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My Trial of City Living Expansion Pack
waterywatermelon
Posts: 473 Member
I don't own the City Living expansion pack, and that expansion pack is up for a free trial this weekend. So yesterday, I downloaded the expansion pack and began playing with the free trial. Today, I continued playing with it. There are definitely some pros and cons to this pack.
Pros:
Cons:
Overall, the City Living expansion pack is a pretty good expansion pack. You get quite a bit of stuff in it. I can definitely see a lot of replay value out of the street store table and other cool objects. I also like the huge variety of food and the ability to make them at home after trying one. My only complaints are more or less related to how The Sims 4 base game mechanics work, not the expansion pack, but they do affect the experience of the expansion pack features. I also wish that the world is a bit bigger with more playable families and community lots. Belladonna Cove in The Sims 2 is pretty similar, and it is stuffed with so many families and community lots to explore! Plus, The Sims 3 and The Sims 2 both offer the ability to create custom apartment lots in custom worlds, while The Sims 4 at this current moment still doesn't have the ability to create custom worlds, and I don't think you can create a custom apartment building because of how the game is set up. The best you can do will probably be creating a little apartment unit, not the whole apartment building.
If I had not owned The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection on release date or all of The Sims 3 expansion packs, then I would definitely buy The Sims 4 City Living, maybe at 50% off, just so that it's a comparable deal to The Sims 3 Late Night. Late Night also comes with a Reputation feature, which really changes gameplay at a significant level because then your Sims can experience consequences for certain behaviors. Celebrities may be in the Film career and work their way up to access the special venues in Bridgeport. Most of all, The Sims 3 has the ability to add these tall skyscrapers anywhere. You can place a skyscraper in Sunset Valley and live in a penthouse right in Sunset Valley, but in The Sims 4 City Living, that may not even be possible. So, when it comes to pricing, I think you get more replay value out of Late Night than City Living because of the player's customizations. Late Night at regular price is $20.00 right now, and City Living at regular price is $40. So, it's best to get it at 50% off, not 20% off to get your money's worth - maybe even less than that, because Late Night is also bundled up with High-End Loft Stuff and the Base Game.
The Sims 3 is also very resource-intensive, so despite the relatively low price tag ($20 for each expansion pack), you may be paying more for the hardware needed to run The Sims 3 in its entirely. Because of this, I think The Sims 4 City Living is the cheaper option. Though, I also own The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, and that one was FREE. Nothing beats free. Plus, the Sims 2 UC runs great on my PC. It has a similar experience to the Sims 4 City Living, plus the ability to make my own apartment buildings and units!
Pros:
- live in a big city in an apartment and work your way up into a penthouse!
- cultural festivals (The fireworks were cool, though it would be even better if they were like The Sims 3 ones where you could go into the Map view and actually see the fireworks. Perhaps, in the Sims 4, you have to tilt the camera to see fireworks or something?)
- street musicians (Not only can you tip the street musicians, you can also become one! Then, you can use your cell phone to register yourself as a self-employed street musician! You can customize whatever career you want!)
- You can meet different Sims (though, you can do so in the base game as well).
- You get the politics career, social media influencer career and the art/food critic career... and I think, the self-employed career?
- Basketball court.
- Singing.
- New ethnic clothing and ethnic hairstyles and ethnic foods. If you have always wanted to create an ethnic Indian Sim, then now's your chance!
- Karaoke.
- Haggle for prices and get discounted items at the produce store and street vendors. Now, your Sim can shop for groceries and haggle for prices!
- You can also sell crafted items or grown items on the little street store table, and start your own grocery store business!
- Attend rally and protest - also linked to the Politics career track.
- Old, worn-down Build/Buy content. You can make your apartment or house look old and worn-down and install utilities features so that the living space will look like it's been unfinished. I really like the Build/Buy content, because I can use it to make old basements. But then, I already own The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, and that one is pretty similar.
- Street art.
- Bubble machine.
- Voodoo doll. (The voodoo doll doesn't seem to have much of an effect, though.)
Cons:
- Too many loading screens and rough transitions. In The Sims 3, you can actually see your Sim walk into the lounge area of the apartment building, press a button on the elevator, go up and enter the apartment. In The Sims 4, the Sim gets out of the apartment by magical teleportation. In The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, your Sim selects an apartment and signs the lease and moves in. No loading screens at all to visit the neighbors, as everything is on the same apartment lot. In The Sims 4, if you want to visit a different community lot in the same neighborhood, guess what? Loading screen! You can go to places farther than the community lot, but if you want to visit the actual community lot, then you are met with a loading screen. Well, I can only say that this feels like a slight upgrade of The Sims 2, where you are stuck on the residential lot or apartment lot or community lot, but a major downgrade from The Sims 3.
