Why we love gaming’s reality playground (and you should too) by Chris Thursten
CAS
“The only strict limitation is character height—every Sim in any given age bracket is approximately the same size, a restriction imposed by the animation system.”
“You can “lock” particular parts of your appearance and randomize the rest, in which case the game will do its best to pick complementary body shapes and coherent fashions.”
“The only sliders you’ll need to adjust affect your Sims weight and musculature, variables that will also be affected by the activities you choose to pursue in the game itself.
These don’t just change the dimensions of your character, but the textures they’re actually drawn with—a fitness—crazed Sim will look more muscular than an otherwise-healthy Sim of the same shape who does not work out.”
SEARCH FEATURE
“I appreciated the new sorting filters; you can filter the catalog by style and color. “Pick “red” for example, and the game will display every piece of clothing with red in it—from dinner jackets to argyle sweaters.
This system is also used when you are picking wallpaper and flooring options. Across the board it’s much easier to pull together a look that you’re happy with.”
GENETICS
“Once you’ve created a single Sim in a household, it’s now possible to genetically derive their relatives. You can do this up or down the family tree.
Unlike the Sims 3, where you could only derive children from their parents, you can now derive parents from children and brothers from sisters and so on.”
THE GALLERY
“Online sharing of Sims house and rooms is now integrated into the game proper, enabling players with an internet connection to upload their own designs and download ideas from other people. You can also store local copies of anything you’ve made for later use, which is both a handy convenience feature and a sign that Maxis has learned an important lesson regarding players who want to play without an internet connection.”
GAMEPLAY/TRAITS
“I was worried that despite the variety of emotional responses on offer, Sims would be essentially similar in their preferences—that the world would be built of absolute emotional correlations. Traits upset that.
Despite having performed the same action, each character’s underlying traits fundamentally changed the nature of the action that followed.”
“I like the idea that I will be able to create Sims that clash with one another, that don’t all need to do the same things in order to fulfill their needs—because that’s how people really are.”
CONCLUSION
“The only thing dampening my enthusiasm for the game in the months before the release is concern about its stability. The version I was shown was alpha software, so problems are to be expected—but there were none the less prominent crashes and the odd overlong loading screen.”
“The game seems remarkably complete, content wise—Maxis promises more stuff to do on day one than any prior Sims launch—so perhaps there’s time to get on top of the issues I saw. I hope so, because what I’ve seen of the Sims 4 has rekindled my affection for the series.”