TLDR? Check out my picture story below!
I haven't *played* TS4 in about a year (although I still open it almost everyday to take pictures and test new content/CC). I enjoy it, but it still has a lot missing/lacking for me to feel fully satisfied. The new packs have been a VAST improvement over the first ones, though - I will admit that.
When StrangerVille was announced I was completely taken-aback. I thought it looked super fun, but I didn't like that it was following a narrative and I would have preferred something like University. Having played it through, however, I have to say this is the first time in ten years of being a hardcore fan of the franchise that it has seriously surprised me. They have tried a few new things over the years, but this is the most radical - and it REALLY works.
I made a suggestion on the TS3 boards years ago about non-religious possession as a lifestate, never expecting it to come off, and look what we have here! It is something completely new and fresh for the Sims and it feels like it is coming at the exact right time. You get a full experience - from the shady agents in black suits, to the creepy 'possessed' Sims wandering about at night and the little trailer park and the man living in the plane wreck and the guy working the stand with the tin hat. It feels like a full other game
inside the Sims. Are there negatives? Yes - but they're the base game's drawbacks, not exclusive to this pack. There's a lot of go here, do this, have a loading screen. But the story is so engaging you don't notice it (too much). I was pleasantly surprised by the new animations, like the 'bugging' during a hug etc. And the way the 'possessed Sims behave is actually quite startling!
Now, what about in terms of longevity? All things that follow too much of a linear in the Sims (open careers, adventures) get tiring after a while. But this feels so in-depth and well done that I can actually see myself enjoying playing through it again a couple of times (like I do with my PS4 RPGs). And there is lots of stuff that can be used outside of the story, just as ways to tell your own story - like the world, and the plane wreck house and the trailer park lot. Lucky Palms was my favourite world in TS3, so I'm glad to have it back!
Well done, Sims team. You impressed me with this pack. Here's hoping to seeing a healthy mix of the beloved and the fresh going forwards.
Comments
I'm playing mine through basically narrarating to myself the way you do. Very tongue in cheek and funny to me. I've got some differences in my story. I've got Buzz Grunt as the main character .. although I stopped playing him for a little while to bring in a larger cast of characters. Anyway his wife is eating fruit like crazy and possessed left and right and they are still trying to make babies cause he needs boys to follow in his footsteps! He's putting bugs on her and spying on her in his spare time between work and his quest to save the world.... for now. I'm not at the end yet but spoilers never spoil stuff for me. I really enjoying the play through. I've got multiple situations of how to play it lined up already.. or just break time while the world is strange. I'm pretty sure after Buzz saves the world form me Loki Beaker will be ready to bring it down again!
I want to use the fruit to make cults or as some sort of mind control for my more deviant scientists. The mods that will spring from this should be funny as heck also.
Anyway glad you are back to enjoying it again for now. I haven't stopped but the themes here thrill me so much. They will add so much to my game whether I'm playing that story through or not.
Those spore things are flying around the world in my game. I scanned my house and had to clean that 🐸🐸🐸🐸 out of my sink. I thought to myself "oh no, what have you started". I should have moved more than a single sim to StrangerVille.
I am collecting the spores right now. Battery is low on scanner so can't do anything else yet.
I have no clue what I am doing.......I am sure my sim will die
so what you are saying is, in order to get the bug off of Erwin Pries...I would have to figure out who put it on him...presumably one of the MIB or WIB....bring them in as a playable character.. and have them use the listening device on him. I have the perfect partner for him, a half alien-half vampire trans gendered offspring of Eric Lewis of Willow Creek, who better to date a conspiracy theorist! ...but I want to get that bug off of Erwin first.
Aww...come on! It's fun eavesdropping on the regular ones too! Or the infected regulars.
I've had a good laugh on some of them!
A fun thing to do is that you can actually blackmail sims that you've bugged and they will give you money.
LOVE IS LOVE - Gilbert and Bruno Ferro
He/They
Exactly my thoughts!
The fridge thing didn't happen to me yet.
I didn't know about the refrigerator thing. It didn't happen to my sim. Good thing too, because he's not exactly swimming in cash right now
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
Some of you did not have the MIB confiscate your refrigerator? I loved that part - it was so funny! Had two of them show up in my game. Just wish there had been more to that - that my sim was under investigation for snooping around. Also wish the ending had been a little more sinister involving the MIB.
Ohhhhhhhh. I greeted one of them and they left kind of quickly, so it didn't happen to me. Phew
Race Against the Clock: Can your elder sim turn back the clock before their time runs out?
Are you saying that if you get another refrigerator and keep the fruit in it - they will keep coming back and taking the refrigerator?
It will be a lot of fun to go through this again with another sim. Thank you for posting it.
And I'm really happy you enjoyed it so much! I did too, I even like that I had to fight Mother twice because we sorely failed the first time xD
I may start the game again and use my Scooby Doo team as I just got to the point where they need lots of sims to do battle (I had taken 3 with me and the Mother kicked their butts lol).
There are things I know now which makes me want to play it differently too. And I want the MIB to come, cos I missed that.
Origin ID: simaddict1990
I saw the trailer and I got excited but to hear others and the buzz that was going on, including the forums was soooo fun! I'm proper hyped to get it -making sure I don't before I pass my theory, or else I won't get any "revision" done-
"wahoo" - aquaman
Im a simmer forever