- Dumb AI. My Sim hired a caterer to make food, but this caterer made food, left the food cooking on the stove and then grabbed new food from the fridge. So, I just made my Sim fire her, instead. Afterwards, I made my Sim discard the food on the stove to avoid a fire.
- No Story Progression. If you want to have neighbors moving in, then you can turn on Fill Empty Houses. Otherwise, the neighborhood may feel very static, as opposed to the dynamic liveliness of The Sims 3.
Overall, the City Living expansion pack is a pretty good expansion pack. You get quite a bit of stuff in it. I can definitely see a lot of replay value out of the street store table and other cool objects. I also like the huge variety of food and the ability to make them at home after trying one. My only complaints are more or less related to how The Sims 4 base game mechanics work, not the expansion pack, but they do affect the experience of the expansion pack features. I also wish that the world is a bit bigger with more playable families and community lots. Belladonna Cove in The Sims 2 is pretty similar, and it is stuffed with so many families and community lots to explore! Plus, The Sims 3 and The Sims 2 both offer the ability to create custom apartment lots in custom worlds, while The Sims 4 at this current moment still doesn't have the ability to create custom worlds, and I don't think you can create a custom apartment building because of how the game is set up. The best you can do will probably be creating a little apartment unit, not the whole apartment building.
If I had not owned The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection on release date or all of The Sims 3 expansion packs, then I would definitely buy The Sims 4 City Living, maybe at 50% off, just so that it's a comparable deal to The Sims 3 Late Night. Late Night also comes with a Reputation feature, which really changes gameplay at a significant level because then your Sims can experience consequences for certain behaviors. Celebrities may be in the Film career and work their way up to access the special venues in Bridgeport. Most of all, The Sims 3 has the ability to add these tall skyscrapers anywhere. You can place a skyscraper in Sunset Valley and live in a penthouse right in Sunset Valley, but in The Sims 4 City Living, that may not even be possible. So, when it comes to pricing, I think you get more replay value out of Late Night than City Living because of the player's customizations. Late Night at regular price is $20.00 right now, and City Living at regular price is $40. So, it's best to get it at 50% off, not 20% off to get your money's worth - maybe even less than that, because Late Night is also bundled up with High-End Loft Stuff and the Base Game.
The Sims 3 is also very resource-intensive, so despite the relatively low price tag ($20 for each expansion pack), you may be paying more for the hardware needed to run The Sims 3 in its entirely. Because of this, I think The Sims 4 City Living is the cheaper option. Though, I also own The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection, and that one was FREE. Nothing beats free. Plus, the Sims 2 UC runs great on my PC. It has a similar experience to the Sims 4 City Living, plus the ability to make my own apartment buildings and units!
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Comments
I think, for other people, it just might work.
However, for me, I am not satisfied with the product mainly because of the asking price and what the product actually has. The main competitor of The Sims 4 is actually The Sims 3, and EA is still selling The Sims 3. When you have a game that has been out for a while, that is cheaper and has more content and customization than The Sims 4, the winner has to be The Sims 3. However, The Sims 3's biggest flaw is that it is very demanding on the PC, and not many PCs can run the Sims 3 very well. Plus, people may struggle in getting the Sims 2 CDs installed on modern PCs, and people don't have access to The Sims 2 UC anymore. So... The Sims 4 is the only choice for the modern Simmer with a budget PC.
And there is The Sims 2. The Sims 2 on disc is not compatible on modern PCs, but The Sims 2 Ultimate Collection has been made compatible as it is a straightforward download-and-install. It also runs great on modern machines. But of course, as it is the older game with a closed world, it is much easier to run than The Sims 3. TS3's open world and Story Progression are pretty demanding on the PC, even though they do make the world come alive. The minimum and recommended requirements for TS2 are lower than TS3's, maybe even comparable to TS4; and by keeping The Sims 2 UC up there on Origin would mean competition for The Sims 4.
Yes, I just noticed that and their site is still up and running where as the others was archived some months after it run had ended. As far what can run Sims 3 has increased with the newer systems but inherently Sims 3 has not advanced or moved over to 64 Bit and may never do so. Sims 3 does offer more than what Sims 4 has to offer and sadly EA/Maxis tweaking anything they have is lacking and one of the reasons some did not care about Sims 3 and I am looking at Sims 4 it starting to suffer as well. Sims 4 will not be remembered for it's playability but for its controversy and what it did not have and in turn might affect Sims 5 if it does come out for many may not do what they did when Sims 4 came out and I called it Slims 4.
Perhaps. However, The Sims 4 started when more people than ever got on the Internet. People were using the Internet more and got on social media sites. Social media became a news outlet. YouTubers needed to make $$$, and you could do that with some kind of flashy and controversial title.
