazy to do themselves. It’s like having their own personal unpaid group of people making content for their game to keep the player base from completely ditching the game.
When 1 modder on their spare time can do more than a whole multibillion dollar company’s team = sad.
@@MagnumPatrol
Yup that’s pretty much everything that was implied in “bullshits”!
Honestly makes me sad to play the Sims 4. I can only handle TS2 and TS3 now, because TS4 is so... family-friendly. There's no spice or substance, just a cash grab. Makes me sad I grew up more on TS4 than older games.
I am traumatized after that hs dlc for the sims 4. I can't believe how overwhelmingly disappointing it was. I haven't played the sims 4 since. Instead, I play the sims 3 and I truly realized everything I was missing. I don't think I'm going to go back anytime soon.
I've been playing The Sims for many years and I have the same feeling, the later version is less adult... I don't think that's bad, that's just different. Awesome video!! 👏👏👏👏👏👏
Man I love sims 3, but it's weird how it looks different recorded, like thr palette is off.
Yes I do have weird issues recording the sims 3 through OBS - I’ve noticed other creators have it too! By default it comes up very dark in OBS so you have to play around with the colour correction settings to brighten it - I think I’ll need to play around with them a little more next time I record any sims 3 😅
@@YasminsCorner I've noticed it just taking screenshots of the sims 3 so def not the recording software. It's such an odd game
i honestly think the sims 2 is the perfect game. it has so much personality and never gets boring to me
I really believe Sims 4 did an alternative universe just because they wanted to show familiar faces with no issues with timelines, allowing them to place these families at any expansion with no issue if the timeline fits.
I have to say that the alternate timeline is something that I prefer because it's unsustainable for said timeline to keep moving backwards as it did from sims 1 to sims 3 whilst *also* having the technology improve. Of course, they could've brought back the sims 1 or sims 2 time and resume flow the correct way, but then, I think it mostly comes to the lack of lore in this alternate timeline - had it been as fleshed out as sims 2 - or even sims 3 - I don't think nearly as many players would've complained about the Alternate Timeline idea.
Conceptually, there isn't anything wrong with TS4 being set in an alternate timeline. However, a good concept can be poorly executed, and that's exactly what happened...
The Sims 4 originally being an online multiplayer game kind of frames everything wrong about the game, to be honest. The foundation of the game was meant for another kind of game to be played, and the long-time length of this installment and the obscene amount of content being released in increments really feels like a DLC model more tiered towards microtransactions (kits).
It’s just a very sly repurposing of what they already were going to do combined with the game release model from the older games, but for a Single Player Experience
I have played every sims game even before sims 1 came out I played just sims where you build amusement park and I played sims city 🏙 but when sims 1 came out I was hooked and loved the game so much more then sims 2 was bedder and sims 3 was my favorite ❤ have not been a huge fan of sims 4 since it came out 😢 tried it hated it would not play it again for years till pools and toddlers came into the game but still felt it was missing things 😢it finally feels like it has more to play now after 8 years and there’s so many bugs in the games 😢 makes me sick to finally have all the games to play and all the bugs with them! Disappointed in EA for sure that they haven’t done better with sims 4 than they did with sims 3 😡
I remember seeing the sims 2 woohoo cutscenes and wondering how ts2 got a 7+ rating fjcjc sims 4 could never. one thing i also remember was playing ts2 on my dad's laptop and making my sims try for baby and gettining paranoid that my dad would walk in I'd have to awkwardly explain what i was doing. I miss the personality of sims 2.
It was fun, weird and out there. It had a lot of attention to detail to it and all the sims had personality
I have one word to sum up the reason why sims 4 sucks: capitalism
EA being too greedy and stripping the game down to bare minimums for the lowest common denominator and ignorring why players love the sims. EA splitting expansion packs down into game packs and design packs and packs and packs.
No one seems to ever talk about how even more content than usual was cut from the Sims 4 compared to the other sims games. Babies and pools used to be base game content. They cut them out to sell them to you in 4 😡
oh and as for alternate timelines and other fan theories, I bet the explanation is way simpler than all that, the devs just had no clue what they were doing.
