A number of you requested I make a video about
game packs, so here it is! Sims 4 doesn't just have expansion and stuff
packs. In general, game packs have even more stuff
than a stuff pack and usually a good bit of actual gameplay. Let's look at all of them and what you get
when you buy them. In early 2015, so much was missing from the
base game, we were begging for more and EA answered the call with a vacation spot, tents
and coolers, and an easy way to get Sim farts on video. So yes, based on the name, we're off on an
Outdoor Retreat with Sims 4's first ever DLC. In truth, the destination and a few things
to do here are the meat of the pack. There are new fish, camping-themed recipes,
and plants and insects to collect. You for some reason can't just visit here
without going on a vacation and paying a daily fee. When you're frustrated frustrated by this,
just accept that this is because there aren't any cars in Sims 4. (laughs) Anyway, yeah, you do need to rent a camping
site or lodge to take full advantage of the new collecting and herbalism skill that comes
with this. Herbalism lets you identify plants. You can pick 'em and eat it and hope nothing
bad happens, or do it like a pro and identify them directly. Then you can go right around the FDA regulations
and mix this psychoactive plant with bugs you collected to make serums that can relieve
Sims of stress, nausea, or fix hygiene by rubbing a deodorizing cream on your pits. That one's actually good, because it requires
only plants that you can grow at home. Anyway, in order to make ALL of the serums
you have to go on a vacation because of the damned insects. You can grow the plants at home but somehow
granite falls is the only place in Sims world with those types of bugs, but you can find
the other kind when you observe the game's AI. If you meet the random townie hermit who lives
in the secret deep woods area, you can learn a new herbalism recipe. It's a fertilizer recipe but takes a good
bit of work to really take advantage of because of the insects. Which almost entirely destroys its purpose
because it's a pain to make more than a few unless you use a dupe cheat spell. When you're not on a vacation, you can make
use of the camping equipment from this pack to live an easy life or cloudgaze in places
other than Outdoor Retreat to get inspired for 6 hours. Honestly it's the most used part of the pack
but the beans and camping stuff might also make their way into your play if you buy this. Sims 4's second Game Pack came 6 months later
and offered Sims a more direct way to relax. Spa Day introduces wellness to the game, both
as a skill and a concept. There's a new Spa Lot Type where Sims can
take part in wellness activities like Meditation and Yoga, stretching things they've never
stretched and doing a face-plant during downward dog. When they get it, they can use it to create
various buffs. Sims can learn to give massages, or pay to
receive them. These offer powerful moodlets that are long
lasting. Leveling Wellness lets you get more out of
meditation, such as the ability to sometimes freeze needs, melt away stress, and teleport. The Pack comes with the opportunity to cook
yourself to death in the new sauna object. When used in moderation, Sims can enjoy intense
warmth and humidity to relieve stress and socialize while nearly nude. This pack comes with a couple cool objects,
like incense that can give off an emotional aura in the area around it, or burn down your
house if you leave it unattended. There are some really nice aquariums in this
pack that accept all types of fish and will show them swimming around. The next Game Pack to offer us the opportunity
to contribute to the $5 billion Sims franchise was Dine Out. This one came after Get to Work was already
out and seems to at least somewhat make use of the retail system of that pack. It's been tuned toward letting you run a restaurant. That's the main feature or... I hope that's the main feature in most people's
eyes as I wouldn't pay $20 just go to to a Sims restaurant. I'd like to be able to run one. You can manage your chefs and wait staff,
buy restaurant perks, and advertise your business to get more customers. There's a star system that ranks your restaurant,
but this pack needs cleaned of bugs and has a reputation for that among the community. I didn't run into a lot back when I did my
own but definitely could see how the AI needs a lot of improvement to make this work well. Something I liked about managing the restaurant
is that you need to pick your menu, and the difficulty of the dishes does matter. If you have a bad chef, you shouldn't go for
making high level meals but rather stick to what they know. This can have a big impact on star rating. You can use the chef's station to make the
special dining only recipes at home. These are experimental recipes and require
at least level 5, when your Sim tastes it, they'll learn the recipe.. the problem is
they really do require this chef's station to make and it has to go in a wall. Oh yeah, there's booths. If you don't like the idea of retail in a
