Hey! Been a while and I'm sure everyone can't wait to be done with school but here we are. This is a brief take on the evolution of school in The Sims and ohh boy, is school very complex. There's lots of little aspects I didn't include here and I'm sure you're all gonna tell me stuff I didn't know but I think I covered the basics well enough.
So what's your take on school? It's one of those things I'm almost sure every player experiences at some point and to me it was always kinda like the background thing, I'm always busier making the kids learn skills so I learned a few things here and there.
My opinion?
Sims 1 is just the base, as always, I feel like it was the hardest and the easiest at the same time just because of how easy it is to earn and lose grades, as far as gameplay goes it's...there.
Sims 2 having weekdays and homework made the whole difference, kids actually take breaks and the player is more involved with school work, as far as extras go, I loved private school, it doesn't do much but it's a fun minigame which I always played.
Sims 3, or I should say generations, was quite packed with content, most of it is a little shallow cause half of the cool stuff they introduced like proms, pranks and graduations, are just things that are hidden inside a rabbithole, but hey, it's still nice. On a little note, the grounded feature is broken and I don't understand why they didn't fix it... at least in my game?
Sims 4 to me is a clear downgrade so far, maybe it's because of my first impression which was them taking the iconic bus out, but it's been almost 7 freaking years and the school experience has barely been improved, you can gain values while at school with parenthood, the addition of school projects was very cool, I like that they ask you to get new skills cause it can be useful later on and I obviously love that kids who did better can start a career at a higher level, but everything else? It's just alright.
So in this my order goes Sims 3, Sims 2, Sims 4 and Sims 1 just because of the extra features, the core gameplay is very similar in most games if you ask me, but that's just my opinion. Let me know what you think and I'll see you on the next one, I'm still debating if it will be Gnomes or something else.
Music:
The fly guy - Park Maintenance Promenade
The fly guy - Summer Strolls
The fly guy - Farewell Mr Cloud
Birdies - Sweet Sweet Honey
The fly guy - Three Miles North of Cairo
0:00 Basics
3:18 Homework
5:51 Good and Bad Grades
9:09 High-school
11:58 Extras