It definitely doesn't help that a lot of the developers who worked on the original Sims games, probably aren't working at Maxis anymore. I mean, Will Wright was the creator and he left shortly after the Sims 3 base game was released!! Meaning he wasn't even involved in the Sims 4 whatsoever.
I’m 30 and probably among the oldest in the fan base. I was starting to think it was all in my head and that I’m simply expecting too much from a children’s game. But you’re right, the older games were more mature.
LOL. I'm 48.
You are no way near the oldest, we have lost some simmers due to dying of old age. suitcase, drink and hula zombies await them, as for those gone too soon. A sad loss each and every time.
I think a lot of the problems do boil down to laziness and knowing that no matter what they do they’ll have people that’ll buy it (seemingly especially when it’s something that should’ve just been base game or included in a previous pack). Every time I think about the gameplay quality drop I’m reminded of the ways in which games have changed, specifically this one. The Sims used to be a CD computer game. They had to make sure everything was up to par before sending these packages out, 100%, because otherwise that would mean a recall and a loss of time and profit. However, now, through Origin, they see fit to update whenever they please and as such seem to feel no need to spend the time testing and making sure they’re sending out a product that they can actually be proud of when instead they can make their player base do that for them instead for free. It’s absolute bull, especially with the game breaking updates some packs have resulted in.
Aside from that, I’m confused about the Caliente “white washing”. I definitely noticed it with Bella’s original TS4 design, but I don’t see anything wrong or otherwise off about those two. If anything they just don’t strike me as being as pretty as their TS2 counterparts. Meanwhile I’m confused about the redesign choice for Alexander Goth; what was wrong with him taking more after their pale father?
Edit: As for Sims 5, quite frankly I don’t want to see it. If this is what they have to offer now then I can’t see them doing any better because that means they’d actually have to start listening to their players. Not to mention the fact that games are often representative of the times, and I very much so fear what TS5 would look like should our society (societies?) continue to head in the puritanical direction things seem to be headed.
I appreciate that TS4 runs better, Ts3 burnt my laptop to a crisp. But really I miss the charm of the old games. Bustin Out, the Urbz, TS2... Now it's mostly fun for house building and adult mods like basemental... Etc. ;)
For a long time up until just recently I was under the impression that TS4 actually had a different ESRB rating than the previous games. I guess in retrospect I should have known that TS4 would still have a T rating because it still contains mature themes but it definitely seems way more tame when compared to it's predecessors, especially TS2.
I feel like one aspect the sims 5 needs that I think people don't really mention often but kind of group it into "gameplay" but, I Job progressions need actual difficutly. My sim can go from being rank1 in a career to the max rank in a day of playing the sims. Just being in a good mood and having the skills to progress so rapidly kills momentum and gameplay. Take the sims 1 as an example. Your sim starts off in a shithole, you get a job and make minor funds to just slowly build your house up. Then you start getting promoted, you can relax a bit as you have some decent stuff. Then you hit the progression wall which is "Friends/networking". This system encourages you to go out, make friends and socialise but it also made job progression DIFFICULT. You no longer were able to just jump from rank 1 to rank 6 in a day. You had to actually work for the money at a certain point.
The way I see it, EA is clearly just trying to widen their audience as much as possible, to maximise profits, and usually when companies do this with their beloved franchises it ends up alienating their core fanbase. There's a good chance that there are people working on the game who feel the same frustrations we do with the game being sanitised and overly toned down, but don't really have much of a say on the matter. This is why I'm hopeful that we'll start seeing more competitors like Paralives coming out, at the moment the sims is the only big game franchise we have in the life sim genre, and I think some competition could benefit the genre as a whole. I wouldn't mind the sims 4 being a toned back, child friendly game if I had other options beyond the sims 3 (since the other 2 aren't even available for purchase anymore) that catered more towards my playstyle. Although it's nice to see the resurgence that the sims 3 community has had in recent years.
Back in the day I used to have just TS3 base game with Generations and Late Night without any CC or mods. Oh my... I was addicted playing sims and I had so much fun with only those packs. I could go hours even days playing with my families. Now even if I have Sims 4 with a bunch of packs and kits it's feeling lacking and super easy to achieve that sometimes I ask myself "what the hell I'm supposed to do now". Even the worlds in Sims 4 feel empty to me. I was totally surprised when I could revive my sim with the wishing well meanwhile in the Sims 3 you have to work your way to revive your sims and same with other things like careers, relationships, money even skills.
