The Sims Mobile E3 2017 Impressions

Off to the hidden side of EA Play was The Sims! Showcased was some of the upcoming new furniture for the recent Sims along with a quick demo of the upcoming mobile version. I thought I'd give it a try since I took a picture with the couch Sims already and got my green emerald hat so I was ready to go. This fresh take on the series aims to bring the experience of The Sims 4 over to mobile devices and they displayed it on a massive touch screen. It wasn't entirely responsive and I think that was due to the screen size and it was in development.

Still, I found some neat tricks for moving around the environment quickly and accessing the various tools that were available. It seemed to really have everything one might expect from customizing the household to interacting with others. I didn't have much time to play so I essentially just checked on what I thought were the most important parts of the series. I did some interaction with the people, the house and living.


Near the end of my time I thought I'd push the system in regards to getting romantically involved with another Sim as everyone loves that. There are multiple options just like usual where you converse, have a date with an actual setup event and then move forward. The date was a nice meal in the house including sitting at a table and then the couch. It's basically the whole thing one might expect from The Sims, except when the microtransactions come in. These seem to be aimed at taxing every single interaction you do with anyone. This is interesting as it's limiting your social time with others and that could be a problem.

Every interaction costs points and you only have so much available to you before it needs to recharge over time. This will probably be a barrier for players and I can see that perhaps special items or any sort of thing you build with might also carry something similar. I did have a fair bit of points available and my conversation went on for awhile, though keep in mind at E3 that things are usually exaggerated to keep the press happy when they're playing. The core game seems to be all there and on mobile which will be great, I'm just worried on how far the free to play aspects will be pushed.

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