Coulda Been Street Pussy

There's a lot of buzz right now because of the release of the early access version of the newest Sims 4-killer wannabe out there called Paralives. I've watched the reviews which are all very positive and it looks like a pretty good challenger to the Sims/EA monopoly of the genre with only InZOI holding steady with its own early access status and trying hard to maintain a share of the simulation living games pie. Where Sims 4 has its legacy and content (and that content being at a premium price, of course due to EA's corporate greed), and the new guy Paralives filling the "cozy" and customization niche, InZOI has been available for the better part of, what, a couple years now? with arguably the best graphics of the bunch.

Not really ready to plunk down another $40 for yet another game, I'm passing on picking up Paralives just yet (plus there are reportedly plenty o' bugs still) and I decided to give InZOI a shot for the first time in about a year or so.

The YouTubers all praise InZOI for its open world play and (for some systems) eye-popping graphics, but decry its feel as "hollow." 

Jumping back in today, I find its graphics aren't all that hot really. At least not for me, even on "ultra," unless at night when things are illuminated by electric lights, then they "pop" more. And yeah, the play does seem off, compared to the way the Sims interact and "play" together in Sims 4 and especially Sims 3. But instead of hollow, I'd describe it as aloof. Like your people are human cats (like the game's cat mascot shown above) and just seem to merely "tolerate" you. They do their own thing all the time and it doesn't seem to abide by the same stream of logic that the Sims do in that game. 

Oh and the controls are very different and the music, IMHO, is horrible and the styles are too "modern" and too "Asian" and, I don't know, I found myself playing for about an hour, remodeling my guys' kitchen with the limited assets (that's another thing... way less stuff than Sims 4 and I only have two DLCs of extras in that game really). 

Then one of my guys sat down to watch TV after talking to a neighbor that showed up at the door, just like they do in SIMS 4, and they even spoke together in Simlish... I swear, it sounds exactly like the gobbledy-gook language they use in all the Sims games, how has EA not sued their asses off I don't know. But then the neighbor handed my boy a "gift" (it looked like a bowl of cereal?) which my boy pocketed away in his speedos and then in ten seconds the neighbor was gone. And what is my boy watching, some Dora the Explorer knock-off in very fuzzy graphics on the TV. Meanwhile his hubby didn't even come out to the living room at all during the visitation. And the neighbor was a sketchy looking "elder." 

I mean, my boy could have been secretly festered away and trafficked on the mean alleyways of the big, butch city. 

I'm taking a big "meh" pass on sim games again. They're too stressful for me right now, gurl!