The Sims 3 or The Sims 4

[Slo2018]

Which one is better? The Sims 3 or The Sims 4?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Never played Sims 4 but I'm going to go with Sims 3 because of its open-world features (persistent neighborhood). Just beware that with everything in The Sims 3 installed and neighborhoods that have been around a long time, performance decays.

 

[spectatorx]

One thing is sure: both, with all dlcs, cost a lot, even on discount. Complete package of the sims 3 with all dlcs during sales if i remember correctly did cost over 100 euros. The sims 4 wasn't released on steam and is available only on origin. With origin or origin key purchase be careful and check a list of available languages as some regions have odd sets languages.

 

[MatGrow]

I like Sims 3 more.
The new version game does not mean the better one.
Really!

 

[Slo2018]

The Sims 3: Metacritic 86/100
The Sims 4: Metacritic 70/100

The Sims 4 really sucks.

What do you think about The Sims 2? Too old or...?

 

[spectatorx]

The sims 2 at one point EA was giving away complete edition for free on origin. On technical side of things it doesn't utilize multicore cpus which may be problematic in some cases.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Sims 1, 2, and 4 are fundamentally the same game. 3 is the exception with the open neighborhood.

Sims 2 mostly added more building options compared to Sims 1. Sims 3 largely cut back on the building additions Sims 2 added.

 

[Deleted member 178884]

Sims 3 is probably better due to the amount of mods/expansions out there in comparison to 4.

 

[Enterprise24]

Sims 3 is much much much like 1000x better than Sims 4 cuz
1.Much much much better graphics plus some awesome graphics mods like outdoor lightning tweaks. Reshade can also make it looks more realistic. Unlike Sims 4 cuz their default graphics are cartoony and you can't change much.
http://www.modthesims.info/download.php?t=367164

2.Open world. I wanna spend 2-3 minutes loading time and be done rather than 10-15 seconds everywhere when you need to go somewhere.
3.Terrain tools which can create many things and only limited by your imagination. In Sims 4 everything is flat.
4.There is an awesome program called crash log analyzer by our awesome member here FordGT90Concept. When your game crash you can quickly analyze with his program.
5.Tons of awesome CC / mods.
6.Snow depth.
7.There are police / firefighter / burglar / repoman.
8.Sims 3 don't have something like DLC for DLC *cough* My first pet stuffs *cough*
9.Create a Style. Create the looks of your objects to whatever you want. Sims 4 only limited to small numbers of patterns.
10.Story progression. Your town will growth the same time as you. There is even better mod to handle this task called Nraas Story Progression. In Sims 4 people in your town do not have children, get jobs, move, get married…etc. without your intervention.
11.In Sims 3 you can place lot to almost any location. There is even better mod for this task called "Add Any Lot Size". In Sims 4 you can do nothing.
12.Every building are accessible although you cannot see some buildings inside like city hall / police station / school etc. In Sims 4 backgrounds are illusions – The buildings in the background are not playable in the game.
13.Sims 3 world are SIGNIFICANTLY larger than Sims 4.
14.You can drive a car / motorcycle / bycicle / boat. In Sims 4 you can only WALK / RUN.
15.There are custom world made by other players. In Sims 4 there is no create a world tool that mean no custom world. Only EA world.
Plus many more...


The only downside of Sims 3 compared to Sims 4.
1.There is no search function. You may waste tons of time when you need to find some items.
2. 32 bit limitation. Game crash / can't save when the game use RAM close to ~3.7GB.
3.Some annoying bugs that never fixed like leave teens alone quest.
4.Lag / stutter everywhere even with modern high end PC. Actually many claim that Sims 4 run better than Sims 3 but it is still far from perfect also. Sims 4 don't have major stutter / freeze like Sims 3 but there is noticeably micro stutters.

 

[Voluman]

3 feels more complete, 4 is okay but it feels like sripped down (to buy more dlc and stuff) even things which was part of the game as base as before.

 

[Slo2018]

Which The Sims 3 Expansion packs are good?

 

[Deleted member 178884]

i loved into the future and supernatural they are the best.

 

[Totally]

I have both, no contest sims 3

Sims 3, nearly 1k hours playing it logged on steam before then had physical copies and continued Origin when EA stopped releasing expansions on steam after pets, I probably have several hundred more hours there too.

Sims 4, bought it, struggled to get 40hrs out of it, uninstalled it.

Even before seeing this thread I was contemplating reinstalling everything sims 3 and giving it a go but I find that game to damn addicting, they only way they could have made sims 4 better was to release an open for business like expansion but they never did. Sims 3 took the foundation laid down by Sims 2 and built upon it significantly going from 3 to 4, whatever it is that is masquerading as Maxis stripped everything from the game, and dumbed things down or "streamlined" to the point where 4 is absolutely boring there's just nothing to keep things interested after you've seen something once.

 

[lexluthermiester]

Which The Sims 3 Expansion packs are good?

Do yourself a favor, find the physical media, IE DVD, versions of the game and it's expansions. I'll thank yourself later.

 

[FordGT90Concept]

Which The Sims 3 Expansion packs are good?

World Adventures...but that's when I run into crashing. It's fun exploring, raiding tombs, and stuff in it. They are serious about the "adventures" part of it. But like I said, 40+ hour games seem to run into a lot of issues once I start sending sims on adventures.

Ambitions is good because you can make a living off of, for example, painting. Also lets you manage your sim while working. For example: if you sent your sim to work in a sour mood, you can tell them to work on that while at work. You won't get a promotion as fast by doing that but at least your sim won't be miserable.

University Life is pretty good. Like World Adventures, it's like an adventure unto itself. You either focus on your studies and get your diploma or you slack off and play with fraturnities. It has a strict schedule so there really is no time for both. It's a nice meta game.

Island Paradise is fun because of resorts--another way for wealthy sims to invest and make more money. It is a feature that makes developing other lots on the map worth while. The map that comes with it (Isla Paradiso) is huge though. Even with the game installed on an SSD, the gameclock slows down over time because of all of the NPCs the engine has to update.

I think Fast Lane Stuff is worth it too. If memory serves, it adds interactions with cars that aren't otherwise available like befriending them.


On the fence:

Showtime. Two things I really like about it: lifetime wish (something a sim to work for in life that rewards a lot of points to spend on some really good rewards) and genie character type (e.g. can "magically clean self").

Do yourself a favor, find the physical media, IE DVD, versions of the game and it's expansions. I'll thank yourself later.

I have this but it's a pain to install and update. There's like 25 discs and 23 CD keys to go through. Now if I want to install it, I just download it off of Origin. Last time I tried to install via disc, it seemed like Origin just reinstalled the whole thing again anyway so what's the point?

 

[Slo2018]

The Sims 4 Expansion packs worth it or not or is it base game enough?

 

[FordGT90Concept]

I wouldn't play it without the ones I named (and I have them all). You can always try the base game and go from there.

 

[Totally]

Base game is not "enough" clearly feels unfinished and is missing a certain level polish that if you are a long time player will notice. I heard they added most of the missing stuff in free content patches and activity packs (this is what rubs me the wrong way the most, they parted out the main game so they can sell the parts to the player separately, and EA says it is in order to deliver a better user experience and EA defenders come up with all kinds of nonsense that just makes you lose faith in humanity or just wonder how did that the other party rationalize their argument in their head to make such little sense)


I haven't bought nor think I ever will buy an expansion for 4 because I don't play it anymore, and even if I did I don't think their worth the bandwidth or drive space.

 

[Enterprise24]

 

[aliovalio]

I like SIMS 3 more