Sims 4 Years High School is the proposal with which the life simulator continues the expansion of its game, this time with a proposal that adds playability on the teenagers. Personalize your room, go through puberty, waste time on social networks, make friends and create all the drama you used to create in high school, but being in his thirties with financial and self-esteem problems, as in our case. We played the pack on PC and want to tell you more about this expansion. There’s a lot to talk about, so buckle up the… “Simturon”. NO, STOP, DON’T GO, WE HAVE JUST STARTED…
Create A Sims Mode
The CAS of High School Years it is versatile and is mainly aimed -and of course- at teenagers. The premise of this expansion is make your sims “discover themselves” and therefore, it does not have a defined aesthetic. Incorporate some things of style rocker, but also some Y2K aesthetics, cheerleading uniforms, or the like. We will even have the “posh” trend which is not what you are thinking, in Spanish from Spain it means “Cheto”. EA we pray to God that you get a Latin American translation.
While the latest packs are looking a bit more at androgyny when designing the fit of clothing so that any Sim can wear it, there is much more feminine material than masculine. And that is a recurring vice in Sims.
And speaking of gender and sexuality… The new options incorporated for free, will allow you to fully explore the personality and identity of your Sims. Thus, we will be able to broaden the spectrum, which now includes the possibility of being aromantic or asexual.
Build and Buy Mode
High School Years has a strong imprint on exploring the individualism of your SYoms. You will have many different options to decorate your room, with new beds, new desks, clothing “gamer”, 17 (seventeen!) chairs, posters and much more that will allow you to express your uniqueness.
A great tool that this pack incorporates for free -which is already available in the base game- is the possibility of creating structures with round walls. which will allow the simmers let your imagination run wild.
The site of the school and the auditorium are completely remodelable. You can easily demolish them and create your own -and that’s great, because at our discretion The Secondary Copperdale it looks pretty empty. Keep in mind that you can only build a school and an auditorium on these lots and that these lots can only fulfill the function of an auditorium and school. Fortunately, the game will help you not to miss anything.
Details that make the difference
Adolescence will strongly mark the character of your sims thanks to the addition of desires and fears, that will develop in this period but will accompany you for your whole life. This will not only happen if you have the pack, it was also incorporated into the base game.
The acne and body hair are other free upgrades that will make your Sims feel more insecure or less insecure. You will be able to wax and shave them, and do treatments to reduce acne breakouts. This is something that adds a lot of realism to the pack. Pillow fights, sitting on the floor or in bed… the pack is full of very interesting interactions. teen that add a lot to the experience.
There are some details, such as the possibility of escaping through windows and the new death “due to an urban legend” that we are not going to spoil for you… but we do say that they exist and are worth exploring.
The best notes
The gameplay of High School Years It is something that will accompany you in all your games. The active school is very well balanced, with five hours of free time and two hours of class, which will allow you to thoroughly socialize with your classmates. The negative part is that during class hours you will not be able to do anything but pay attention. and take notes… That no matter how happy it makes your primary school teacherit would have been better if you could choose between paying attention, socializing, using the phone, etc, each with its respective consequence (in the same way that the passive school system works).
School is more important than just facing the sim you like…To access some jobs you will need to have completed high school. This means that yes, they can expel you and you can fail. If you get in trouble, you will go to “detention” and if you are a good student you can graduate early.
Socializing, friendships and romances are the biggest draw of the pack. NPC sims will approach your Sims with friendly or romantic intentions, and may propose themselves or ask you to the prom. This autonomy is quite refreshing.
Much of the new socialization of your sims will happen through networks. Social Bunny is the application where you can upload messages about what you did that day, tag your friends and send messages to each other. This application is not unified with “simstagram” and has two different follower systems -perhaps it would have been good to integrate them-. One drawback is that the Social Bunny notifications logo will be on VERY often. Therefore, if you thought you were going to play to stop “wasting time on social networks”, now you will be able to waste time on social networks while you play.
As a teenager you will be able to join four new extra curricular activities: the football team, the cheer squad, the chess club, or the computer club. These clubs are basically rabbit holes, although they will occasionally have events of their own. The events themselves are a bit underwhelming, without much decoration or much to do. The Chess Club and the Computer Club do not have autonomous events designed and they must be requested through the computer.
If clubs are not your thing, you can also do something lucrative. With this expansion the active careers of Video Game Streamer and Influencer. Or be a trendsetter through the new Trendi app, an online clothing store to buy and sell styles. You create the styles in Tutitea second-hand store that also sells Bubble Tea -all very Palermo Hollywood-. If your style catches on, you’ll be able to see other sims start using it. If you sell trendy pre-designs on trendyyou will earn more money.
The new world also has new places to go. The amusement park is perfect for a first date…because it is full of places to make the simcochinada
Prom night is an event that is more fun to prepare for than to play. And it happens once a week, so the gameplay gets pretty repetitive after a while if you play with the long-hive spam. The auditorium where it takes place is not well achieved at the environmental level and the duration of the event is -to our liking- too short. At a general level, except for the amusement park, the construction of this pack lags behind. Especially after the hyper-detailed work that was done in this section on Werewolves.
The pack itself is very well done. but we delayed the review for a few days due to the large number of bugs it had on the release date. For example, during the early days of the patch enabling the installation of the new expansion, players reported a bug that caused your sims to age when passing loading screens. Another significantly more interesting bug was causing your sims to have unholy wishes for their relatives. (We are not going to make any jokes about any Argentine province because they threatened to fire us if we did, but we are going to let you imagine them). The update on August 4 solved these problems.
What do we combine it with?
As always, a big part of reviewing a pack is looking at its potential to be added to the game. While we have a lot of items to buy, there isn’t much to build. Therefore, in that sense, it only provides us with material to create rooms for teenagers. Stylists and storytellers will find a lot of fun in High school years.
This pack integrates organically with any expansion you have installed. No matter what it is, you can always use it in perfect harmony with your story. But, in our opinion, the best stories are achieved by mixing it with Werewolves, Vampires and Kingdom of Magic. college days It is the most organic complement for this pack, which will allow you to live each of the life stages of your sims to the fullest. And if you have Journey to Batuu…it doesn’t matter, because nothing goes with Journey to Batuu.
conclusion
Sims 4 Years High School it’s a pack that was needed to bring a little more life to the teenage Sims and explore the personality of our characters. The amount of free content: curved walls, body hair, or sexual orientation makes it good news for all simmers, even those who won’t buy it.
It is an “always green” pack, which you can use without getting tired -because you can choose between accompanying your sims to school or putting it in the background. It also gives your teens a good place to find other teens and the autonomy from NPCs is refreshing.
At the construction level, the pack is a bit disappointing. The auditorium, the playing field, and the high school itself all look pretty empty and uninteresting. As if the spaces were made too hastily. Luckily, this encourages builders to get down to business and compensate for the issue.
RELEASE DATE | July 28, 2022 |
DEVELOPER | Maxis, The Sims Studio |
DISTRIBUTOR | EA GAMES |
PLATAFORMS | PC, Xbox One, PS4, |