Pros
- Much less lag than previous Sims games. It also seems to have far fewer memory leaks. Performance has definitely improved.
- The click-and-drag tool in Create-a-Sim is nice, and gives you much greater control than before in the Detailed Edit mode.
- You can jog within your own neighborhood without seeing a loading screen, which is nice, but you can't visit anyone or any other neighborhoods without a loading screen, which isn't as nice. It makes it more difficult to randomly bump into people on someone else's lot.
- Multitasking is a cool addition; it does feel more natural to be able to run on a treadmill while having a conversation.
- Having conversations with multiple people at the same time (I've seen up to four Sims speak to each other at once) is nifty.
- The emotions are interesting and make conversations seem more natural. See the cons for the negative flipside of the same thing.
Neutral
- I'm really not sure how I feel about the looks and faces. The verdict is still out on whether I think it's an improvement or just a step sideways.
Cons
- Your Sim will often cancel the action you told them to do. Talk about frustrating.
- Pretty much all of the fun is only to be had in social interaction. If you're not talking to other Sims, there's really not anything this version of The Sims adds to the franchise at all. Every improvement was essentially social. What about the rest of the game, like being able to be burglarized or find endless collectibles or build houses with tons of unique objects or styles? All of this was given up in favor of "tabletizing" the game and making it run on all computers. In essence, it's all been dumbed down.
- No dishwashers or other mind-numbingly basic content. No toddlers, pools, open world, or Create-a-Style. These features, some of the best that have ever been added to the franchise, were essentially just...removed. Babies can only be lifted up from their cradle and set back down like in The Sims 1. Jobs are back to just consisting of your Sim leaving the lot for 8 hours with no opportunity to do anything while at work.
- You can't even see your Sim's needs while at work. This part is a step backward from The Sims 1. That's just insane.
- All the items and objects are so boxy. Every chair, couch, desk, stove, or even refrigerator just look like rectangles all over without much style to them at all.
- The neighborhoods just look ugly now; the selection screen is no longer pretty and colorful but instead relies on a grayscale scheme.
- Everything feels like you choose from a preset now instead of Create-a-Style. You really don't have much of a selection when it comes to how your house, your Sim, or the world looks, because there are just so few items and options.
- The visual effects described in previous bullets cause the atmosphere and feel of this game to severely tank; everything is just too simple with no option for the rich complexity that made The Sims, The Sims.
- You can't turn off the tutorial; you have to go through the whole thing before it goes away. If I see one more screen pop over the exact place I'm trying to click...
- The game often crashes when I try to go to neighboring lots or back to my own after going to town.
- Your Sim changes emotions all the time. It often is a race to do a special action that's only available during a certain mood before they switch again.
- The sound effects each time you switch emotion are really annoying, and pop up way too often.
- The speed-up-while-sleeping/at-work feature is nice, but it would be even nicer if it worked all the time. There doesn't seem to be a whole lot of pattern to why it only sometimes works, and this sucks, because without this super speed-up, none of the three speed options is fast enough.
- The whole dating and falling in love and sleeping together bit is very boring now, which is quite something, considering this is usually my favorite part or focus of a lot of games. You'd think it'd be made more interesting with the emotions, but it just feels like there are so few actions to do with another Sim, and you often can't even tell what kind of conversation your Sim is having with another. A flirty conversation sounds pretty much the same as a regular one.
- The animations and hand gestures aren't interesting.
- The friends your character makes come over all the time. One of my other Sims came to visit, stayed awhile, then left, and less than three in-game hours later, she was back. And then again the next day. And the next. Even the Sims themselves realize they have nothing to do in this game, hah!
- The other Sims in the game seem to have no rhyme or reason to why they wear the clothes that they do. My other Sim would come over in only formalwear or partywear, and never in her regular clothes. What's the point of choosing the main outfit, then?
- This is obviously going to be a tablet game, which isn't bad by itself, mind. But the entire GUI screams that it's for touchscreens...and knowing EA, there will be plenty of ridiculous microtransactions to go with it.
- This is not an upgrade to The Sims 2, and definitely not to The Sims 3. This is more like The Sims 1 with better graphics, but not better than The Sims 3.
Honestly, one of the only ways I can think of to describe this game is back to the basics. If you enjoyed the very basics of what The Sims series started off with, this game could be for you. Don't get me wrong, The Sims 1 was great, but after all of the improvements and additions from TS2 and TS3, we really deserve a much better product, not an obvious tablet + microtransaction ploy. It's absolutely not worth the money, so that's your call to make. I would recommend the game as a standalone if it were $15 or less; otherwise, this game (which should essentially be called The Sims 1 in 3D) is a definite no.