restaurant, or don't strongly desire booths. Or these tables and chairs.. If you feel eating somewhere else is not an
attractive feature with a point, you probably would want to skip this one. I'm not even really trying to review these
packs as I write, I just realized going back over Dine Out that if I'm not running a restaurant
I use none of it. The Vampires Game Pack brought the first real
occult progression system to this version of the game. You can of course ask to be turned into a
vampire, with one residing conveniently in the new town of Forgotten Hollow. Let's be clear, it's generous to call it a
town. It's only got a handful of lots but uhhhh,
something else nice to say about Forgotten Hollow... Oh yeah, it does look a bit creepy at night
time. The town's an aside, Vampires are the main
thing and they're not like Aliens, Mermaids or Ghosts in that they have to earn the powers
that make them unique. At first you can only really feed, as a minor
fledgling wimpy vampire. You can either ask nicely, or take it. Eventually, Vampires require blood or they'll
snap and go get it forcibly in a frenzy. People don't like it when you do that. The Vampires system comes with its own perk
tree, and every so often you'll get points to spend on various benefits. As your Vampire feeds and grows stronger,
they'll gain more powers. Many of them are like spells, allowing you
to charm others into consent, put them to sleep, or make a whole room feel a certain
emotion. They make hella good comedians if you want
to try to kill a group. You can also get hidden buffs that give you
more strength, skill gain, less energy usage, or more resistance to the nasty evil sun. Yes, vampires can of course die in the sunlight
and that's not their only downside. They have to take actual weaknesses as they
grow in rank, meaning you have to pick something bad that will happen to your Sim. Many of these can be overcome, and they're
not exactly game changing but they do give you some handicaps in play like requiring
more thirst or making it hard to make friends because everyone considers you "that" guy. Sims who do not choose to be vampires can
learn the Vampire Lore skill, which teaches you to repel vampires or cure the affliction. It's got a little lore fed to you through
the notifications system, but nothing too deep. Vampires playing with their organs is kind
of cliche so I guess they had to include that, but they did make unique music for it. The pipe organ skill is a lot like piano and
other musical instruments, in fact I'd say it's identical. They're all identical. Really, it's like one skill but 5x the hassle. The pack comes with a couple new aspirations,
as you can be a master vampire or good vampire. You can certainly use the build mode objects
to make a creepy cemetery look or something very dark and Gothic but you need to want
to play a vampire or you should ignore this pack's existence like you would a guy who
gets too drunk and hisses at people at the club. Wow, that's half of them, you must be so engaged. Like this to stroke my ego a little so I can
be happy here in isolation. Four months after The Sims 4 Vampires, The
Parenthood Game Pack was released, promising a bit more gameplay for adolescents. It starts having an effect on toddlers, as
lessons of life like manners, don't pee there, and that doesn't taste good find their foundations
established early in life. The pack comes with this parenting system,
character values. Your Sim's kid can either be rotten or a golden
child, and these effects carry on into adulthood. Teach them to have good manners, and they
won't belch around others. Fail to do so and, well, you know. Each of these comes with a positive, and negative
trait. 10 traits total with any given Sim having
access to up to 5. Get the meter to an extreme on either end
to get them. You kind of farm points by doing various things. Hate to put it that way but you need to grind
a little on some of them and do activities until you're in the solidly good or bad range,
depending if you want your Sim to be a monster or not. The traits can give some unique benefits that
may be helpful for defusing a tense situation, making a solid greeting, doing better at work,
or improving bad emotions. Parents themselves learn the parenting skill,
giving them powers to magically empty and or fill the child's bladder a little bit. It works both ways, do we mean the meter or
the bladder. See what I'm saying? They can fix needs with the magic, or they
can tell the Sim to do something. You could kind of try to do this in a hands-off
way and cede control of your Sim's kid to try to parent them like some kind of big pet. Every now and then, a life lesson pop up will
occur which lets you make a choice for your kid, lowering one stat and raising another,
or unlocking a hidden option if you have high enough parenting skill. They called these teachable moments. Leveling parenting makes this much, much easier
to manage although the way the system is, it's never that hard. You're able to give your kid or teen a curfew,
