Random Sim Musings-The future of The Sims

There's been a whole lot of talk lately about the future of this beloved game.  There's been layoffs! Crappy packs released!  No information at all!  Too, too quiet!  WTF is going on!?!?!?!?

I have no answers.  If I did I'd probably be getting free stuff and the Sim Gurus would know me.  But I digress.

Yes, things have been quiet.  There has been some house cleaning so to speak.  And that last pack...well, the less said the better.  But right now they don't have a community manager to relay information and they did just put up a bunch of job listings for The Sims 4 and other projects so this franchise is not dead yet.  I still have hopes things will be released in a timely manner.  There is still quite a bit to go with this version.  Like Seasons and University, which I'm sure will come.

Now about Sims 5...I don't think there will be one anytime soon.  I think many long time simmers (like me) are slightly burnt out on the series and who knows about new players.  But ya know I have no information about any of this and it's just my random musings.

What I would like to see is a stand alone Sims title on PC.  Sims 2 had the Stories games and Sims 3 had Medieval.  It probably wouldn't be well received by the public but personally I like having a title that doesn't fit the typical Sims playing mold.  Some of my favorite titles were on the PS2, The Urbz and Sims Castaway.  And I did like Medieval.  They were nice distractions that were familiar but just different enough to be new.

I think what I would really like to see is a full on World Adventures/Jungle Adventure type game.  Which I suppose would be like Castaway.  Something more mission based but you can ignore it if you want.  I love what they added with the jobs the objectives.  I tend to sometimes just watch my game and direct them if they need something.  But I do find myself paying more attention when they have stuff to do.

But my big wish is to see a relaunch of Sim Copter.  There is definitely a hole in the simming market for one.  I just keep throwing it out into the universe and hopefully it get heard.

"Sim Copter 1, reporting heavy traffic!"

I mean there's already a helicopter in Sims 4.  I'd love to be able to fly around all those parts of the worlds we can't actually play.  Traffic jams!  Protesters!  People falling into the water!  Fun, fun, fun!  All that with the graphics of Sims 4.  Winner, winner chicken dinner!

And with that I sign off.  Always keep on dreaming!

Go 4th and Sim!

Simmer4Life

SimCity Free Demo

Last night I took advantage of the free four hour demo of SimCity.   And first off just want to say the reviews weren't wrong.  The maps are way too small, making city layout awkward.  But the actual buildings are HUGE.  Maybe if the scale of things were a bit smaller it wouldn't be as bad.

Since I only had four hours to play I didn't get to play around with the settings.  And heck, didn't even find the settings until I had about a half-hour left to play.  But the graphics were just...not good.  Now this could be my computer.  It's not exactly on the newer side not exactly highest of specs but it really reminded me of The Streets of SimCity or even my beloved SimCopter.  Yeah, getting a totally 90's groove there.  I tried pushing stuff to the highest settings but nothing really changed.

Overall, it wasn't a bad game.  It was still SimCity enough but I'm not rushing out to buy it.  I think the single player mode was the best they could've added to it.  I can't imagine playing a region waiting for other people to help you out.  It seems like I was pushed into adding more stuff before I could fully realize what I even wanted to do.  This was probably because I was on a time limit of playing though.  I'm sure once I had the game I could play around with a region and make it into something I wanted.

And because they are sims, they will complain.  But as you can see, the city wasn't doing all that well.  Apparently, you can take pictures and movies but I never figured it out until I hit the C key and got this gem.

 I don't have any commentary on all the new Sims 4 news since I didn't really look at the new info.  But from the little I've seen, still feeling all meh about it.  Good thing I can't afford a new game right now anyway.

Go 4th and Sim!  Simmer 4 life!

And don't think I don't see some sort of irony that I use the 4's up there despite my feelings for this new version.

Random Sim City Musings

So I figured I got this blog sitting here and I might as well use it for something since I can't really play my game the way I'd like.  Which is to just get it running period.  A few months back the computer borked itself and it took a few months to get it back and running.  It's still not running good but it's five years old.  Now I find myself with some extra cash so maybe I can spare some to get a new machine.  I need something to play The Sims.  We shall see what comes with that.

Last weekend I was lucky enough to play the closed beta of Sim City.  Don't be hatin' just cuz I got connections.  Now despite the fact that my video card wasn't good enough and my computer is running on half the RAM it should and the graphics were just lines and not even fully formed buildings.  I liked it.  It's a bit steep for me to get when it comes out (especially on the same day University does) but maybe down the line I will.  It was my gateway game into everything Sim.  I had the DOS version with the red paper that you had to match the symbols on it to play.  Sim Ant, Sim Life, Sim Tower, Sim Copter (would really love to see that one update <3 <3 <3 it!!!), Streets of Sim City and finally The Sims.

But back to Sim City.  I really liked how you can see how all the Sims are living in the city.  It's like peeking into people's windows to see what's going on.  Not that I do that of course.  Then I watched the live chat the other day celebrating 10 years since Sim City 4.  Didn't even realize it had been that long since it's release.  It was a nice to see the process of how the new one came to be.  Of course I've owned and played  probably every version of Sim City out there.

Even Sim City Societies and Destinations.  Those were interesting to me.  Not so much because I played them but it seems like glimpse of what was to come.  Getting on the street level and being able to follow a Sims as they go about their business.  To be honest I kinda just set it up with unlimited money and would just build.  Why follow those pesky rules and wait for things to become unlocked??  No sir, I want it to play with it all now!!

Right now it seems The Sim franchise is going full speed ahead.  There's at least another year of stuff for Sims 3.  Sim City seems to be a big thing too though it's hard to imagine to expand on it, at least for me.  Then probably Sims 4, which is something I'd never thought I'd even be thinking about it.

I guess as far as hobbies go I could've picked worse.  It's not cheap but it's not the most expensive thing either.  I honestly don't know how gamers keep up with all the new games coming out.  One franchise is enough for me to keep up with.

And because a post wouldn't be complete without a picture...