Comments on: US Gamer: Sims 4 Playtest [Warning: Habit Forming]

By: kitaxia

kitaxia — Tue, 05 Aug 2014 03:10:34 +0000

Excellent review! Enjoyed your view and keeping it simple made it easy for me to understand! Loved it!

By: Jaz Rignall

Jaz Rignall — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:34:01 +0000

This is definitely not a review. Just the writeup of a preview event that I attended at EA’s Redwood Shores in Silicon Valley. I spent about six hours playing it, which sounds like a long time, but in the general scheme of things that gave me about enough time to get a general understanding of the game, build a house, make a Sim and start experimenting with the new emotional system.

As I said at the beginning of the piece, it is indeed an account of someone discovering a Sims game, and I’m not surprised you’re disappointed. I’m just offering a fresh perspective, to go along with the plenty of other Sims 4 previews out there written by experts. Ultimately, I’m writing the piece for people like me who mightn’t understand the game, but now they’ve seen my experience with it, they might also try it – because my focus is really on how easy it is to get into, and how much fun it was pretty much from the get-go.

By: Rae

Rae — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:27:41 +0000

But thats the whole point! To have a good time playing the game not ticking off how many things are “missing”.

Just play the game and have a good time. Thats all i want to be able to do.

By: Rae

Rae — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:26:30 +0000

This, oh VERY much this.

Im very pleased with your review and i wish they had flown out people who had never played the game before.

I wrote a review on this review [and the game so far] on the forums xD
http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/0/767801.page#12346460

By: Shell05231

Shell05231 — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 19:04:13 +0000

Thanks for the great review! It was interesting seeing the game from your perspective. I’m glad the game has converted you as it has to so many of us from when we first started playing the SIms, *chants “one of us…one of us” LOL I kid, but yay for becoming a simmer! 😀

Aww your sim made another sim happy, that is great! It’s the little things that you’ve said about in your review and your entertaining pictures that makes the review, you did a great job! 🙂

By: DerLetzteMonarch

DerLetzteMonarch — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 18:23:02 +0000

You’ve done a very good job! I think the best person to tell everyone if the game is fun and whether the gameplay is good or not is someone who has never played Sims before, anyway. Because every long time-Simmer will always start playing the game with certain expectations and will always end up comparing the games with each other. So rather than judging the actual game itself, if will always turn into a competition between Sims 1, 2, 3 and 4.
It was very refreshing to read an article from someone who is neither an expert nor biased for or against Sims 4.

By: MC

MC — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:41:24 +0000

lol I do have high expectations and I’d much rather read a review from someone who is familiar with the series. A newb is going to be impressed/bored by almost everything.

By: jazzy6897

jazzy6897 — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:30:16 +0000

This may seem dumb, but I like the fact that there’s soap and body wash in the shower. Not sure of this was in the Sims 3, but this is a nice small feature and I like it. 🙂

By: Devon Tej (@Devontejsp)

Devon Tej (@Devontejsp) — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:27:22 +0000

This was like someone discovering a sim game. Non informative for hardcore fans. She could review both Sims 2 and Sims 3 the same way with just little amendment. I liked the pictures but did not enjoy this. This better not be a review

By: Jaz Rignall

Jaz Rignall — Mon, 04 Aug 2014 17:22:39 +0000

Thanks much for the kind words all.

As a non-Sims player, it was really fun getting to grips with the game, and having insight into what makes it so addictive. Having no frame of reference, I can’t make any comparison between Sims 4 and the last iteration of the game in terms of its features and how different they make the game. But what I can tell you is that watching my Sims talk to others, and seeing how the conversation affected her mood positively and negatively was really interesting.

What I didn’t talk about much was that in one of the pictures on my preview (my Sim and another hugging), you can see a third Sim walking into view. She actually stopped and joined in the conversation – and that added a whole new dynamic to what was going on. Each Sim contributed something different, and had their own reactions. It seemed – and I’m not 100% sure here but this is what it looked like to me – that my Sim and the Sim in red were having a positive conversation that reinforced each others’ mood, whereas the new Sim to enter the conversation wasn’t very happy. However, I noticed that the Sim in red started giving her a pep talk, so I did too, and that seemed to completely change that Sims mood, and she ended up walking away looking happy – even the way she walked was different.

Not sure how that compares to Sims 3, but it was certainly a nice insight for me to see how Sims react together – especially in a group.

Ever since I played Sims 4 at the preview event, I keep thinking about it – and while I admit in my preview to not having any time to play it, I get the distinct impression that I’m going to make time for it. Getting that little taste of what it’s like is just not enough. That house building tool is just too damn good to talk away from – and I’m just dying to see what that Sim of mine gets up to.

I think I’ve become a convert.