use groundings, or other punishments which will also impact their character values traits. Kids can go through phases, and there may
be sibling rivalries. Children and teens can do school projects
to get some responsibility, but there aren't any gameplay objects that I can remember in
this pack. And, I looked back over it - pfft, nothing. The parenting system and a parenting skill,
that's the bulk of this pack. It definitely has stuff to make a nice children's
bedroom, but this also exists so pick one or both if you're interested. You are not going to believe this, but Jungle
Adventure sends you on an Adventure to the Jungle. It's the unexpected that keeps me coming back
for sure. Anyway, this pack tries pretty hard to deliver. There's a bit going on here to talk about. This pack is all about taking a vacation like
Outdoor Retreat, only to Selvadorada where you can find a jungle to explore and a temple
at its center. Along the way there are fishing spots and
collectibles, new foods to try, bushes to let you relieve yourself, locals to shag,
and dig sites to excavate. Managing needs while in the jungle is a little
harder, but you could nap in a bush you just peed in, or use a shower in a can. Or both! In that order only. There are insects that might shock or set
you on fire, so do keep that in mind, but again that can be fixed. It's kind of a random event, they aren't really
there for collecting or something. Make it through and you'll eventually discover
the Omiscan temple, which you can get through with some simple skill checks or some emotion
berries. The archaeology skill obviously helps a lot
in here, but charisma may come into play if you need to talk to this weird statue. I mean, other skills matter too just not as
much. The goal's to get through the doors to the
final room, encountering totally non-threatening but rude skeletons along the way. When you get to the end, you'll always find
a treasure. Leave, and the temple resets so you can do
it all over again. This isn't to be pumped up, the temple is
suuuper simple ok. Once you've got how it works, you will have
no problem at all. It's a process of elimination and nothing
more. Did I say excavate earlier, yes I did. The pack has an Archaeology skill that involves
digging up artifacts and relics, stealing them from the country you're visiting and
selling them on the black market. It's.. it's pretend, ok. Artifacts are things like old pottery or a
dagger from the Omiscans, and you can find a few different qualities of them - they can
be made of something cheap or fancy gold. These sell for quite a bit. There are also treasures, which are another
type of collection all together I believe and usually found at the end of the temple. The other type are the relics, and those are
where you find some cool stuff yeah. Three tops and three bottoms exist, and different
combinations of them make a different relic for up to 9 totally unique relics. Now you can put in a crystal you refined with
the archaeology bench to give it power equal to the rarity of the crystal - from common
to rare. Rares give the most powerful effects, but
some are just different. These aren't attached to Archaeology, so anyone
can use them once they've been assembled. Adventuring in the jungle isn't entirely safe. Jungle critters or a poison dart from the
temple can cause you to get a poisoned moodlet, depending if your Sim's body beats it off
or not. This is the new death in this pack. I was kind of pissed when I discovered you
can buy an antidote for $1,000 on the computer instead of you know, making one with bone
dust or using the new Selvadoradian Culture skill. That's the last thing in this pack, other
than the various jungle-themed objects you can use to decorate a house. The skill teaches you to dance and do other
local customs while you rob them of their heritage, but it's only 5 levels. You can also get the ability to buy from a
secret shop that gives you better access to the cures and sells some of the relics. Sims 4 StrangerVille represented both a callback
to Sims 2 and an experiment of sorts for the franchise. They did some things they haven't done before
in this pack, with a story that involves you doing some simple quests to figure out what's
gone wrong in this town. It's next to a military base and people act
like this... That walk is pretty good, creepy in a way
but very much showing that over-expressive Sims style. You'll find the crazies all across the new
town, StrangerVille, which has an appearance that changes based on the phase of the story
you're in. The town has some low income areas and a lot
of people love the look. It seems inspired by Area 51 and small towns
in Nevada. You'll find a perfectly justified conspiracy
theorist running a roadside stand where you can shop. The people who act strange all talk about
mother. I'm sure your mind goes to aliens or an Oedipus
complex, but we already have access to those. If it were a novel or movie I would be more
concerned with spoilers, but the story here isn't deep, there are no twists or turns it's
a simple narrative so adjust expectations accordingly, though I won't completely ruin
