Sims4News
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Despite the lukewarm reviews, The Sims 4 has debuted at the top of the UK all-format chart, from physical sales alone.
The Sims 4 has been out for less than a week and Maxis has made it clear they’re entirely focused on the success of The Sims 4, before even thinking about the next game. On The Sims official forums, producer Grant Rodiek quelled suggestions for the next Sims game from fans with some definitive statements.
“We’re not working on Sims 5. We’re not thinking about Sims 5. If Sims 4 isn’t successful, there won’t be a Sims 5.”
The Sims 4 released only a few days ago; our Steve is going to play it until his “eyes fall out”. While some passionate fans were giving suggestions to what could be added or changed in the next game, producer Grant Rodiek stepped in to remind them not to get ahead of themselves. “We’re not working on Sims 5. We’re not thinking about Sims 5. If Sims 4 isn’t successful, there won’t be a Sims 5.” said Rodiek.
When later challenged by fans, Rodiek clarified that it’s “not all or nothing”, but that “something has to pay for 5”. Seems like how game development usually works to me, but it’s strange to think of a world without The Sims.
Is The Sims safe for now, or could this be the end of the iconic life simulator as we know it?
Shoutout to my lovers at ONTD for posting this article! (Original Source)
I’m really enjoying it so far! I absolutely love the graphics…they may seem simplistic in screenshots, but the game (in my opinion, at least) is very, very detailed and beautiful.
The emotions system is nice but it definitely seems like a gimmick. It doesn’t add much to the game, and I’ve found that my Sims are constantly experiencing the same few emotions over and over (my Sims have been Energized and Focused hundreds of times, but have never been Depressed or Angry).
My biggest gripe is the lack of content. The babies are extremely simplistic objects, there are no toddlers, and the teenagers look exactly like young adults. I personally love generational gameplay, so this is especially disappointing for me.
The world is also extremely small, even with both towns, and there’s really nowhere to go and nothing to do. As much as I disliked TS3, I really miss having a town. Even just a fake town-view (like in TS1 and TS2) would be better than the static map. It doesn’t feel like anything is connected, and all of the interesting areas are just decorative.
Like the SimGurus have been saying, TS4 is a really great foundation in terms of technology and design. I’m excited to see how they add content to the game…I just hope it comes quickly (and cheaply), because the game really needs it.
I generally try to stay away from BuzzFeed, but this article does a good job at showcasing seven interesting, genuine, and diverse opinions about the game.
What do you think about The Sims 4 so far? What would you rate the game on a scale from 1-10?
I’m not going to gloss over the extremely significant amount of negative press that The Sims 4 is getting just because you don’t want anyone to “hate” on it. I’m glad that fans are enjoying the game, but the fact is, reporting reality is the most essential component of the news.
Telling me to ignore the bad press and negative opinions about the game is like trying to tell CNN to stop reporting “bad things” because it’s “hate”.
We post news about The Sims 4. Considering that the game is currently facing international backlash, it would be quite irresponsible for us to not mention it in the name of staying positive. That isn’t news, it’s denial.
The day I start filtering the news to appease readers is the day I delete this blog.
Prior to the release of The Sims 4 there was a lot of talk about the plethora of features EA and developer Maxis had cut from the game. Ranging from pools to toddlers, the more cynical Sims fan suggested that EA was planning to save this content for a later expansion pack, but whatever the reasoning behind it, a lot of people weren’t happy.
The Sims 4 has now released in the US, and while advance copies were not sent out to reviewers therefore meaning that critiques from publications are few and far between, users have been taking to the likes of Amazon and Metacritic to offer their opinions. Unfortunately for EA and Maxis, those opinions are mostly negative.
The Sims 4 currently has a rating of just two-and-a-half stars on Amazon, with the top-rated review from Angela Streiff reading: “For what it is right now, I’d rate this game somewhere around 3 stars. The high price for minimal starting content is where I was a little disappointed and it loses a star. I’m hoping once expansion packs start coming out, it will be a better game and rated more between 4 and 5 stars. The price for what you get right now is steep.”
As is typically the case with user reviews, the ratings veer wildly from five stars to one star, though its current middling rating will likely have EA sweating buckets given that this is one of the publisher’s biggest releases of the year. The previous backlash they received following the release of SimCity severely harmed the company’s image, and if The Sims 4 also fails to resonate with its target audience then it can be assumed that EA will be looking to make some drastic changes. Similar to the negative Amazon reviews, The Sims 4 currently has a Metacritic user rating of just 4.5 out of 10. While user Metascores are notoriously redundant, they too indicate that many are lashing out at EA and Maxis due to the various features that are missing from it that were featured in previous games in the series.
