Thoughts & Things

The Sims Series

As a longstanding fan of the Sims games, I thought I would share a few of my thoughts on each game within the series. I haven't included any of the Sim games that are not explicitly The Sims, as I figure that would be way too time consuming. Besides, The Sims are the best of those games by far anyhow. I won't rank them, I will simply go through them in order.

The Sims
I first played The Sims when it was fairly new. I actually first saw an ad for it on the case of one of my SimCity games. While the game definitely feels very dated now, at the time it felt pretty amazing. I have a lot of fond childhood memories of playing it on my mum's computer. That said, the game had a very narrow scope, and did typically lose a lot of its appeal without any expansions. Honestly though, I would still play the game today if I could find my copy of the Makin' Magic expansion, which was damn awesome.

The Sims 2
I got the holiday edition of The Sims 2 for Christmas not long after it came out, and I remember how much of an upgrade it felt like after the first one. They went leaps and bounds from what was presented in the first game. I can remember that my computer at the time struggled to play it. This one kept my attention significantly longer than the first one, as I felt much more comfortable replaying it without any expansions even after the third game was released.

The Sims 3
This one didn't necessarily advance from the second by miles, rather it changed what you could do with it. I think the third game might actually be the best of the four. The customization options are fantastic, so there are a lot of different ways to play the game. It also has some really incredible expansions that add a lot to the base game, even though the game is still a blast to play vanilla.

The Sims 4
The fourth game in the series almost seemed to back track from the third game. It took several updates to really bring a lot to the table with The Sims 4, but they got there eventually. I wouldn't necessarily have recommended the game in its initial stages, but now it's definitely at least as good as the second game, probably better. It also brings some really fascinating stuff to the table in the expansions. I do really like this one a lot, and the new stuff it presents is a lot of fun, but I feel like they just stepped back a bit too much, and took away a lot of what I enjoyed most about the previous games.

For those who may be wondering, I rank the games 3 > 4 > 2 > 1.

(I have committed to blogging daily with Give It 100. This is Day Eighteen. One day of leave taken total.)