Sims 3 has a very special place in my heart as my first sims game and even with every new gameplay I discover small details that makes me appreciate it more. And I know that I have to try Sims 2 too!
This video was soo well done and engaging, it really puts things into perspective! Subscribed ;D
Thank you!! Your feedback means a lot!!❤️ glad you found the video useful!☺️
making the basegame free is definitely to get more people into the game and to buy the actual packs. i got my basegame free in 2019 when it was offered for like a few days, and i havent bought any packs bc theyre really expensive and the basegame by itself is just really boring so the temptation is there
TL;DR: I don't think Sims 4's artstyle (and style in general) is bad for being "unrealistic", I think it's bad for being comedic that it didn't deserve.
Sims 4's art style, in my opinion, is not "unrealistic", it's simply comedic. Sims 2 was comedic as well, but it was a much more surreal experience, the format of 3D being new, it is more haunting than actually comedic in the end. Sims 3's art style is nothing but un-comedic. And Sims 4's art style is comedic to the bone, including these cartoony "emotions" on the profile picture of the sim. Constant cartoony comedic sighs, looks all around with a tired smile, goofy walks (a ton actually) - all of this comedy with no punchline or surrealism Sims 2 offered. Play-doh look could've worked if it wasn't so "stand-up" hip. It feels like an in-joke between devs rather than something aimed at players.
That's my take and my preference in life-sim art styles and tone. You can't take a game seriously if it doesn't take itself seriously as well. Sims 1 and Sims 2 are excused because they were doing a new thing, they needed this humour as coping with weird mechanics. Sims 1 was an "adult doll-house" vision, Sims 2 had that 3D and generations, Sims 3 knew it didn't offer much new and used seriousness to it's adventage, but Sims 4... it's a... yeah.
Humour is a huge thing for the Sims franchise, so for many years that thought didn't occur to me. When I was a child, reading Sims 2's descriptions of funny chairs and doors was quite amusing. The humour never really have hurt back then, it was all new, and it was early enough so the joke didn't wear off yet. Now "funny descriptions" are in almost every second game, you can't surprise a player anymore by being witty and lamp-shading. Sims 4 have lost a lot of lore, so this lore in descriptions have lost a marvel for a lore-seeker, remembering all those Bella Goths and Langraabs (I still figure what's their genealogy and which Landgraab is mentioned in any description). All that's left is the game's itself "comedy" which falls flat because the game's fanbase have grown, jokes grew old and more immature (since kids don't recognise old jokes and it's a new experience to them), stereotyping becomes more apperant, and identity with uniqueness become more needed than ever.
Back then when Sims 3 came out and it was a bit of a flop for some, we grasped for Sims 4's premise and wondered what it would be. What great feature would be implemented? It's not like a sequel would need any new feature, but it was the Sims - the ultimate Life Simulation genre, there is no reason to think less than invention. And what we've got? "Emotions". I didn't get it at first, I was happy because it was sorta kinda new, and I was falling off the series anyway. But now I understand that each "emotion" is a seperate joke. Happy smiles (who asked to smile?), angry is cartoonishly angry ooh poor boy, sad whimpers though emotions are a common thing to be bullied about, inspired gesticulates in it's body portrait, it's all a poor choice of an art style to begin with. Cartoons aren't bad, I've watched a ton of them in my life, and none of them were bad for being "unrealistic", they were simply bad because they have had bad directions and poor vision.
I was blinded by pretty places and body shaping (right! another thing that we were glad about, and now patented, well thanks EA, very inventive of you). Now body shaping seems more like a chore than an addition, there is no reason to use anything but sliders. Body shaping comes with a lot of Oblivion'esque monstrosity-fests, not in a body-shaming sense, but in a different kind of body-shaming sense - for people to make unconventional or unrealistic body proportions and laugh at them rather than to use the tools to their full potential and be serious about it. Being capable to change body shapes doesn't come with innate understanding what those shapes should be. Emotions and body-shaping were more like brainstormed catchy ideas rather than a proven working vision, and they were both comedy-related. They didn't really have a soul. And this comedy never really goes away, even if there a presence of a "lack" of features. It's rather too much. Too much comedy the game didn't earn. If you take away all of this goofiness, you'll be left with a rather less annoying experience, I presume.