Its easy to dismiss user scores as being a poor indication of the quality of the product, but Sims fans who haven’t paid much attention to the ongoing controversy surrounding the game may look at those Amazon review scores and, without knowing that many are immediately dismissing the game due to its cut content, decide that they won’t purchase it. As The Sims 4 reviews start to go online we’ll have a clearer indication of just how good/bad the game is. EA will certainly be hoping that the critics opinions will be in their favor.
We can’t bring you a review of The Sims 4 yet, but there have been some interesting comments from players who picked it up at the US launch.
The Sims 4 launched last night in the US and eager Sims fans fired it up overnight. Critics have yet to get their hands on the game here in Europe and US critics will have just started playing like everyone else, so for the moment, these initial impressions are about the best we can go by.
We usually don’t check gamer scores on Metacritic because they tend to be all over the place, but as EA has refused to comment on when exactly press in Europe can start reviewing the game, we had to take a peek to see what initial impressions are like. Remember: these “reviews” will only be based on a few hours playing so you shouldn’t take them as full-fledged “final scores”, but we can at least get an idea of what people like and don’t like as far as features are concerned. Right now, it’s sitting on a 6.0 in Metacritic with reviews pretty split between 10/10 and 0/10, so…
I’ve played it a couple of hours yesterday. My first impressions are actually really good. - The_X_Filess [10/10]
What the hell? I bought this being really excited about getting the next generation of Sims games, but it really just seems like a fancied up version of the Sims 2 with LESS features – Doctective. [0/10]
Sims 4 is not a really bad game, but not a good one either – Adrian Chan [5/10]
I played with the Create A Sim demo and felt I had a good understanding of it, but once I started in the actual game the create a sim setup has no natural path. – JarrahG [1/10]
I can not believe how did they possibly manage to destroy an amazing franchise with this God awful game. Nothing, absolute NOTHING is good about this game. – BloodChronism [o/10]
I was exciting about this game. I like the way the Sims look and I love the multitasking, but the game itself is very lacking and boring. trixiebayn [0/10]
Played for 5 hours so far and to be honest, I don’t see much improvement over Sims 3. Yes loading times are shorter, yes there are moods now, and sim creation is slider-less, graphics little bit better, but overall it is the same game. It should be called Sims 3.5. – Hedon [3/10]
Been playing for the better half of the night and this game is alright. Not many improvements to be honest, and the sliders are cool though. The left out plenty of stuff from previous entries which i’m sure will be paid dlc down the road. Do not buy this game now, wait for a flash sale in the coming weeks. [2] – corey3612
This is just a sample of what’s popped up so far, but – again – do remember that these impressions will be after only a few hours play, so it’s a bit risky to take them as final opinions based on extensive play. It’s interesting to see a bit of conflict in there, too; ignoring the 10/10 review for a moment, there are those claiming it’s a lot like The Sims 3 and those claiming it’s The Sims 2 with less features.
Meanwhile, over in the official forums, the community appears to be split on the game’s quality. This thread is probably the most constructive and sensible one to read.
With press not being able to play the game prior to launch we do have our suspicions that the game could be lacking but we’ll reserve judgment for now.
Maybe one day, but TS5 wouldn’t be announced for several years. They do generally begin development of the next generation pretty quickly, but there wouldn’t be any significant progress or public news about it for a very long time.
Not yet, unfortunately.
If you want to play TS4 as soon as it’s released, you can now pre-load the game on your PC.
The option to download the game and have it ready to launch as soon as it’s released is currently rolling out to everyone who pre-ordered a copy through Origin. When it’s available in your area, simply launch Origin and hover your cursor over the game tile in your Game Library to check if it’s available.
Once The Sims 4 is pre-loaded, your game will unlock when it launches in your region. If you live in the United Stated, that means 12 AM EDT on September 2, or 9 PM PDT on September 1.
Fans in other regions can find their local release schedule below:
I’m excited to hear your thoughts about the game! While there has been an incredible amount of disappointing news in the past year, I’m still excited to give TS4 a spin!
What are your thoughts? Are you excited to try out the game? Did you even bother with a pre-order?