After years of wanting a PC quality Sims title for consoles, EA finally delivered- but was it worth it?
Although the original Sims game for consoles was a bare boned experience, I still very much enjoyed it. Why? Maybe I'm looking at it through rose tinted glasses, as this was my introduction to the series or perhaps it did have a charm to it.
Eitherway, despite it not being able to fully replicate it's PC counterpart due to hardware limitations of the Playstation 2, it did a good job!
Roll on 2018, where technology is at a place I wouldn't have thought possible, The Sims 4 had been released for the Playstation 4 and Xbox One and boasted that it could pretty much do what the PC version did!
No longer were we punished and isolated for not owning a computer.
Now we can buy expansion packs to expand our simming experience, share our families and designs with others online aswell as download other people's too.
It was definitely a welcomed step in the right direction however it needed improvement.
First thing I will get out of the way is controller vs traditional mouse and keyboard!
And while yes, I agree that the latter is far superior for the best simming experience, the controller was synched up pretty well to the console version with only minor complaints aimed at how sensitive the cursor can be- for example, at times it wouldn't move to then fly across your screen.
Graphically, it's beautiful and very characteristic- like the PC version and the sims themselves no longer look like questionable, potato people staring blankly into your soul.
They're animated and thrive in very detailed environments which did impress me at first but then I was slapped with the console ports biggest downfall- its performance.
Now I'm not saying that the game is entirely unplayable but there were times where I wanted to pull my hair out. There have been many times where the frame-rate has completely tanked because I fastforwarded the game or went from build to live mode. I would then have to spam the pause button in order for the game to actually pause and catch up with itself.
Not only that, when you give a sim a task to do, like using the toilet, they can be standing there for ages and not really doing anything while their needs deplete and in this case I would have to save, quit to the main menu and try my save file again.
It's annoying, and the cracks really started to show with every expansion pack I'd purchase- after Country Living, my save file on my ps4 legit became impossible to play due the above issues that plagued my game, to which I stopped playing entirely.
So it must be a hardware issue with the PS4 right?! Well, not really.
I've tried this on the Xbox Series S and even with only two expansion packs installed, I STILL encounter these issues- granted it's milder but it still breaks the immersion.
But overall is The Sims 4 for consoles worth it?
Well, considering it's now FREE- it's worth a download, despite the bugs I ran into.
There are hours of content and enjoyment that can be had from the base game alone although it would be worth spicing it up with an expansion or game pack if I'm to be honest but that's all user dependant.
I have created a list of BEST to WORST expansion packs for the series, which you can read HERE and regardless, I always recommend that you wait for them to go on sale! Want to know why, then check out that article!