Man, if I had a nickel for every time the sims games get crippled under their own weight when you have every DLC, I'd have 2 nickels. Not a lot, but weird that it's happened twice
Wait no it's not, EA is fucking lazy and forcing these games out when they should take their time and make a game engine that can actually HANDLE being supported for 5+ years.
I started in Sims 2.
But spend most of my time on 3. 4 had too little content or was too expensive to upgrade from so i really havent play much of it.
Overall i like the customization of 3.
But i miss the IA in sims 2. How can a more primitive game have sims that feel more alive.
I don't get why everything has to be for kids these days. Take Pokémon for example. Obviously it was always aimed at kids but in the older games there was at least some challenge and you had to use your brain a bit. Now it's so easy and holds your hand so much I couldn't even finish brilliant diamond
I should clarify I couldn't finish because it was so boring
This video is great, SO spot-on! Sharonia is absolutely right; everything is so walking-on-eggshells nowadays, and people treat teenagers now like literal children instead of... teens. Teenagers know about all kinds of stuff, whether from media (like me, who was totally unsocial in my teens) or from real-life experience, so why is the T rating now used like it's aimed at a younger audience than it is? We're not asking for it to be like freaking 'Euphoria', we just want it to be like The Sims again!
Tried sims4 a few times, idk, I never grew attached to anything and left me feeling frustrated. There are some things I enjoyed but not enough. I still play sims 3, there is just so much to do and explore. It feels to me, it was their peak and I'm not really excited for a Sims 5.
the only reason I'm still playing sims 4 is honestly the multitasking feature tbh
other than that... it's modded to the gills to make it enjoyable 🤷
unfortunately I've invested too much time into it 😔
I actually think that there has been a shift in the gaming industry overall. When The Sims 1 and 2 came out, it was never expected that they would be popular among child/teen audiences, it was just sort of a happy accident that so many of us became interested in it at such a young age. PC gaming was largely targeted toward adults; it was rare for a household to have a computer unless they needed it for work or were interested in gaming already, which meant that the majority of PC users were adults. Building a PC back then wasn't very accessible, it was expensive and it was harder to get information than it is now. Not everyone had internet back then, either. Early consoles were made to bring popular arcade games home, and these games were always marketed towards children & teens who were already into arcade gaming, while PC gaming stayed marketed towards adults.
Gaming on the PC was inaccessible too, and games were really experimental, clunky, and had loads of rules that needed to be followed to enjoy them. Before TS1, the most popular genres were FPS, simulator, strategy, or MMORPG, all of which weren't particularly easy to get into for children. TS1 was one of the first casual games to be created for the PC, which made it accessible for all ages, and made it one of the first franchises popular among kids rather than nerdy teens and adults. TS1 became the most popular PC game of all time back then, which opened up the market A LOT. TS2 was even bigger and attracted even more kids. It took a long time for the PC gaming industry to realize kids were their own market. Now that PCs are more mainstream, and pretty much every household has the internet, there's plenty of kids who play PC games. It really got big with the success of Minecraft.
I think The Sims 4 is the result of the "happy accident" that TS1 and TS2 had being popular amongst kids, along with the gaming industry as a whole shifting towards children. Naturally, TS4 had to be sanitized as hell to be able to meet industry standards and stay within the T for Teen rating. I agree with Sharonia's post about adults being far too protective of their kids when it comes to video games, and this is a reflection of the gaming industry's sanitization as a whole in order to be absolutely marketable and unproblematic for children.
Very interesting! Glad I was recommended this video :)
Thank you, I’m so glad you enjoyed it!🥰❤️
Dude I was 10 when the game came out now I'm 18 like... who do they think they're catering to besides 18+ people?
