I'm coming from TS2 as well, but I think that to compare TS2 and TS4 you need to think about the base games, not the EPs and not the mods - TS2 as a base game is definitely outdated and limited next to TS4. I love TS2 and will always love it, but to be able to play a base game and get this into is a HUGE improvement (when I started playing TS2, all the Eps were already out, and I had Nightlife and University Life on order while I was still installing the base game. There was absolutely nothing for my sims to do without downtowns, business districts, cars, instruments, arcade games, and a host of other things that came with later expansions.) When the EPs for TS4 start to come out, I think then it'll be easier to compare the two, but I do feel that TS4 is the sequel for TS2-ers, it's definitely the more natural feeling progression to me.

I've played Sims 3 but I uninstalled it after a few expansions because it's been buggy, super slow and laggy on my PC. It might have been the processor that couldn't handle it (would have been better if there was support for quad-core and 64-bit as well). But anyway, I still preferred the gameplay style of Sims 2 and preferred the way the Sims looked. I'm not a fan of rabbit holes for everything either (workplaces is ok but shops, cinema and restaurants, BIG NO!)

Looking at Sims 4, compared to 2 feels like a downgrade overall. There's a few things I like about it from the videos I looked at (since I don't own the game). Multitasking, some new build features, bodyshapes (finally)... But it looks so empty otherwise, as in there doesn't look like there's much to *do*. Couple that with a lot of strange focus on irrelevant (in my opinion) things, like having bros, walk styles that look stupid, space ships and whatnot... Unrealistic careers (apart from a few), almost no NPCs (only maid and pizza - no police, no firemen, no nanny). It's leaving me wondering what you're spending on, you know?

Even the features that are supposed to be the focus of all this, emotions, seem very unbalanced. A sim can die of embarrassment easily, there's stupidity like angry poop but when a sim dies, there's hardly any reaction? It's again, strange to focus on these things rather than things that make more sense and make you attached to your sims. I felt in Sims 2, they had emotions, they reacted to death, they felt sad for relevant things.

And don't get me started on how limiting the game is on play styles - no themed game cause everyone is born with a smart phone, legacy play is limited with no toddlers and object babies... Ok, I'll stop there!

All I can say, is that I don't feel like giving any money to EA, but I won't go the way of the swashbucklers and parrot lovers... IF the game is fixed down the road with EPs or whatnot, I'll get it used.

This really irritates me. It's like when people call it 'Sims 2.5', this abomination of a game will never be anywhere near on the same level as TS2 is. I think the reason people compare it is that they both have limited customisation, no open world or story progression etc, but TS2 was still a brilliant and very enjoyable game which was rich with gameplay features despite that. The reason TS2 didn't have all those things is because it was released in 2004. The reason TS4 doesn't have them is because EA is a load of lazy moneygrabbers. And besides, the lack of open world and customisation doesn't bother me in TS2 because like I said, it's a brilliant game which I still can't get bored of playing because there's so much to do. TS4, not so much.

Personally, I'd love a game which was basically TS2 with slightly updated graphics (although for such an old game they're still pretty damn good), open world and CAST. TS4 is the complete opposite of that.

I played the Sims 3 base game for a couple hours. I hated it. With a passion. I still play Sims 2 fairly regularly and love it to pieces. So far I am surprised to say I think Sims 4 does feel like an updated (base game) Sims 2! Sure there are some glaring omissions such as no NPC's (this is really really bothering me)...no toddlers (but Sims 4 kids are cute!) and the genetics don't seem as nifty as Sims 2. However, I still have hope that it will be a great game! So far I am really enjoying it.

We are comparing the base game. For those of us who have been around since the start we are also comparing the huge jump we had from going from Sims 1 to Sims 2 and it was huge and this game, sims 4 feels like a huge step back. It's okay to say sims 4 feels like a natural progression to you but please don't say it's sequel to sims 2 for us all because it isn't.

Sims 2 had real babies. Sims 4 ugly object babies tied to the crib.

Sims 2 introduced aging! And had real toddlers! No more babies jumping into kids. That was a huge thing to us. Sims 4- no toddlers and we have gone back to babies jumping into kids.

Pools, always there from sims 1 a staple. Sims 4 no pools.

