The Sims 4

The Sims 4 seems to be pivoting toward content that is, firstly, tailored specifically to my interests, and, secondly, designed to allow the creation of strange and reclusive weirdos. Whilst EA's attempt at a new reality show about playing The Sims rumbles on in the background, and after the Eco Lifestyle expansion pushed me towards creating a stinky, trash-gobbling Oscar the Grouch, here comes new…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, The Sims 4.

We are half way through the inaugural season of The Sims Spark'd, a reality TV show based around being well good at The Sims. If you hadn't heard, 12 Sim fanatics have been whisked away to... some studio, where they're competing to win $100k by proving they are the bestest at The Sims 4. The first episode premiered last week on TBS, with the episode…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, The Sims 4.

Alrighty, so as you may or may not be aware, about a month ago The Sims 4 got a massive update ahead of the Eco Lifestyle expansion. As well as adding firefighters, ladders, and Sims peeing fire (which was apparently a bug and not a feature), it added some new Mac makeup for CAS (aka Create a Sim, where you make your digital puppets). The…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, mods, The Sims 4, The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle.

If you're a fan of The Sims 4, or you know someone who is, or even if you just follow people who occasionally retweet simsposting into your timeline, you've probably seen something about Paralives by now. It's... a life simulator? A Sims-like? (I know The Sims can't be the only game of its type, but it's dominated the market for so long that the only…

Tagged with Alex Massé, feature, interview, Paralives Studio, Paralives, The Sims 4.

I am working on my review for The Sims 4's newest expansion pack, Eco Lifestyle, in which you can choose to live carbon neutral or carbon positive, but so far, it is fun. Fun but difficult. I'm trying out various different new things in the new neighbourhoods added with Evergreen Harbour, but so far I can say that living in an eco-friendly way is hard,…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, Oscar The Grouch, The Sims 4, The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle.

Listen, we're not having a pop at the base game version of The Sims 4, but you have to admit that it doesn't offer everything you might want. It would be impossible for it to service every whim and desire you asked of it for! But still, sometimes you'll be fooling around in build and buy mode, or Create A Sim, and just wish that…

Tagged with Bestest Bests, Custom Content of the Week, Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, The Sims 4.

My guess is that when you were a kid, right, you were one of two types. You either used your action figures to play out imaginative (if potentially weird) stories, or you picked one of them up and went "I bet I can make Lion-O's legs go in the splits so far that they fall off", before proceeding to test your hypothesis.Players of The Sims…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, what is wrong with everyone, The Sims 4.

A few years back I went to a theme park in the UK - I think it was Thorpe Park - and at lunchtime we had a burger at a jungle themed food stand. I think it may even have been I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here! themed, somehow. The point is that for whatever reason, each meal came with a portion of…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, Maxis, The Sims 4, The Sims 4 Eco Lifestyle.

It's been a while since I properly trawled the unmapped, here thar be monsters waters of The Sims Resource for some new mods for The Sims 4. I've settled into a bit of a routine where I just wait for my favourite makers like Ravasheen to put up their new stuff, and Bob (Pancakes) is your mother's brother. But in a fit of quarantine madness…

Tagged with Custom Content of the Week, Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, The Sims 4.

It's been a few weeks since I surprised and delighted you with some custom content of the week for The Sims 4. Typically, I also avoid showcasing CC for Create A Sim (or CAS). It's the part of the game I'm less interested in (I don't think that, to date, I have actually played the Sims - I just build houses, m8), and therefore the…

Tagged with Custom Content of the Week, EA Maxis, Electronic Arts, feature, The Sims 4.

Regular readers will know that I play a lot of The Sims 4 these days, although I don't actually play the game where you puppet a tiny person. I just build homes. My current project is building an ideal home for each of the RPS staffers, having started with a ferny cottage for Alice 0. I've mostly been using the restrictions provided by the Tiny…

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, Tiny Build-Off, The Sims 4.