Compare this to 2000. People might have a personal computer at that time, but it was quite expensive to own one. Internet connection was dial-up, and it was slow. The Sims (original) was this new thing on the market, and it succeeded because of its novelty. While the Team was busy publishing Sims 1 packs, they were also making The Sims 2. Lazy Game Reviewer once mentioned in a video that The Sims 1 actually had a controversial expansion pack. This "expansion pack" was not made by Maxis, but by someone who gathered free custom content on the Internet, packaged them up into a CD and marketed it on the shelf to sell for profit. Custom content creators were upset by it, and according to LGR, some of them still are.
For me an pack that is made by an an dev for Sims 1 is not as controversial on how Sims 4 came to be for me. Sims 4 lost just about all features that was present in Sims 2 and 3. An engine from an cancelled project was allegedly used instead of making one from scratch. Most of the packs made appear to be gimped pointing to CL in which EA/Maxis attempt at letting me make Apts less creative. As I said in my post Sims 1 and Sims 2 was archived quite quickly but not the case for Sims 3 not that EA/Maxis going to rev Sims 3 back up but even with the complaints some players was having with Sims 3 and some of those problems can be attributed to EA/Maxis themselves as their track record on tweaking what they have is quite poor and in most my cases I found it was the program that was not optimized correctly as I had 7 complete systems at that time using various specs and got different results from them.
Basically what EA/Maxis done with Sims 4 was cater to the lowest denominator low-end systems as one can see the program does not scale up or scale down so having an 3080, 10900K 16 GB ram means almost nothing and the only place you might see an improvement is graphics while I like good graphics, I also like features that my systems can grab and take the program to the next level and sorry Sims 4 just does not do that for me and now the question Why am I still playing it and my answer is I do not invest in Sims 4 and I also do not play it but I do offer feedback. so as I posted in my last post controversy for me will be most remembered about Sim 4.
I think that catering to the lowest-denominator low-end systems is actually a good direction. Most people who play The Sims are probably casual gamers; they seldom play video games, and when they do play, they may use the same computer that also holds their schoolwork or office work. Also, note that EA is keenly aware that the playerbase is largely composed of young adult females - right in the college-age group. By that, young women at that age may be in college and have a computer for school, and on the side, they may use the computer to play The Sims. So, having a light Sims game would be ideal for this type of Simmer. The graphics are cute, and the player can run without much issues or lag. These types of people are probably big-time Sims 4 players.
In the end, EA just cares about the $$$. Your $$$. As long as you put $$$ in their pockets by buying their games and their DLCs, they will keep doing what they are doing.
The voodoo doll is base game. Apartments are just normal lots but with added annoying AI, you can't build your own and visit neighbors without loading screens. Self employment is in the BG, you can already become a street musician in the BG. Meeting new sims is not a feature. And I'm pretty sure you can haggle without CL, in any street vendor (RoM, Jungle Adventures, Seasons, etc). The street table can also be obtained with Eco Lyfestyle and/or Jungle Adventure so I wouldn't say it's unique to CL.
CL is as bare bones as Island Living. Snowy Escape is...maybe slightly better than the two because of the snow sports and lifestyles, though those have been sort of broken since the EP released...what a joke. The three worst EP's in the whole franchise. I don't recommend buying any of these at full price...you'll be robbed.
HAHAHA... I have been buying The Sims 3 packs as a replacement for The Sims 4 packs.
People are now buying Island Living EP. I just bought Island Paradise EP for The Sims 3.
People are now buying City Living EP. I just bought Late Night EP for The Sims 3.
I actually own The Sims 4 base game ($20) and these DLCs:
1. Luxury Party stuff (part of Target-exclusive deal)
2. Perfect Patio stuff (part of Target-exclusive deal)
3. free Holiday stuff
4. Seasons expansion (purchased with Bing Rewards / Amazon gift cards for $20)
5. Get To Work expansion (purchased with Bing Rewards / Amazon gift cards for $20)
6. Laundry Day stuff (purchased with Bing Rewards / Amazon gift cards for $5 or at 50% off)
7. Bust the Dust kit (purchased with leftover money on my EA Wallet though I might have used it somewhere else instead; what a waste of $5!)
ETA: The Sims 4 City Living animations, as much as the rest of The Sims 4, are just meh. The food animations appear as if the Sim is taking a duplicate of the food on the plate and chewing up that duplicate instead of the food on the plate. The basketball animations are also weird. Instead of picking up the same basketball on the ground, a Sim will just generate a NEW basketball. This creates an awkward moment in which you briefly see 2 basketballs. The Sims 2 by far has the best animations, and it is very nice that much of that has been borrowed and used again in The Sims 3. I wish that The Sims 4 had much of The Sims 3's assets and game engine. It would have been a much superior game than what it is today.