Sims 2 we had CFE for building (I don't know if we had CFE in sims 1 as I didn't build back then) Sims 4 no CFE.

The main thing though is that Sims 2 quirky funny but subtle. A few special walks like sneak for the burglar or a swag for a romance sim. But you could miss it if you weren't looking. Sims 4 has silly walks in your face, ridiculous angry poops, bro traits and other in your face 'comedy' which is trying too hard and isn't funny at all. Sims 2 had emotions but they didn't affect game play. These emotions are all well and good when a game is new or you enjoy playing emotions, but what if you don't want emotions to affect what you want your sim to do. If it took some work to gain emotional states and if it wasn't in your face- in the UI really? Ugg. Then that would be okay, but I've watched the let's plays and sims change their emotions more often than their underpants.

Sims 2 could go and buy mobile/cell phones! (Might have been an EP) Sims 4 are born with them so now it's something modders will have to break if we are to have historical games or very poor sims or apocalypse sims. The whole idea is offer things to players don't shove them on players. Sims 2 was very good at giving options while sims 4 shoves them on you.

Sims 2 has a real sense of family. I am doubtful sims 4 will seeing as they have ruined babies and done away with toddlers which does lay down a good foundation. Parents just seemed more connected to their kids in sims 2. Kids reacted to parents cheating and I have heard they are not reacting in sims 4. So far I don't know how kids and parents react together in sims 4 as I haven't seen many let's plays on that yet. I did see one official play of a house with a new baby show cases that the child was sad about the new baby. That part was fine, but the parents had no reaction to the child's sadness. Maybe they just didn't show it. I think a lot more lets plays need to be seen yet.

I do apologise if my phrasing made you think that I was making a blanket statement, but I was definitely only expressing how the game felt to me. It's super duper clear that a lot of people don't feel that way, and I completely respect that - I was and remain just as disappointed in TS3 (lol) so there you go, everyone has their own tastes. As I said, I love TS2 and for me looking at TS4 (as it is, vanilla with no EPs and no patches) is a perfectly viable sequel. I don't know if you've had a chance to play yet (I myself cheated to get it early with VPN) but I am happy with the gameplay and whats on offer and I will continue to look forward to future EPs.

I think most of the naysaying and negativity about TS4 far too premature.
It's ridiculous to think, for example, that swimming pools will never become available for TS4. They may have been included in previous base games, but just because they're not for TS4 means little. In fact, if they're saving swimming pools for an EP, it might be reasonable to assume that they will contain more features than in previous games.
The same goes for most everything else.
It's guaranteed that EA already have the first couple of EP's planned out, in regard to theme and probably many of the specific features.
So just be patient and see what develops over the next year or so.

I get your point, ScaryRob, but it's hard to be optimistic about things like that when there were things we thought would surely be added to TS3 that either never made it into the game (even after all those EPs) or came out as a bunch of broken, unbalanced, or badly integrated Store items.

Sims 2-only Simmer here. I got Sims 3 the day it was released and immediately regretted it. I vowed not to make the same mistake with Sims 4. After watching some LP's on youtube it became clear this wasn't like the Sims 2 at all. Sure, there's loading screens and focusing on one lot, the main reasons I prefer 2 over 3, but removing toddlers and family trees just killed generational play. Also, removing conventional career tracks really irked me. They seem to be moving away from open-ended actual simulation to more RPG goal-oriented elements. In Sims 4, when you gain a skill level, it literally has a pop-up saying "Level Up".

While I was thinking about the progression of the sims series a thought came across my mind: it's funny how the sims 2, the game with the close world, had a lot of incentives for you to leave the house (buy magazines, groceries, clothes, drink an espresso) and explore community lots. With the next iterations things started to be more "automatic":Sims 3 with the ability to change to every piece of clothing available and taking the fun out of the shopping (because you know... rabbit holes) and now in Sims 4 you can purchase books right off the shelf and food right out off the fridge.