I get that if the last instalment in your long running game series came out a whole six(!) years ago, you need to remind new potential consumers that it exists. Especially if it runs on a games-as-a-service sort of a model. Enter, then, a new ad campaign? Branding? Thought experiment? for the Sims (and, more specifically, The Sims 4) called Play With Life.

Tagged with Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, Play With Life, The Sims 4.

The Sims 4 liker has logged on again. This week she (I) was poking around for some nice potted plants to download for some ongoing build projects, and found a list of recommended custom content makers by Ravasheen, the creator from my first 'custom content of the week' post. Ravasheen recommended NynaeveDesign for great plant work, and lo - Nynaeve does great plants. I was…

Tagged with Custom Content of the Week, Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, pokemon, The Sims 4.

Currently I am working on building a home for Sin in The Sims 4, much like I built a home for Alice 0. This means I've been looking for a lot of plant and outdoor bits and pieces, because Alice O is well into plants, and for Sin's home I am taking a little inspiration from her natural Minecraft hermitage. Unfortunately, the UK has been…

Tagged with Custom Content of the Week, Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, The Sims 4.

As I continue to build stuff in The Sims 4, I am going to start highlighting some of the amazing work being done by custom content creators. This week, one of my absolute favourite creators, Ravasheen, released a new bedroom set - the That's What She Bed bunk bed series (one of the reasons Ravasheen is a favourite of mine is that all of their…

Tagged with Custom Content of the Week, EA, Electronic Arts, feature, Maxis, The Sims 4.

My love for building stuff in The Sims 4 continues. I saw today that, in the space of about a month, my custom content folder has hit a gigabyte in size. Whoops. But this is all in service to a greater goal, which is building nice houses. After I showed everyone my tiny desert concrete block, Alice0 said she would like a house with more…

Tagged with Alice Simsposting, EA Maxis, Electronic Arts, feature, Tiny Build-Off, The Sims 4.

Happy Birthday the 'The Sims' series! You’re 20 years old today, which means you’re finally old enough to throw an old boot full of soup right at a cop’s head, and be totally immune to prosecution (seriously, it’s true! If you didn’t know about that lil trick, you should try it). You’re also old enough, apparently, to have released an unfeasible number of spinoffs, ports,…

Tagged with EA Maxis, Electronic Arts, feature, The Sims, The Sims 2, The Sims 3, The Sims 4.

I did not expect that I would ever Google something like "will Big Ben bong?" in service to an article for RPS, and yet here we are - and it turns out it will not. The big B day has arrived, not with a bong but a whimper. It's a sore subject for a lot of us (stuff disappearing off of Netflix; my partner is…

Tagged with Brexit, feature, Euro Truck Simulator 2, Europa Universalis IV, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, Football Manager 2020, Papers Please, Proteus, The Sims 4.

Management games have been making a real comeback in recent years, so we've put together this list of the very best management games you can play on PC in 2020. Whether you want to be an aspiring city planner, a wannabe farm herd or just survive against the elements, there's a management game for you below.

Tagged with Bestest Bests, feature, Anno 1800, Banished, Cities: Skylines, Dungeon Keeper, Dwarf Fortress, Factorio, Frostpunk, Megaquarium, Oxygen Not Included, Planet Coaster, Prison Architect, RimWorld, Slime Rancher, Stardew Valley, Surviving Mars, The Sims 4, Tropico 6, Two Point Hospital, Zeus: Master of Olympus.

Put the 9mm down, for crying out loud. Not every game is about shooting your enemies in the shin bones. Honestly. Give me that, here, take this trowel. Now, follow me, through this tranquil landscape of blooming daffodils and perfectly arranged stone paths covered in happy moss. Yes, that’s it, you want a turn around the garden. A bit of soil on your fingers. And…

Tagged with feature, One Off The List, Eastshade, Everybody's Gone To The Rapture, Mutazione, Quiet as a Stone, Stardew Valley, The Sims 4, The Talos Principle, Untitled Goose Game.