You heard about The Sims 4 on consoles and want to learn about it? You came to the right place but considering that not everybody knows about The Sims, I’ll start this article with a brief review of what this franchise is about and where it came from, before I tell you more about this particular release and whether or not it’s worth getting checked out.
Sim History
In 1991, game designer Will Wright, who also created SimCity and Spore, lost his home due to a fire. By rebuilding his life and home, he was inspired to build a “virtual dollhouse” in the form of a video game. At that time Maxis, the company he worked for, didn’t fully support the idea but when Electronic Arts (EA) acquired the brand in 1997, they thought that such a life simulation could be similarly successful as SimCity was (probably still is) and supported him.
In 2000 they released the first installment simply called The Sims. This was now 18 years ago and they never stopped development and building the franchise. Overall these years they released various extension packs and full releases, such as The Sims 2 in 2004, The Sims 3 in 2009, and The Sims 4 in 2014. These titles usually focused on PC as the primary platform to publish on. Only a few attempts (thinking of The Urbz: Sims in the City and others) were made to port the gameplay on consoles and portable devices. I can’t recall such being a huge financial success, as the simulation genre of video games was heavily at home with PC users and maybe with Mac gamers.
What is The Sims about?
In this simulation franchise, you can create your own virtual people, called “sims”, shape them, name them, dress them and build them a house with the furniture you like. But furniture comes at a price, so you will need a proper job as well to earn some money, or as they say “Simoleon (§)”.
Starting a career sucks, so you have to improve your skills and work hard to get promotions. Also, you’ll meet a lot of other sims and make new friends, meet your partner, get children and help them grow up. It deserves the title to be a simulation of life. You can spend a lot of time with your sims and have fun.
The Sims 4 now on consoles
On November 14, 2017, EA released this popular game franchise now finally on major consoles. If you never played much on PCs but always wanted to give The Sims a try, now is your chance. You can buy the main game now for $25 due to a special sale for Xbox One and PS4. The sale ends in 7 days and then the normal price will be $49.99 again.
Executive Producer of The Sims at EA, Lyndsay Pearson, commented in the official press release, “The addition of a console version of The Sims 4 has been long-awaited by fans and newcomers alike, and we at Maxis are beyond excited to bring The Sims to new platforms,”… “The game delivers a beautiful The Sims experience on console and comes packed with tons of the fan-favorite content, so players can look forward to the unique gameplay, self-expression, and fun that have come to be tentpoles of The Sims brand. The possibilities to play with life are as endless as the players’ creativity.”
There are also already some extension and content packs out there for consoles too. Here’s what they released so far:
- City Living Expansion Pack
- Vampires Game Pack
- Vintage Glamour Stuff Pack
You can buy them separately but if you’re looking to spend a lot of time with the Sims 4 on consoles, you might be interested in just grabbing the bundle with all the packs for another $49,00. They sometimes do sales on this too. Right now the bundle is available for $29,99, also, only for the next 7 days as it seems. Personally, I was really intrigued by the content of the City Living and Vampire expansion packs but I haven’t spent the money on them yet, so I can’t give you an actual opinion on those.
Room for improvement
I would say it’s fair to consider that this release is the first serious attempt to port the original sims experience to the console world without compromises. I understand that it’s not easy to transform a title that has been developed for PC for 18 years this much and achieving a perfect release. The port was done in cooperation with Blind Squirrel Entertainment, who previously also worked on titles such as XCOM (and XCOM 2), Prey, Star Wars: Jedi Challenges, Bioshock, Evolve, Sunset Overdrive, Borderlands 2, and others
If I had to call out some angles that should be considered for future improvement, I’d say that the user interface (UI) and the general controls need a lot of work. Unless I overlooked it, there are no means to always display your sims bio stats. You can only permanently see what the controlled Sim currently needs the most with a single icon but I’d much rather have all the gauges displayed permanently. Switching speeds works well but sometimes gets a little laggy. I don’t think that’s a terrible issue but something to work on perhaps.
Summary
After you got used to the controls, the UI, and find you’re way around The Sims 4 on Xbox One or PS4, you might quickly grow to enjoy taking care of your own sims and journey through their lives, in generations to come. It’s overall a solid attempt to bring The Sims on consoles and I enjoyed it a lot. If you’re not sure how you’ll like it, check some videos or streams on the title. Just make sure you’re not watching them play on the PC version, so you can see how it actually looks. I streamed my first Xbox One gameplay on the TechAcute Twitch channel live a couple of days ago for a couple of hours. You can check the recorded video out if you’re curious how I’m playing it. But remember – always play as you like! 🙂
If you don’t like to buy digital games via download you can also browse what Amazon has in store here:
YouTube: The Sims 4: Xbox One and PS4 Official Trailer
Photo credit: EA / Maxis
Source: EA /Maxis press release
Editorial notice: Quotes have been provided as part of a public press release. All images used are from The Sims 4.
