LGR - The Sims 4 Get To Work Review

Yeah , get to work .

Kind of an odd title .

If you think about it , I can just imagine some higher ups at the company were like , hey , we need to hurry up with an expansion pack .

Get to work .

So the Dev team took the command at its most obvious face value .

And the result was get to work .

The first expansion pack to the Sims four and no outdoor retreat wasn't the first expansion .

That was a game pack , which is different because marketing , this is a fully fledged expansion which adds a truckload of work related content to your Sims four game once it's installed it uh well , it just goes straight to the main menu .

Oh , no , loading screen artwork for me to bash this time around how sad anyway , start a new game or load a previous one to get to work , working on your work's workplace works .

You've got three new so called active careers to choose from doctor detective and scientist , active career just means that instead of your sim disappearing when they leave for work , you can actually follow them there and precisely control their actions .

This is something that simmers have been asking for since the Sims won .

And I got to say it's pretty awesome to see that 15 years of nagging does pay off .

Now , if you don't want to bother with the extra control here , then you don't have to and Sims will just teleport to these new careers instead .

But the idea here is that each day you'll work a shift and during that shift you'll have a variety of things to do in order to meet or surpass expectations , the better you perform and the more you suck up to the right people , the quicker you'll be promoted .

Whereas in previous games , you made these decisions through text and indirect influence .

But here you'll be doing it all hands on or mouse cursor on unless you're playing on a touch screen or are indeed a mouse cursor yourself .

But yeah , let's look at the doctor occupation here first where you'll start off as an intern and move up the ranks to become an orderly medical technician , a surgeon and eventually chief of staff .

The SIMS four now includes a sickness system to coincide with this .

So Sims are always getting sick and having to go to the hospital in droves .

Sometimes a bit of medicine , tea or orange juice will take care of the nastiness and they don't have to bother other times they'll come in with a case of bloaty head and need a good popping theme hospital .

This ain't though since you'll be taking control of your SIM alone and doing only a tiny bit of management in the later stages .

As a wannabe doctor , you'll be admitting patients doing the initial exam , passing them off to the real doc and near overdosing on coffee .

If you play your cards right , and avoid dying of sleep , deprivation .

Pretty soon , you'll be working even longer hours , running x-rays giving shots , analyzing tissue samples and performing basic outpatient care .

And of course , the goal is to become a real doctor which lets you examine diagnose and perform surgery on even the most severely afflicted patients .

Hospital are also where baby deliveries happen now , which is amusing because I say so it's like they're playing the crane game with your infant .

It's fantastic .

I wish all carnivals had one of these next up is the detective occupation which has you starting off as a beat cop with the goal of becoming the next dirty Harry or hot C si cast member of the week .

Both the hospital and the police station are in this weird little nondescript area that can only be accessed if you're working .

But unlike the doctor , you won't be confined to this lot .

As an officer , you'll be hitting the road doing all sorts of grunt work from writing citations to SIMS fighting in public to responding to a PBS and questioning everyone to walking into the crime scenes themselves , to gather evidence .

Crime scenes are pretty interesting in that you'll have to find as much evidence as possible , photograph it and talk to any witnesses to get their testimony .

You can also just chow down on the victim's chips and dip because , hey , fighting crime is hunger inducing work .

Once you've gathered the evidence , you'll head back to the station and analyze it using much the same machines as the doctors used to analyze tissues .

But until you become a detective , you won't be doing much more than busy work because all your evidence is handed over to the professionals .

Once it's collected , until then you'll be checking the computer database for cross references , taking mug shots and fingerprints of recent inmates and begging the chief to just give you a chance because you've got real gut instinct and balls of steel and , oh my goodness , your eyes are pretty .

Has anyone ever told you that once you've paid your dues , you get a shinier badge and a snazzier outfit and you'll be able to conduct full investigations of all the randomly generated crimes around town .

Mostly it's just the same busy work all over again .

But eventually you'll have enough information to go out and track down your perp , which is done by playing a game of guess who you know how it goes .

You've got clues like this .

Sim has red hair , long sleeves , glasses and smells like farts .

So you go to their last known location and try to sniff them out or ask other Sims if they've seen them if you're correct in your deductions , you whip out the handcuffs and it's back to the station and time for interrogation play , the good cop , play , the bad cop play .

The insane cop who had just one , too many energy drinks at the victim's house earlier with the chips and dip .

If you've got the evidence and can convince the suspect that you've got him dead to rights .

Well , then let's hope they enjoy the view behind bars and if you enjoy the view behind bars , then you can even make your own jail cells at home , which fits in perfectly with the new basements .

They recently added torture dungeons have never been so easy .

The final new career is the scientist which takes place at a secluded research facility in the desert .

That rumor has it .

Extraterrestrials are known to frequent , but don't worry about that .

Just don your safety glasses and lab coat and do some science .

Research and experimentation is the name of the game here .

So mostly you'll just be testing hypotheses , admiring the results and making a note here .

Huge success .

You've got the same magic machine from the detective and doctor careers again , except this time it does science , things like analyzing vegetation and rocks or minerals .

Jesus Marie , you can also respect the chemistry by using the chemistry table .

