5 Things I'd Like to See in The Sims 4

The Sims 4 is the fourth instalment in EA's multi-million dollar game franchise for PC and Mac, although previous versions of the game have also expanded to consoles, it will probably be a while before you can play The Sims 4 on your Playstation, Xbox, or Wii.

   

If, like me, you have been a fan of The Sims since the original Sims game (remember the one where you'd have to 'make out' with your partner to have a baby and a crib would appear? Then after a few days the crib would turn into a child and be stuck like that forever) then you probably have some high expectations for The Sims 4. 

The Sims 3 is an enjoyable game, but if you ask me the franchise sort of peaked at The Sims 2. There were better expansions, better characters and you could actually create a new town in a matter of minutes without the painstaking difficulty of placing 10,000 spawners and having to create every road and place every tree. Anyway, I'm not gong to use this post to complain about things I dislike in The Sims 3, instead I will share with you my hopes and dreams for the Sims 4. 

1. An easier way to switch between households WITHOUT losing their active opportunities, wishes and career progress.
   
   I don't like to play one family through the generations, I like to play the neighbourhood through the generations. I like to watch my neighbourhood change and grow, and I like to be the one who makes the changes. I've recently been playing my own world River Valley, I created a family who wanted children, but I wanted them to earn a good bit of money first so I could do-up the house to make it a luxurious family home. The best option for me would have been to play another family for a while, allowing my sims to rake in the cash while I concentrated on some of their neighbours. If I had done this however, I would have lost the Have a First Child wish, and the lifetime happiness points for completing this when I finally got them to have a baby.
   
   This brings me on to my second point.
2. More options in Story Mode.
   
   
   
   
   Story Mode is a wonderful thing in some ways, but in other's it's diabolical. I had this plan once, to marry up everyone in Sunset Valley, Mortimer and Bella would marry, and Bella's brother Michael would marry Holly Alto and I'd create two power-families. Of course, Bella and Mortimer are children when you begin a game in Sunset Valley and Holly and Michael are teens so marriage is a no-no! While I waited for them to age up naturally I played some other families - Jamie Jolina married Christopher Steel and Judy and Jack Bunch had another baby. By the time Mortimer had aged up into an adult, Story Mode had moved the Bachelors out of town, so my entire plan was ruined. Story Mode should be editable to player preference. The problem I described in point 1. wouldn't be an issue if there's been a little button I could press to disable inactive households from vanishing from my town.
3. More stylish options for clothing built in to the game.
   
   
   
   
   Anyone who plays The Sims 3 knows that base game clothing options are usually on the basic and/or ugly side of the spectrum, then we are charged quite expensive amounts to purchase premium content, and that's not always fashionable. Clever simmers who know how to download and upload from sites such as Mod the Sims  aren't burdened by this, unfortunately I'm a bit of a technophobe when it comes to downloading and unzipping files and I would probably end up killing my laptop.
4. More realistic traits.
   
   
      
   
   If you had to describe the personality traits of your best friend what five terms would you pick? Confident? Shy? Silly? Sarcastic? Mine would probably be Funny, Pessimistic, Clever, Ambitious and Lazy. That combination might sounds like it contradicts itself but you don't know my best friend. He's a bit of an oxymoron. My point is that I have never in my twenty-one years heard someone describe another person as Never Nude or Can't Stand Art. The creators of The Sims 3 seem to have gotten confused between traits, likes and dislikes and talents. Having a Green Thumb is a talent and not a trait, and Hates the Outdoors is surely a dislike? If they had worded some of these better then they would work - Never Nude could become Reserved and Hates the Outdoors could become Indoorsy. I just think that there could be much better traits in The Sims 4 and that the developers could look into this.
5. A mature expansion pack.
   
   
   
   
   There are a generation of players out there who have grown from children, to teenagers to adults while playing The Sims, and I am one of them. While I understand that mature themes aren't for everyone, and so an expansion back containing more mature themes would need to be given an appropriate age certificate, I think it would be a good option for older Sims players who want to add a little realism into their games. I also think that it could help to bring in new players, there are thousands of people out there who play online simulation games such as Second Life and I think that the Sims 4 could try to appeal to them too. What of your Sim could become addicted to nectar? Or have sex on the couch? I know that a more mature game isn't going to be for everyone, and many people will argue that The Sims should keep it's innocent and comic status but a mature expansion pack would make mature themes optional.
   

Film Review: Argo

This post will probably be less of a review, and more of an entry in which I gush wildly about how much I enjoyed Argo. Having just watched the movie (it literally finished about twenty minutes ago), I should probably take some time to let the dust settle and then gather my thoughts before even attempting to write about it, however, because I enjoyed it so, so much I can't resist writing about it.

As most people will remember (myself included) Argo won Best Picture at the 2013 Oscars, beating other heavyweight nominees such as Life of Pi, Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty, Django Unchained and Lincoln. At the time a few people were wondering 'How and why did a move barely anyone had heard of before the Academy Award nominations were released manage to scoop the award for Best Picture?'. If your still wondering this, and haven't seen it, then watch it and decide for yourself. I highly recommend it.

