So, as expected, EA ran out of money for sports cars, hookers, and blow, or whatever else it is they spend their ludicrous amounts of money on (because it certainly isn’t game devs), and came out with The Sims 4. However, with the beloved pool feature in ALL of the other Sims games (yes, that was directed at you EA) missing from the content, how EVER shall we murder our sims!?
WELL, fortunately The Sims4 isn’t without a hopeless amount of ways to kill your sim. Ten different ways to be exact. Interestingly enough, EA has taken to really driving the sims emotions home in this game, so much so that there is now a “Natural Death” category, and an “Emotional Death” category. What on earth is the difference? Natural death is, well, natural. Emotional death? Well, for example, you can literally be “embarrassed to death”. Sims can only handle topping out a negative emotion for so long before their little sim bodies just give out. (Much like EA should be by the lack of pools in this game.) In fact, that’s a great place to start. So let’s begin with Emotional Deaths.
EMOTIONAL DEATH:
Embarrassment: That’s right! Now sims can be embarrassed to DEATH! Did you used to allow your sims to walk around town leaving puddles of mysterious blue liquid everywhere because BATHROOMS WASTE TIME? (I mean, they do, sims take like a half an hour to pee in sim time) The emotional state of embarrassment actually has 4 levels of intensity. I’m not sure if this is a clever tribute to this being The Sims *4*, or if it’s just a random number they chose and consequently fixated on for the rest of the game. Either way, I doubt it was intentional as the Devs over at EA seem to be perpetually stoned, braindead, or both. The 4 levels of this wretched emotion that you can begrudgingly force your weak minded little digi-puppet into are as follows: Embarrassed, Very Embarrassed, Humiliated, Mortified. Lets break down the word “mortified” as in, “Morti” being the Latin for “Death”. So it only makes sense that if our little simling rag doll is neglected long enough to become mortified (I suspect by some interaction like urinating in public and making coitus in the mystery puddle it leaves behind publicly) they will die. I certainly know I would.
Hysteria: Remember that scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit where one of the weasels was yelling at the others that they would “laugh themselves to death”? Well that’s essentially what can happen here. Also with four (coincidence? I think NOT!) levels of excruciating (but funny!) pain they are: Playful, Very Playful, Silly, and Hysterical. If you linger in Hysterical land for too long, much like our weasel-y friends, you won’t last. There are things you can do to calm the hysteria, but if you’re playing The Sims? Chances are you’re already a dangerous level of sociopathic (present company not included, obv.) and that’s not something you’re interested in doing.
Anger: Or, more colorfully, “Cardiac Explosion”. Thanks Sims4, that’s not a horrific image or anything. Again, with four levels of deep seeded hateful angry trauma: Angry, Very Angry, Furious and Enraged. Leave your sim in blood lust land for too long, seething in anger over someone leaving a plate in front of the fridge, rendering them helpless against starvation, or some such other trivial matter, and their heart will quite literally explode. Classy EA. Oh, and did I mention that with all the emotional death states, that once you reach that 4th level, that pinnacle of emotive response, you have VERY little time to ‘talk yourself down’ etc. Don’t make it easy on us or anything. (Jerks.)
NATURAL DEATHS
So these are the deaths we sort of expected in The Sims4, as they are significantly more like the deaths available (you know, except for the POOL) in The Sims-The Sims3.
Old Age: Ageing to Old Age and eventually being greeted by death was introduced in The Sims 2. I don’t think I have had a single sim die of old age. I probably will now, as there is significantly less drowning risk in the game (you follow me EA!?). I don’t exactly know WHY I’ve never had a sim die of old age. I would assume it has something to do with my extreme lack of interest in ‘woohoo’ing with senior sims. “Too old for sex? INTO THE POOL WITH YOU” (OH. WAIT.)
