Comparing Sims 1 Vs Sims 4 Packs for Gameplay (It's a HUGE Difference)

The Sims 4 vs The Sims 1. Comparing The Sims to The Sims 4!

There are many differences between The Sims games. Today, I talk about The Sims 1 vs The Sims 4 in terms of gameplay.

*im not wearing lipstick my lips just naturally look like this.

[Renikee]

Looking at how Sims 4 will be 10 years old next year, 14 years really doesn't seem much compared to that

[taz]

Sims 1 had CHAOS and actual storylines which we are severely lacking in Sims 4. It’s why I think Sims 4 feels so lifeless half the time.

[adrianblake]

The Sims 1 with seven packs does better than the Sims 4 with its over a hundred packs. Sure, each pack in the Sims 4 has more content, but the Sims 1 has an overall roundness. You get a more coherent playstyle, less bugs and glitches, a consistent way to build your sim's personality, while the Sims 4 has gone through a never-ending soul-searching that didn't really end with many aspects that were tested and soon forgotten (traits, whims, memories, aspirations, learned behaviors, sentiments, likes&dislikes, wants&fears, milestones, etc...)
Also, while each expansion pack in The Sims 1 came with just a single subhood with 10 lots, they have a greater lot variety than each world in the Sims 4...

[JMcKey]

As a kid, I remember getting a sims 1 or 2 expansion pack at Walmart and being so excited I would rush my mother to finish grocery shopping so I could get home and spend two hours installing the pack and another 20 minutes waiting for the game to load. Even the new loading screen was exhilarating. Those were the days!

[DebV.]

I remember playing the sims 1. I was embarrassed because it was considered lazy and indulgent for a 40 yo to be playing games. I loved it, though. I would play for hours after work, dinner and homework with the boys. Now, it still is a bit judgy out there if we admit to playing games for hours in our 60s, but online it is accepted as natural. Love my sims. I donated the old versions last year. Now someone else can become addicted to the franchise.

[ajraven]

I would gladly play The Sims with all of the expansion packs instead of The Sims 4 with all of the expansion and stuff packs.

[tommytosh]

Sims 1 is the better game. When you play it you are entering another world made with creativity and passion. Everything in the game serves a purpose and is meticulously designed and thought out. When I played (emphasis on the past tense) the sims 4 - it felt like there was no cohesive vision or passion put into it. Everything in the game feels like it was decided by a vote in a boardroom based on customer surveys and marketing - end result is a wishy washy game that kind of gives everyone a bit of what they want without actually giving anyone what they want - a unique experience

[timlopez]

I loved how ambiguous The Sims 1 as a culture was. Weird cities, vague semblances of Hollywood, their music, language, etc. it was more open & bizarre at times. The Sims 4 feels like attempts to make it feel closer to home, which sometimes I don't like as much. Home is fun and it's cool seeing references to stuff I'm familiar with, but irl life has its downsides, and I appreciated how the Sims 1 is more of an escape from reality than how The Sims 4 feels like a reflection of it. Same reason the very realistic look of Life By You actually is throwing me off a bit.

[VeggehGaming]

I'd actually make the argument that The Sims 1 is the better game generally purely on the case that its content basically all worked out of the box. Because it had to. The industry was completely reliant on physical sales. You couldn't just keep patching a game after launch to fix problems. There wasn't a launcher to automatically keep your game up to date. At best, you had a website with a patch you had to manually download from to fix any issues but there were rarely any major issues to patch. People were paid to beta test these games in advance before release to catch these problems.

These days, that's not the case and The Sims 4 is a great example of the fallout of it, where the game releases in a bug-ridden state, needs constant patching, each new expansion and feature is bugged on launch and some of these bugs are still in the game almost a decade after release because they're too busy churning out new DLC to sell that's also bug-ridden... I can't, in good conscience, call a game like that better than a fully functioning predecessor.