it for you. Despite the fact it's not the Sims equivalent
of a Stephen King novel I liked the experience of playing through it my first time, since
it offers a little direction, but long term you rely a bit more on the other features
anyway. It's one of those things you'll only do a
few times at most and takes only a few Sim days. I'm not trying to dunk on it, just telling
you what to expect since it's very different. This pack brings a new Military career you
can take on. It's work from home which is friggin weird
given Military is very much NOT work from home. Anyway, it's a lot like gardener or the careers
from City Living. Simple assignment and done. Not just a rabbit hole, but simple in nature. Whether you're military or not, you can work
out on the training bot, which is a new item that is required for the career. You can go with either the covert ops or officer
branches. You'll get some medals and a display case
for your trouble, and the ability to recruit Sims if you go officer, or for covert ops
make more use of the listening station from the quest to bug Sims and listen in on their
conversations because evidently Sims has a terrorist problem. This is just a little side feature that is
mainly used in the narrative. You can't make a living blackmailing others
but I sure wish you could, or I wouldn't be doing this. There isn't a lot more than the new town,
story, and military career in this pack but it does have plenty of build mode stuff to
help you make a secret lab look. I don't have anything bad to say, it's light
on features but again I did enjoy doing the quest one time and there are some rewards
for doing it. Realm of Magic introduces a new place called
the magic realm, which sounds like a name I would come up with. Would you guess this magic realm's main building
is the magic headquarters. We aren't stuffing people's brains with fantasy
words here. Anyway in that building, you'll find spellcasters
who can teach you to use magic. But they need to filter out the people who
don't want it so you gotta pick up some orbs outside the hq first. When your Sim's done, you'll get a pretty
nice listing of spells to learn, with 24 total spells and an additional 15 potions you can
make. The spells you can cast any time so long as
your charge meter isn't full, which also gives the game an opportunity to kill your Sim if
you're extremely neglectful or a sadist who likes to kill Sims, like me and my friends. Potions are another matter, as they do take
ingredients but you can use your dupe cheat spell to make a sample into another and just
never bother picking up even one ingredient. Casters can learn from books, duel for new
spells and recipes, and ride about on a broom. Ok, I mean ride straight up on a broom because
it's basically a long form teleport spell. While they didn't brainstorm much on good
names for the magic realm and HQ, they spent their creative juices coming up with a few
good ones like scruberoo to instantly clean anything and Delicioso to summon a meal. They feel like Sims mashed up with Harry Potter. The spells and potions cover most but not
all of the unique powers in the game, such as repairing something, duplicating things,
duplicating yourself, evolving plants, teleporting, teleporting somewhere else, joining your state's
offender registry, forcing others to lower their inhibitions, making Sims mad, setting
things on fire, slavery, or escaping death. Because why not. In all honesty, it's a thorough list but I
do wish there were more unique effects. Many of them are very powerful and it just
kind of feels like cheating, inducing a now what feeling for me and some people I know. Sims can have a familiar that will literally
die for them. Well, not really, they don't die. They come back. So don't consider this the same level of sacrifice,
they don't love you THAT much. But, they'll help if you take a deathblow
from overload getting too greedy duping money tree seeds. For the people who love my channel and watch
everything, they know how I feel about things being mindlessly easy. With Realm of Magic, you do get a functional
caster system, brooms, potions, a new locale even if small, and just about every unique
effect you can think of from other packs' features. The game just needs some sanity brought into
the difficulty area with packs like this, in order to be a game at all. As of March 2020 at time of writing, that
is every game pack. I noticed going through this that there aren't
many gameplay objects not tied to skills that come with Game Packs. Just an observation, it's usually one core
system but I do appreciate their existence as it allows the developers some flexibility
to pursue smaller ideas that might not fit in an expansion. But, I do feel in almost all cases we needed
more content to justify the price. Can't change my mind on that one, the game
market is flourishing and there are tons of games to play. Anyway, thanks for your time and definitely
consider sharing this or supporting me on patreon if you really like what I do. Stay sane in lockdown, I know I am!
