Quissah

My experiences with the Civilization series begin in my childhood. For Christmas one year I received Civilization: Revolution for the DS. At this point in my life I was generally ignorant to the videogaming world so all of my decisions on games were based solely on what other kids in my school already had. I can attribute Civ: Rev to being the game that changed that forever. Civilization: Brave New World completes what is probably one of the most influential games I have ever played. Civilization V as a whole will always be what I consider my favorite strategy game and with Brave New World, I can happily say that every dollar of the $130 I spent on this game were very much worth it. From the new Ideologies to the expanded trade systems to the new Civs. This expansion really just made the game for me and for that, I will always hold the names Sid Meier and Firaxis to the highest reverence.

I'd like to start out by saying that I am no Sims veteran. I played the third installment of The Sims casually but never quite got into the game as much as say, Civilization V but that's just the result of personal taste. I was very excited for this latest installment of The Sims, though. This was primarily because I had begun to realize the depth of The Sims 3 and it looked like MAXIS was going in a new direction with this game. Now that the game has released, I can say that I find it to be a rather good game. Sure, a large number of clothing customization features have been removed as well as free access to every area of the town and even the town size (which I was really surprised at how small the towns now are) But I feel that some of these "step-backs" were implemented for very useful reasons. My machine cost me over $2000 to build. It can run Battlefield 4 on ultra settings with super-sampling enabled. Though this is the case, I was plagued with extremely long load times, freezes, and lag that really didn't make much sense since the Sims 3 was a 2009 game and all of my hardware is top of the line from 2013. I can honestly say that in the Sims 4 I have never once experienced any noticeable performance drops which is very nice. I also feel that the graphics in the game are a nice change. Colors are much more vibrant and I honestly prefer the look of the sims in this game as opposed to those in The Sims 3. Often times I would get this uncomfortable "uncanny valley" feel while playing The Sims 3 as the graphics were relatively realistic but at the same time obviously not real life. The sims in The Sims 4 though, are much more cartoon-like and while this may not appeal to everyone, I feel that the exaggerated expressions and body language of these new sims is a pleasant step in a new direction that doesn't necessarily kill immersion while at the same time adding a gorgeous new approach to your sims. In fact, I think the whole game is darn pretty. I also feel that the customization is a big tradeoff. On one hand, you have the massive depth increase in creating your sims. I've found personally that the create-a-sim in the game is very open ended and just plain fun to mess around with making all kinds of characters. But on the other hand, you have a total lack of customization when it comes to clothes colors. In fact, this is probably one of the most frustrating parts of the game. Sure, you can still make thousands of clothing combinations but really, only about a quarter of those actually look good or make any sense at all. I've found myself styling all of my sims rather similarly and this is just boring. One of the best things about the Sims 3 was the amount of clothing options. Though I am guessing that in later updates (and inevitable "stuff" packs) there will be slews of new clothing which will make up for the general lack of customization in this area. I do have to say that MAXIS really has done a great job of revamping the whole Build-Mode. Everything in it is much more accessible and fluid. Gone are the days of having to cheat to make half blocks. I feel that this is one area I was really pleasantly surprised to find different and better. House building has never been my strong suit especially because of the level of trivia that was necessary to really comprehend everything about house-making. But now it's been made a lot easier to use without taking away any of the depth that it had before. The new objective-based Lifetime Wish/Rewards system is really awesome. It no longer feels like just droning away with max-speed on like it was in The Sims 3. Now the game manages to incorporate a lot of the depth that wasn't necessarily apparent in The Sims 3 into your Lifetime Wishes without making it feel like you're being forced to meet specific criteria to complete objectives. I've actually found myself not checking the Lifetime Wish/Rewards panel as often as I did with the Journal in the Sims 3 but still completing objectives. This is really nice because it gives the player a level of autonomy while also guiding you to explore all the areas your sim's skills can be applied. To wrap this up I have to say that I am generally happy with the way The Sims 4 has released. Sure, it has it's problems but it is in no way deserving of some of the ratings it has received from users. In fact, I'd say a large portion of these reviews were heat of the moment, emotion-packed, rants the likes of which you'd probably get from a child who didn't get a cookie in his lunch. So I think it's safe to say that this game has improved in a number of ways but also leaves room for improvement that we will probably see in the dozens of expansions this game will have. So I would recommend this game to any veteran fans of the series as well as those who have never played The Sims before. Just keep an open mind.