[MayLina]

Sims 4 is a mud puddle. They throw in lots of stuff to make it look big on the surface, but it has no depth behind it at all

[Toerworth]

Thank you for pointing out that sims team treats us like literal children. I couldn’t pinpoint why I cringe so much while watching sims events (or rather avoiding them). Sims 1 Making Magic was my ultimate favorite pack, it had so much charm, even those little dragon pets that used to set your whole household on fire and were basically untamable, but you worked so hard to get one! or that you had to have magic coins to buy a house in magic world and it was something to work towards. And at night you had those noises that scared the living s**t out of you. It had character! It was challenging and interesting. There was a book with hidden recipes. Duels were actually clever and victory depended on your choices. Coins falling from the sky in literal piles. Transforming cats into humans. Flamingo transforming into dancers. The list just goes on.. And what do we have in the sims 4? The most generic magic you could think of. Clean your toilet with magic, yippee! So disappointing.

[TheDawnofVanlife]

Sims 4 seems like they randomly throw stuff at the wall. Like they have a dart board of things then release these hyper specific packs. Sims 1 packs often felt like they added to the overall gameplay of every player. Sims 4 has a few packs like this, but for the most part it seems like they loose something in being hyper focused on one thing (like bowling for example which was a small feature in larger packs in Sims 2 and 3 but sold as a focused pack in 4).

[Шурик-ксч]

The sims: makin' magic is still the best magic system of all games. Unique effects, unique gameplay and nice goals (to study all spells and charms, to buy a house in magic realm), fun atmosphere and not just a cheat code with animation.

[anibalclericot]

The Sims 1 out of the box in 2000 is the better game when compared to The Sims 4 when it was released in 2014. It has been almost 10 years of them fleshing out the TS4 base game. I think that for a better and fairer comparison, you would have to compare them without DLCs and consider them in the state of their release and the receptions they got at their release so as to remove both nostalgia and recency bias and account for the difference in technologies and it's time-sensitive expectations. There is a reason why so many people turned on the game and EA upon TS4's release... The lack of quality control and bug fixes when they released TS3's last dlc to, in theory, focus on TS4 only to release the game with so many lacking features from its predecessor despite being the newest iteration of the game.

The Sims 1 upon its release was a complete functional game that gave you a full experience for the technology of its time. It was a revolutionary game at the time, with great quality from the original music, humor, and challenges that it presented. On the other hand, TS4 was, and arguably still is, a setback for the franchise in that it is more like a hodgepodge of badly implemented ideas than a full game, it manages to feel both lacking and bloated at the same time.

[bellaisapickle]

i feel like they’re similar games but the sims 1 has more love and the sims 4 is more like the same features with no love or ambition

[waretaSL]

The reason i think ts1 is a better game tbh i think can be summarised very simply: when ts1 released, people weren't disappointed. It came with plenty to do for the time. When ts4 released, and it was stripped down and cartoon-ified and super pg and basically had no personality, people were disappointed, and they continue to be disappointed to this day. The fanbase nowadays is just reluctantly here it feels like, which i think is the major difference. The vibe/atmosphere is just... sad. Any hype and joy is now gone. People are basically just biding their time until either ts5 (which is technically called project rene ughh) or one of these other rival life sims release and it's just kinda depressing ngl

[leo]

I can't watch the Behind the Sims livestreams because of the cringe. It's the fake enthousiasm, the fake joy, everyone is smiling too much and the acting is so forced. I physically CANNOT watch it, at least with the sound on. And I couldn't put a word on it until you said it : yes to the patronizing thing. I feel like they think I'm an idiot when they are over excited to tell me that the next pack with just horses is gonna be a ✨ brand new expansion pack✨.

[diegomaes]

I rediscovered Sims 3 and it’s way more fun than Sims 4

[froststar]

The sims 4 feels like a half-baked alternate universe fanfiction of the sims franchise.

[SyntheticGoth]

It's quite funny actually. When The Sims 1 came out, I was 9 years old and the adult themes probably weren't exactly appropriate for my age (looking at you birthday cake stripper 😂). And now that I'm older, The Sims 4 feels so juvenile. It irritates me how censored they've made it at the cost of the quirky personality that The Sims franchise is known for; driving my point that The Sims 4 is only successful because of the title of "The Sims" and it's reaping the reward based on an existing reputation. It's nothing like it was meant to be.