Rainy Day's Books, Video Games and Other Writings

I’ve been playing this game for several weeks now, not sure exactly if I wanted to write about it in the first place. But after some much needed thinking, I figured why not?

I started playing The Sims FreePlay because I wanted to play a Sims game. I wanted to immerse myself back into this world where I control the actions of the characters I’ve created. Where I was given total power over the choices I made and could see the consequences of my actions play out in front of me.

In this version of the game, which comes on your phone or tablet, your main objective is to build a town full of people of your own creation. You build all sorts of homes and locations for your Sims to either visit or work on their career in order to make some money so you can further create. Along with creating these places, there are quests you can fulfill to your own discretion which will gain you more items, hobbies or locations to unlock. It’s up to you what you do in your town, but you also need to make sure to satisfy your Sim’s needs as well.

What I like about The Sims FreePlay is that it’s free. Unless you want to spend money on this game so you can get these different types of points to progress on your tasks, you don’t have to spend any money on this game whatsoever. You can play the game without spending any money and I like it because I don’t want to spend money on app games if I don’t have to. As you progress your town, you also earn Simoleons and XP for each of the buildings you’ve created whether it be homes, businesses or career locations. I think this is a nice feature in this game because it allows you to earn money without only having to invest in a career and gives you more experience points.

I also like that you have so many choices of things to do in the game. You can complete tasks whenever you want, though there’s a time limit to gain certain items if you don’t complete tasks by a certain time. You can also choose which buildings you want to build as long as you have enough Sims living in your town. Some buildings cost more money and need more Sims in the town than others, which can sometimes be a pain because it could be the exact building you need, but you need one more person before you can start building it.

In The Sims FreePlay, you also have a variety of hobbies you can choose to complete. These hobbies are things like cooking, fishing, fashion designer, and woodworking, just to name a few. What I like about having these hobbies is that you can unlock more of them by completing certain quests. However, the downside to these hobbies is that your Sim can only focus on one hobby at a time. I don’t know yet if that changes after you’ve mastered the hobby, but I find it to be very inconvenient because whenever you try and learn a new hobby, you lose all the progress you made on the hobby you’d worked to master before.

What I like the most doing in this game is completing these tasks. I like them because they are interesting and can level you up faster. I also like them because you see your Sims doing all sorts of interesting things. For example, while I’ve been playing this game, I’ve been focusing on the Sim I created in my image to start learning the spell casting hobby. I did this by completing one of the quests in the game and just following every objective that has to do with spells or magic. This now allows any of my Sims to learn magic or brew potions if they choose.

However, I do have some criticisms for The Sims FreePlay too. One of my criticisms is that skills like painting and playing the guitar advance your career instead of counting as hobbies. While it’s nice because you can get promotions for your Sims faster, I wish they could be counted as hobbies instead because that would be more realistic. Instead, they are activities you can do that count towards career promotion.

Another criticism for me of this game is that it’s way more time consuming than any of the other games. What I mean is that when you go to do certain tasks, you have to wait a certain amount of time until what you’re doing is done. So for example, a task that takes 5 minutes won’t be completed until that time has passed. Unless you have points you can use to get these tasks done faster, some tasks you’ll have to wait for hours until they’ve been finished, which can be a pain when it comes to completing these quests. Especially if you decide to do them under a time limit to unlock certain items. I usually complete them whenever I feel like it and don’t worry about stuff like that, but I feel like it can still be a pain for those who want to get tasks done at a faster rate. In the other Sims games, you can usually fast forward time so this isn’t an issue whenever you play. But for those who want to complete things at a faster pace, just know you might not have luck with that.

My biggest criticism for this game though is the style options. In this game, there really isn’t a whole lot of clothing and hair options for your Sims. Everything is pretty basic, making it extremely difficult for you to make unique Sim characters as you continue building up your town. I’m hoping as I continue to play this game that I’ll be able to unlock even more unique clothing and hair options so that I can try to make my Sims look different from each other in the future. But right now, my options are pretty limited.

But overall, I find myself enjoying this game as much as I do the other Sims games I’ve played in the past. It’s to the point where I’m starting to play the Sims game I have on my PlayStation 2 again in the hopes of progressing further than I ever have before. In many ways, you could say I’ve become hooked to the Sims again, which has never been that much of a struggle before. I highly recommend this game if you are looking for something casual to play or if you’re looking for a Sims game to play but don’t know where to start.