Before watching this movie, I had no idea what it was about, but I was attracted to it because of it's status as an Academy Award Winner, and because I'd heard that it was really fantastic. All I knew about the film before watching it was that Ben Affleck was in it accompanied by beard and long hair (pictured above), and that Bryan Cranston, who played comically pathetic Dad, Hal on Malcolm in the Middle was in it too.

I did not expect what I got. I did not expect this film to be about an American hostage crisis in Iran. I did not expect an elaborate cover story involving a Science Fiction movie named Argo. I did not expect Fred Flintstone to be in it.

The thing that made this film truly incredible for me was that after ten minutes of watching I was hooked, and I had forgotten Ben Affleck, and Bryan Cranston, and John Goodman, and Chris Messina and Alan Arkin. The characters on screen were only and completely the characters on screen. Who can truthfully say that they watch Titanic and don't see Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslett? Who can watch The Lord of the Rings and say that they don't see Elijah Wood, and Orlando Bloom? My point isn't that Titanic and The Lord of the Rings are awful films because the audience is always aware of the fact that they are watching actors, in fact Titanic and The Lord of the Rings are two of my favourite movies (although LOTR is technically three movies), my point is that Argo is so utterly enthralling and surprising that the audience forgets that what they are watching is a movie and not a documentary.

The movie is surprising, educational and above all entertaining. It keeps you on the edge of your seat. It makes your bum cheeks wobble, it constantly keeps you guessing. Even if Argo isn't your type of film, I would highly recommend watching it. If your lucky you might be as surprised as I was.

App Review: My Town Animals

My Town Animals is an iOS game (you might be able to get it for other platforms as well, I'm not sure). I downloaded it about a week ago, and as a lover of anything that requires a little imagination, where you can create your own town, I was hooked! 

The overall concept of the game is great. You control a little town and you are responsible for fulfilling the dreams o it's inhabitants which are cute little animals - ranging from parrots who want bird-houses to elephants that want to travel to Fiji. The 'create your own town' theme of the game is one that many other apps provide (such as Shipwrecked, The Meego, and My Town 2 Getaways), but this game seems to do it much better, and unlike many other apps it isn't constantly asking you for money. 

The graphics of the game are also really good and the things you need to buy for your town (buy in-game with coins you earn from your businesses, not literally buy) are well priced. 

After only a day or two of playing he game however it was constantly crashing. It started with the odd crash now and then but the crashes became more frequent, and now I can rarely play it for more than a few seconds after loading without it crashing. Whenever the game crashes I also lose all my most recent progress. 

I've tried uninstalling and reinstalling, installing it on David's phone and closing down the game completely and nothing works. I've also noticed on some online forums that other people are having the same problem, and can't find a way of fixing it. Now it's just a case of waiting for the next update. Hurry up and update this game Booyah because it's amazing ad I need to play it! 

Overall this is a great game, but it's spoilt by the crashes, making it a truly awful game.

My rating? 

1/5 

Weekly Bargain!

At £8 this hand mixer/ whisk would have been a bargain anyway! But yesterday at Morrisons, I picked this bad-boy up for just £6. It has five different speed settings and comes with beaters and dough hooks. I have only used it once so far, but I was very impressed. It is also very easy to clean. Would definitely recommend, especially if you're like me and have wanted one for ages! Even if you don't like it, I'm sure one of your friends or family will, and if it goes in the bin, then your only losing out on £6! 

Blackberry Picking and Blackberry Cooking

It is typical in Wales, that in September when the kids go back to school, after a summer of rain, that the weather will be beautiful. Yesterday was a lovely sunny day, and David had the day off work, so we all went black berry picking. This is the time of year that the blackberries start to ripen, and we were lucky enough to find some really plump ones, just about to fall from their branches.

It is also typical in Wales, after picking blackberries, to make a blackberry tart, and this was something I delighted in as a child. I and my friends would roam around the neighbourhood like lost boys collecting tubs full of blackberries, then we would take them home, our fingers purple with their juices and our mothers would make blackberry tarts. My mother's fore has never been cooking, and she would roll out two sheets of pastry, throw some berries in the middle and call it a blackberry pie. It was always sour and full of pips and hard bits... But I loved it, and with a lashing of evaporated or 'ideal' milk, Mammy's blackberry tart always went down a treat. 

I am no longer a child however, and since I have a child of my own now, I wanted to be the blackberry-baker. 

Before doing anything with your blackberries you should always give them a nice long soak (at least 1-2 hours) in cold water, salt an sugar, to bring out and kill any bugs. 

I decided to go down the less traditional route and I made a Blackberry cheesecake and some little blackberry tartlets. Yum! 

My cheesecake didn't turn out just as I'd hoped, I adapted recipe I found online for strawberry cheesecake (Google simple cheesecake recipe) and I didn't use a scale to weight my ingredients so the consistency was a bit off on the biscuit base, and the cream-cheese filling.

Here is the finished product! 

My tartlets however turned out great! I used short crust pastry, baked in the oven until golden brown and hard, and filled it with a blackberry filling made by melting butter in a pan, adding blackberries, flour and icing sugar, then I topped them with blackberries and icing sugar. 

The perfect way to end summer and welcome winter!