Sims 4 (PS4) Review and short trophy guide

Review and trophy guide – Rated 6/10

*No spoilers*

Available on: PS4, Xbox One, and PC

My love for the Sims series started many years ago back in the days of Sims and Sims 2 with Sims Urbz being a personal highlight. I spent countless hours in my favourite of the series, Sims 3 so I like many others expected great things from Sims 4. Sadly, when it first was released back in 2014 it felt like a rushed, haphazard attempt seeing as toddlers, pools and other key features of the game were omitted but later added via free updates.

It took three long years for Sims 4 to be ported to both Xbox One and PS4 with but sadly it came with lots of bugs and glitches. Whilst this game certainly looks aesthetically pleasing it suffers from countless issues nearly every time I played. In my most recent play through my sim couldn't enter their own house nor interact with other sims. Even moving house didn't resolve the issue causing me to have to reload a previous save from a few hours before. Many others have reported various other issues such as frame rate issues and sims not interacting with others.

On a more positive note, some new features were added to the game such as the programming and rocket ship skill which felt like nothing before as do the corresponding careers of tech guru and gamer . More empathise has been placed on sim's mood and emotions which can help boost skills but also lead to new types of deaths! Create-a-sim (CAS) has much improved with every minor detail of a sim being adaptable, however that being said I felt the expressions on the sims were comical at best. It goes without saying that new items have been added but like Sims 3 to get most items requires paying for DLC packs and smaller stuff packs. Worst still, Sims 4 tries to take this further via the concept of 'DLC for DLC' which enraged many fans (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEMTxM0QX_A). I would highly recommend to get DLCs and stuff packs when they go on sale which is fairly frequent which often can save you up to 60% off.

Equally, many are not happy that Sims 4's cites are not similar to Sims 3's much loved open plan cities with Sims 4 having around only 10 locations to visit with many feeling duplicates of the rest. Also cars have yet to be added to Sims 4 which is most surprising for a life simulator.

The good:

• New updated graphics

• CAS is bigger and better than ever

• Occasional free stuff packs (Christmas/seasonal stuff pack)

• Build mode is as good as ever

The bad:

• Glitches and bugs!!!

• DLCs, stuff packs and DLCs for DLCs can get expensive with the amount Sims games tend to have

• Transition from using keyboard and mouse to controller

• Limited scope of world

Verdict:

Rated 6/10 I would recommend to stick to playing Sims 4 on the PC if possible, better still play Sims 3 as it is the better of the two. Despite that there are some fun new features to the latest addition to the series but these alone cannot make up for the games many issues.

Road to platinum:

Having recently gained the platinum for Sims 4 recently after 3 months of on and off playing I have decided to include some tips and tricks for what I perceive as the more difficult trophies.

Which trophies caused difficulty:

Rosebud - Simply gain 1,000,000 Simoleons in a single Household. Whilst this would take a fair while if done naturally, luckily there is a slight quicker process. Use the manage world option to move in the richest families all into one house and sell their furniture when they move in to together. For me this method made me over $1.1 million and takes a matter of minutes.

Over-Achiever - Complete 5 Aspirations with one sim. For this trophy I would going on the game settings and turning ageing off so you have no time constraints. After chose any 5 aspirations you feel will be fairly easy to complete. For me these were: musical genius, computer whiz, soulmate, fabulously wealthy and mansion baron.

Basketcase - Get a Sim get in and out of all primary emotional states within 24 in-game hours. This trophy is fairly easy if write down each mood you have entered so you can easily remember. Ensure you wake up around 12am and book the day off work to have as much times as possible. I would recommend using this guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4GB46cvny3E

Alphabet Legacy and Legacy Player - These trophies require you to play with a household for 10 and then 26 generations. If you seek to do this quickly like I did then use the adoption service to adopt children then age them up manually via the birthday cake and have them also adopt a child. I named each child a, b, c etc (hence the trophy name?) so I could easily what generation I was on. Even so this method still takes around two hours but is still a lot quicker than having children naturally and ageing them up from babies onwards.

My favourite Trophies:

My worst/ least favourite trophy

Triple Play - For this trophy you need to give birth to triplets as the name suggests. Whilst this may sound easy and straight forward, that couldn't be further from the trophy. The chances of having triplets is extremely low with some players claiming this trophy alone took them 50+ hours, personally for me it took around 3. I hated this trophy as it was so luck based however Space Oddity as written a great guide which I used and would highly recommend for this trophy. This can be found at: https://www.trueachievements.com/a243708/triple-play-achievement

For more trophies you can watch my Sims 4 Black Widow play through at: or read my analysis of that series to find what episode contains what trophies.

Happy trophy hunting - Sean

#sims4 #trophies #Platinum