The Sims 4

No Sims 4 reviews until after launch.

Is this as bad a sign as I think? Because I think it's pretty bad.

It sounds pretty freaking bad.

It doesn't necessarily (big emphasis on that word) reflect on the game, but even so, it's bad practice. Very anti-consumer.

When a videogame is going to be bought sight-unseen by several million people (ie. Call Of Duty), they never do pre-release reviews. They can only hurt the game, no matter how good or bad it is.

It is an terrible, terrible, TERRIBLE sign. There's almost clear inverse relationship between how close to launch the review is and how good the game is. Not sending out game codes is basically tacitly admitting that your product is either broken or just plain shitty.

Some people have their hands on the game now.

Initial impressions are not good.

I'm going to wait until a Mediacritic score is out before I can consider the public consensus somewhat reliable. Everything has a wave of both overly positive and/or negative reactions (I see it with albums a lot), and it's not until the first wave has experienced the work a little more until the big picture stabilizes.

To be honest, I don't know if I should get Sims 4 or load up on Sims 3 expansions, 'cause they're probably going to lower in price and I'll have a bit more money coming in soon.

edited 1st Sep '14 5:21:01 PM by optimusjamie

I think there's at least one retailer selling TS 3 expansions at $10 each, but I bet at least a couple of others will jump on a wagon this week.

This has probably been posted already, but here it is anyway; 79+ missing features from The Sims 4.

It's pretty damning. I was mildly interested in a new Sims game, since I enjoy the life simulation aspect and customization, but now I'm not seeing why I should drop 60$ on what is essentially a major downgrade compared to the Sims 3 even without expansions.

I'm waiting til lgr reviews this.I'm not spending money I saved up to buy crap.

Yeah.

I may give it a swing once the basegame drops in price... to free.

God. It's just so disappointing, because the create a sim was so good, I really wanted to play with all those Sims I made.

EA fucking up another release

in other news birds fly grass is green and the sun shines

It's currently sitting at a user score of 4.8 on Metacritic after 149 ratings.

Yikes...

But do you really trust user reviews? A game shouldn't deserve a 1/10 unless it is fundamentally broken or hideously offensive (aka: Ride To Hell Retribution, Air Control)

I trust user reviews and first impressions a lot more than I trust journalists.

It also doesn't help that I've seen livestreams and videos of the game. They're doing a pretty bad job of making me doubt that score.

I mean... the game isn't terrible, but it's sitting firmly in "meh" territory. It's not abhorrent, just disappointing.

While I doubt this game is any good, metacritic user reviews aren't worth the hard drive space they're stored on. People are wildly hyperbolic, and often rating with an agenda.

Metacritic in general is worth very little.

But even reviews and first impressions outside Metacritic are mostly negative.

I'm not surprised, just wanted to rail against metacritic user reviews for a bit

Yeah, I trust journalist reviews more than user reviews, because many negative reviews tend not sufficiently back their argument. Plus, the pool of reviewers (or at least outlets) vary wildly.

But if the critics and users both agree, then it's safe to say they're both on to something.

However, it's not like it's another SimCity-style launch, which was a complete disaster. From what I've seen, even the Gallery is running smoothly. That's a plus.

Oh, and people are having fun with the resize tool.◊ That's a pretty big bug, literally.

Those eyes are simultaneously adorable and horrifying.

Oh, yeah. The game is definitely functional (aside from, say, babies' limbs stretching infinitely, and Sims not actually going to work if you're controlling a sim on another lot) But for the most part, it works.

Another telling sign is that on the day-one patch, the only Grim Reaper fix EA had to do was that they had to prevent him from dating. It implies that they learned from TS3 and fixed the whole "WooHoo with Grimmie" bug that could lead to some funky occurrences.

Of course, the other gamebreaking bug fixed early in TS3, babysitters carrying babies/toddlers off the lot, simply cannot occur.

I'll continue watching how people react. The official legacy challenge is coming up soon, so I'll be watching out for it.

edited 2nd Sep '14 6:35:13 PM by chihuahua0

I'd just like to point out that the gloves section of the Sim Creator has no gloves. Like, there is a gloves section in the base game, but it has no gloves in it. You cannot wear gloves despite there being a clearly-labeled glove tab, which should have gloves but has no gloves.

If that doesn't bode poorly I don't know what does.

Are you sure you didn't just have a filter on? Because female sims, at least, had gloves in the demo. There was only one style. But there were gloves.