A long standing tradition in Sims Games .

By this point , you probably know the drill , mix together different ingredients to come up with potions that can either make life amazing or cause irreparable damage .

The other main device is this robotic inventing station which allows you to brainstorm by your lonely self , talk to the robot because you're lonely and do some 3d printing of sorts to create things that address loneliness like the cloning device .

So you'll never have to be alone again .

But yeah , remember the rumors about aliens earlier , they weren't just rumors and one day you'll go to work and aliens will have infiltrated the lab or you'll just be minding your own business outside .

And all of a sudden you're engulfed in a beam of light sucked into a flying saucer and won't be back till who knows when no one you'll quite possibly come back .

Pregnant dudes included .

Get to work marks the return of playable aliens in the Sims and this time you can make them straight away and create a SIM .

No messing around .

They come complete with custom clothing , skin tones and even alien makeup because it pays to be fabulous .

Even beyond light speed .

They've got some special abilities on hand as well .

Like being able to analyze Sims traits , wipe their memories as well as the excellent disguise ability , which lets them look like a human SIM to try and blend in with society .

It also makes it really hard to know who's actually human and who's not when just meeting people .

Half the time you could fall in love with someone and they turn out to be an alien .

Another fun thing that comes alongside aliens is the option to visit their home world , which is accomplished through the scientist's career or by building a spaceship with a wormhole generator .

Boldly go where Duke Newcomb has gone plenty of times and roam around the alien planet , chatting up the local babes and pilfering their plants before setting off back home .

It's mostly for just rare collectibles and a quick E T booty call .

What's far more in depth are the new hobbies and side activities in the game .

The first of which is baking separate from cooking , the baking skill is all about baked goods .

Many of which have to be made using fresh ingredients , cakes , cookies , brownies , rolls , loaves pastries , sugar , sugar , carbs , carbs , gimme , gimme gimme , although there's not a whole lot more to this other than a ton of new recipes and foods to make , but you know , new ways to virtually get fat are always welcome .

It also ties in with the next edition running your own business all year while it may not be a complete recreation of open for business .

Uh It's still a noticeable improvement on ambitions and the deliciously indulgent bakery from the Sims three .

You've actually got a whole new neighborhood to do this in known as Magnolia Promenade .

There are three premade retail lots to show you how it's done or you can go full entrepreneur and build your own shop .

Sell practically anything you want , whether it be items you buy or items you create and then set the sale prices , advertise using signage hire and fire employees design their uniforms , talk to and close sales with customers get into fights for no good reason .

Uh It's just like old times .

This is a phenomenal addition to the game , at least if you're into this amount of tedium .

A happy consequence of this is that it also signals the return of shopping , at least where things like clothing and furniture are concerned .

Unfortunately , you still can't go grocery shopping , but you can go try on clothes and buy them on the spot .

This is really only for role play and immersion purposes though , since you can still just go into create a sim and change your clothes with no cost .

And yes , there are a slew of new clothing , hair and accessory options on offer .

Oh and chairs because of course there is them some fine chairs .

Finally as hinted at in the detective career photography makes a comeback and it does so with a vengeance .

Not only can you take pictures with your camera phone , but you can also take more involved selfies spin around to get the perfect angle .

Make dumb faces squeeze in friends , apply photo filters .

Holy crap .

Stop .

It's making me realize how weird modern day life is .

I'm currently taking bets on how long it is before they add a selfie stick to the game .

But yeah , if camera phones aren't enough for you , then why not upgrade to A DS L R ?

Heck , why not turn that spare room into a photo studio complete with lighting and multiple backdrops ?

This may just be my favorite part of the pack because there's just something cool about being able to jump into a SIMS point of view and snap some shots to then hang up on the wall .

I wish you could walk around in this mode though because it's a bit weird having to line your Sim up in third person first .

Also , it'd be nice to be able to have a model change poses on command because as it is , it just chooses one at random when you choose to take a picture , but still leveling up .

This skill is a blast and it's great seeing your sim's pictures go from blurry , dark pieces of ugly to crisp bright pieces of art .

So is get to work worth buying or not .

Well , just like with the Sims three expansions , this one costs $40 which is to be expected .

What was not expected is how solid this pack turned out to be .

I'm not sure if it's because I actually enjoy it as much as I think I do or if it's because the Sims four launched with such a lack of basic content that anything seems like a huge improvement .

I mean , come on , this is the game that had fans spazzing over the introduction of freaking swimming pools , but I'm going to get all cozy with my less cynical side here and just say that get to work is superb .

I was one of those that always desired to follow my Sims to work and was also left wanting with the Sims three ambitions .

This satiates those desires and it gives the Sims four a much needed shot in the arm that said the game is still fundamentally lacking in the key areas .

And the pack only exacerbates certain issues like the frequent loading screens with each new edition , the emissions become more glaring .

But at the same time , the Sims four is still a platform that holds a lot of promise even though it's not quite there yet .

To me , this expansion is an example of what Brilliance may lie beneath that shell of initial disappointment .

And as a Sims fan that is plenty exciting .

And if you enjoyed this , look at the Sims four , get to work , then why not check out my videos on the Sims four and the Sims four .

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