‘City Living’ reflects today’s culture

The Sims games have been a part of my life for over 10 years. I’ve played each game, each expansion pack. and boy. do I have opinions on them.

Sims 4 was originally released in 2013. Right from the get-go, I wasn’t pleased with a few aspects of the new gameplay.  However, I held my breath and tried to see what good things the game could still offer.

Rather early in the fourth game’s lifespan, only three true expansion packs have been released, including the most recent, “City Living,” released just on Tuesday. That’s far fewer than the Sims 3 had this many years out from its original release date.

I’ve had a few days to frantically play this new expansion pack, and I can officially say it was a step in the right direction for The Sims – arguably, the first right step in a long time.

“City Living” is turning out to be my favorite new expansion pack. First of all, EA has not released an apartment-centric expansion pack in nearly seven years, leaving your only option for housing in the game to be actual houses. For me, that was my favorite way to play the game back in the day, so I was immediately excited to purchase the new expansion.

The first improvement I noticed is the game provided clothing. It was as if the creators actually opened a magazine and decided to make fashionable clothing that reflected our current culture. Before this, even with the release of the third and fourth game, you had to download custom content from the internet if you wanted your sim to be in style. It was the same with furniture and appliances.

As a Simmer who mainly plays to create beautiful kitchens, it’s satisfying to see the creators putting thought into high design options for build mode. Maybe we have HGTV to thank for that?

As for the game play, I still have to deal with the frustrating neighborhood design that is Sims 4 specific. In the newest city, San Myshuno, they seemed to have smoothed over the functionality, as well as add some cool new things. Do you like food carts? Well, San Myshuno is full of them! It’s almost as if they based it off Portland.

I’m still exploring this new expansion pack, so we’ll see how it fairs in a week. For now, I highly recommend getting it!