I haven't seen that yet, but Sims do call you and ask if they can come over, plus you can invite them to parties at your house or a community lot, but the parties have Facebook game-like goals you have to meet for a successful party (I think the failed birthday party I attempted one want was "have birthday Sim talk to someone while happy" (which sounds easier than it is, these Sims are super moody and she was miserable and left the party early) and have 3 drinks, and a few other things, then blow out the candles. Only, it was a child's party, I was trying to have the party in the park, and you can't buy birthday cakes in S4, you have to make one and then add birthday candles and there's no oven at the park. So the party was horrible, I had to end it early and the whole family went home and went to bed while the dad made a birthday cake, and then I had to wake the girl up to go blow out her candles).

Also, my Sims are always cranky when they wake up and complain about their mattress. I think I need to replace their beds with more expensive ones!

Seven unoccupied lots in the first world, not six. I'm down to five since I put people in both houses.

A couple changes I really like though, you can put unrelated Sims into the same household and they can all have different last names. You can also (in create-a-Sim) make two different-last-name-having, unmarried Sims who are just roommates parents of a child, and a teen can be siblings with an adult in CAS. I like all of that. DO NOT like that teens and adults are the same height. It's impossible to guess anyone's age, so I had to make a teen boy to date my teen girl because I don't know if anyone else in town is a teen.

ETA: Oh yeah, as far as I can tell, generational play is pretty much dead, which is a drag, because that's my gameplay style. The babies are STRAIGHT out of Sims 1. No improvement whatsoever (unless you count "breastfeeding" option an improvement). You even have to click the bassinet to interact with the baby, even if you're already holding the baby.

No, I am not willing to pay $88 AUD (cheapest it comes in Australia) for what is to me a half finished game. I hope everyone who buys it does enjoy it, just for me with ruined babies and no toddlers makes the game pretty much worthless. For people who don't care about those two life stages I can see it being okay, but I am a family player first and a builder second and both those areas are a huge disappointment for me. I'm someone that has gobs of cc for babies including clothes, hair, bouncy chairs, and toddlers are my favorite age group. I think playing a game without that would make me sad.

I like all the detail you included in your reply. A lot of these things get lost in the shiny newness of it all, but these are great points to support that TS4 really isn't a better TS2.
I think EPs will probably make TS4 better, but I thought I saw a Q&A where one of the Sim Gurus said it really wouldn't be possible to add in toddlers, or that it was not likely they would be adding it.
I agree though, it seems like TS4 really is no comparison to TS2. I'm also happy to see so many die hard TS2 fans, TS2 really was a great improvement over TS1.

The fact that the game doesn't have the most basic of cheats enabled really is sloppy design: no "moveobjects on" can be used. The team forgot to put it in!

It's glaringly obvious that the developers/workers never played the original 2 games-because if they had, it would have made them all crazy that so much care went into them. They should be ashamed of their work....really.

But, heck, "Things change!"

I played the heck out of Sims2. I made a website, I shared screenshots, took part in challenges, I created custom content for MTS2 and I had a blast making story videos for Sims99 (a Sims2 machinima site that no longer exists). It was a fantastic experience. I must have spent hundreds, if not thousands, of hours on the game.

Sims3 came and went. I was not tempted because I didn't like the way the game or the Sims looked, so I never played it.

I've been playing Sims4 since its launch. I must admit that I'm still trying to make up my mind about it. Some things seem new but a lot of things feel familiar.

I really don't like the way the camera moves. It doesn't feel intuitive to me. That's my current pet peeve. I do like the different moods a Sim gets through the course of a day. Moodlets were in Sims3? It's new to me in any case. I find it interesting. I still hate that you need to make x number of friends to advance in your career. Ack. I like the way the game looks. I'm not particularly bothered by the fact that swimming pools and toddlers are missing from the game. I love the way we can create a new Sim now but I wish Sims were not all the same height. After so many years, I'd expected EA to figure out how to allow adult Sims of different heights to interact.

It's probably not a good sign that I still feel a lack of excitement about this game after playing it. But I haven't seen everything, so I will continue to play it, and see if mods in the coming weeks will make things more fun. I loved Sims2 so much. It was a great game with great online communities. I highly doubt that experience can be repeated with Sims4.

@shimmeringcat - I spent thousands of hours playing TS2 also, and I totally agree about TS3. It's funny what you said about hating to have to make friends to move up career levels- spoken like a true introvert, jk I agree though, I hate having to make friends in the game.