Hunger: Ahhh yes, the old standby. Nothing like reliving the days of The Sims original release and locking a sim in a 1×1 block of walls and watching them slowly starve to death as they should up at you from the game, begging for sustenance. Tough shit sim-limg. You were born with a wizard hat, and as is only right, you’re outta here! Your sims have only two (call the illuminati, the 4 theory is off!) different moodlets here effecting this emotion. Hungry, and RAVENOUS. Once your sim is ravenous for 24 hours, they kick the bucket. Poor sim. They probably wouldn’t have starved to death if you hadn’t turned off independant thinking and gotten up without pausing the game to make yourself a deep fried turkey, leaving them to starve and piss themselves for 24 hours while standing between a fridge and a toilet, you fat unfeeling fuck.
Electrocution: This one actually comes from sims DOING shit, as opposed to sims NOT doing shit, and has also been around since the original version of The Sims. Trying to fix that TV? Hope you looked at a DIY magazine before attempting it little sim friend, because if you didn’t you’re about to get one hell of a surprise. Now mind you, they don’t die on impact. Death, once again, comes from your uncaring mouse clicks. Once a sim without enough ability in the ‘mechanical’ skill tries to fix something and is shocked, they will get a moodlet called ‘singed’. And if your cold unfeeling hands click that TV again while that moodlet is still active? Well, chances are the will get shocked again, chances are they will die, and chances are you’re not allowed to have pets.
Fire: Another classic. Granted, it seems it’s a little harder to get things to light on fire without the stove. I recall in the old days, we would lock our sims in a 4×4 room with a fireplace, 4 rugs, and a dried out plant! And we LIKED it that way! Ahem…anyway. The Sims 4 has gotten eerily realistic with fire. It’s no longer contained by walls and spreads only item to item. The fire can go through walls and essentially stalk your sim until they have been swallowed up and turned into volcanic ash.
Overexertion: This one is just for the old sims (if you even let them live that long after reading this article, you sick fuck). Elder sims certainly don’t have the ‘go get em’ that they did when they were just young sims, dodging their creators attempts at murder at ever turn, so strenuous activity (read: all the fucking you make them do) gives them a moodlet titled “dangerously tired”. This only lasts for four hours, which isn’t so bad when you consider sim time, and the fact that we all use the fast forward button like we’ve never seen Click (you know you saw it, even if it was a shitty movie, and you KNOW you cried). So if during that 4 hours you make your old-ass sim do something strenuous? Well, yes, they can die from it. Personally, I don’t know what’s worse, that you’re still reading about how to, in detail, kill your sims, or that all you took away from this paragraph is that you can make old Mr. Hubble die on top of old Mrs. Peterson from nextdoor.
Death By Rocketship: Technically this is fire. But seriously? SERIOUSLY? Really, EA. We can race rocket ships, ultimately resulting in untimely, fiery, crunchy, spaceship death….but we can’t make a pool because it’s too hard? Anyway, if your rocket science skill is too low and you try to RACE A SPACESHIP (but you know, no swimming……) or explore space after using a the “stuff fruit in exhaust pipe” action, you are just about guaranteed to crash and burn and hit the ground in a big explosion so grim that even the Challenger would be jealous of all the press. (What? Too soon?)
Death By Cow Plant?????: Thats right. As if the Rocketship wasn’t weird enough, I have saved this one for last. There is a plant in this game that is so Little Shop of Horrors-esque it’s astounding. You plant it in your garden and it’s extreme hunger must be satiated every 12 hours or it is going to start to try to eat your sims. How does it do this? Well. Strangely enough, it’s tongue looks like CAKE. That’s right! This cow plant thing, has cake tongue. It will attempt to lure your sim over with it, and their options are to either eat it, or feed the plant. I have no words for the depth of creation of this plant. Maybe your sim would have been stronger and able to resist if they had exercised once in a while. Used a treadmill, or taken a swim…oh WAIT.
So as you can see, there are 10 solid ways to die in the Sims 4, which I can only assume will be followed up with plenty of successors in the expansion packs to come.
Happy murdering, sim killers!
As usual, please direct all hate mail to erik@Nerdfit.com