Also 877 hours of sims 3 here xx
I was also 10 but I played the sims 3 before getting the sims 4 but didn’t play as much as sims 3
Sims 1 had a stripper cake for parties...a male and female one. Just saying. 😂😂 (45 year old Simmer here).
And this is yet another reason why the older games will always win!!! Hope you enjoyed the video! :)
A lot of people have already talked about the maturity lacking in 4 so I won't go into much here (but I wholeheartedly agree with it!) Another big problem I have with 4 is that everyone just is just the same. If you let your sims have autonomy, you can find that even sims who have things like "mean" or "jealous" traits can be just as easily befriended (even romanced) as other sims.
The emotion sytem seems to just be about how sims feels about certain rather than how they would react. I like the system in theory, but I feel it needs a second axis operate on. In prevous games with the moodlet system, sims seemed to act apporate to their mood. With one bar of the negtive modifyer basically being them annoyed. While at times they could act rude, they still were failry normal to each other. But at the complete 4 bars of the negative moodlet. Sims with this effect were actually mean to each other, hard to please, and just difflcult to talk to----even for well established relationships. It also prevented you from getting promotions. You had to find ways to "fix" their mood as they usually didn't end after 3 hrs. That's not the case for Sims 4. So I think a hybrid of the systems would be ideal, leading to Sims with even more complexity and varied reactions, thoughts, and feelings.
It's really jarring in Sims4 since I like to set up my world with planned friendships, rivalries, relationships, etc. only for me to look away and suddenly the husband whose wife cheated on him with his co-worker/friend is still getting phone calls about going out to eat with said friend. Nothing matters. Sure, sims get "angry" or "embarrassed" but in a couple hours, it's like nothing happened.
A bit unrelated but about the quitkiness of the original Sims: In The Sims 1 when a lightbulb went out, you could get electrocuted rather easily trying to fix it. As a result whenever that happened I just either bought a new lamp or called the repairman.
On one such occasion the repairman came, got electrocuted and died.
You would think that the game would spawn a new repairman but no, from that point on if you called repair services, a GHOST would come to repair stuff. He would walk in a straight line through the walls to his objective but orherwise behaved the same. Except if you called him towards the end of the workday if the repair took long enough he would stick around at night haunting the place. It was wild.
im honestly so close to just switching over to the sims 3. i started with 4, have gotten very bored and modded my game to the point it barely works just to add substance, and the only reason why i haven't switched is because i literally don't have room on my computer for both games + all my cc lol
Well that's suck, how about upload your CC to every cloud apps until you get enough space for TS 3 base game?
My mom used to be a simmer, and she knows how the previous games were more inappropriate for younger children, and how sims 4 is more like an E10+ game. So she lets my little sisters play that one
I only played the first Sims that came out in the early 2,000s. I made my own character and it was difficult to figure out what to do. Though I did enjoy building my own house.
My first ever sims game that I played was sims unleashed and the last one I played was sims 3 island paradise. Sims have become far more sanitised which is disappointing, but also watching other sims videos it feels like EA has given up with the idea of the creating lore and just using the iconic characters from previous sims game for cash grabbing reasons.
Long-time Sims 1/2 player here. I got the Sims 4 back in 2018 and played it for about a week before I got bored of it. It just felt like it lacked the soul the other games had and there was never anything to motivate me to keep playing. The only thing I really enjoyed about it was making the sims themselves, since the customization options are a bit more robust than 1/2. (I can't comment on the lore of the premades, since I rarely ever play them.)
Ever since then, I've been wishing some indie dev would make their own Sims-esque game. Think what Planet Coaster is to Rollercoaster Tycoon, or what Cities Skylines is to Simcity. (And it needs to have extensive modding tools!)
that's not bella goth in the sims 3 trailer. you can see mort's parents in part of the trailer, like their character outfits and appearances were already decided. they just changed mort's shirt.
I've been playing sims since the very beginning, I agree with you. Sims 4 is a "watered down" version. Honestly I rarely play anymore as it just doesn't have what I originally came for anymore. Waiting on another team to come out with a better game. Sims 4 just fails to hold my interest the way the past games did and I'm no longer spending money on it; I feel at this point that the modding community does a better job than EA. Of course this is all just my opinion. Great video. Be blessed