TS4: Seasons in The Sims

I have SO MUCH to say about this pack! For starters most of the glitches have been dealt with by EA with a patch they released three days (I think?) after Seasons came out. I was unable to water my plants indoors, outdoors I could only water the same two plants over and over again (and would continue in that loop), and there was major game lag when I tried to place wallpaper.

This behaviour was without mods so I knew it was the game and not some problem with my custom content. I do really like this pack though and I agree that this is the best Seasons of the entire series. TS2 and TS3 Seasons were great (TS1 didn’t have weather) but this pack has brought the best of its predecessors plus some fun of its own like creating your own holidays.

That’s right. No more “Love Day” or “Winterfest” or “Spooky Day” in my game. I have Canada Day, Labour Day, Thanksgiving, Halloween, Christmas, New Year’s Eve, Valentine’s Day, and Easter. Two holidays per season in my game. If the game adds its own holidays I just delete them because the real holidays are better and have house decorations associated with them.

Except Canada and Labour Day. Those two are just generic holidays but every other holiday has decor, activities, and traditions that are just for them. For example an egg hunt at Easter, a visit from Father Winter (the Sims version of Santa Claus who’s secular ANYWAY) on Christmas, trick or treat on Halloween, counting down to midnight for NYE, and give flowers on Valentine’s Day.

I love it. I have no complaints! Okay, that’s not true. The price was still insane and I am never buying another expansion pack on release. It was fine when the price was the same as the US ($39.99 in both currencies) but now they charge Canadians $51.99. That’s $12 more! I remember when TS2 expansions were $25 each. TS3 went up to $30 then TS4 is now $52! That’s ridiculous!

Some of my favourite additions (I originally wrote addictions, lol) so far:

• Creating our own holidays but also being able to delete the default EA holidays. No more childish holiday names that I feel stupid even saying let alone writing.

• You can give gifts directly to other Sims. I sorely missed this ability from TS3. Now I can give photos, flowers, or anything that can fit in my personal inventory. You might be able to give from the household inventory too (meaning bigger and more expensive gifts) but I never use the household inventory so I haven’t actually tested that aspect yet.

• Some of the new hair and clothes are fantastic and fun. I even changed the hairstyle of Darla Joyville because I found a new one too cute NOT to use on her.

• The new gardening system is so much more fun and easy to understand. You never really knew when a plant was ready to evolve but now you know exactly how far along they are towards the next step of evolution (and there are only 5 levels now).

• WE FINALLY HAVE A USE FOR FLOWERS! There are so many flowers you can grow in game but there was NOTHING to do with them until now. Now you can give flowers to loved ones or create bouquets and sell them at a business. Much more useful!

• That there are decorations for six holidays instead of just Halloween and Christmas like TS3. Decorations were really limited in TS3 Seasons. Not so with this. You can even decorate a bare Christmas tree or buy one that’s already done up in all its splendor. And? The trees are gorgeous. I hate to say it but the Christmas tree in TS3 was pretty ugly.

• They brought back Santa Claus in the form of Father Winter styled after Father Christmas. In TS3 they took out Santa completely. Both TS2 and TS1 had Santa but for some reason he wasn’t suitable for TS3. Would be nice if there was a Mother Winter option too though.

• The thunder storms are super fun and because they aren’t real I can enjoy them without the guilt of the cats being upset by something I love.

Some of the things I was disappointed with:

• No new life state. We are four years into this game and so far the only permanent supernatural life states are ghosts, aliens (which do NOTHING special) and vampires. I want witches, fairies, mermaids, and zombies back darn it! They seem to not like adding supernatural life states in this version of the game. TS3 had LOTS.

• How little content they gave to females for outerwear. The males got a decent amount (not GREAT but decent) but the females got totally cheated.

• The cost, obviously.

• That EA recycled objects from Spooky Stuff and recoloured the objects. Make new objects you lazy bastards! This actually REALLY pissed me off. Most of the Halloween decor from Seasons have the exact same mesh and functions. Recolouring an object doesn’t make it brand new! UGH! I was looking forward to new decor objects.

• When the game adds random holidays without your permission. I DO NOT NEED A HOLIDAY TO BUY A LOTTERY TICKET. I’m serious, that was an actual holiday that the game created on its own. Stupid. I delete them before they happen.

Since there was no new world that means I had to choose one of my characters. It was a toss up between Rana and Fran. I used Patricia for Jungle Adventure, Belladonna for Vampires, and Kara for Cats & Dogs. I don't use Darla for reviews because I prefer dealing with only one Sim and her family has four. Ryan lives in a high rise; not the place to highlight this expansion pack.

I decided to go with Rana MacDonald! She's the first Sim I created in TS4. Willow Creek seemed like the perfect world to experience the four seasons. Before anything these 3 images are of all my characters in their cold and hot weather outfits. Wearing the cold weather outfits in winter saves them from freezing to death and hot weather outfits keep them cool in summer.

The Sims in order from right to left; Ryan Clemson & Patricia Starling, Rana MacDonald & Kara Lovell, Belladonna Blackbyrne & Darla Joyville. First are the hot weather outfits then the cold weather ones. I really like that added detail that we wear different clothing when it's warm.

This is what your calendar looks like if you've chosen only seven days per season. I personally chose 28 days per season so I had to open a new save to make a new calendar. This is what my calendar looks like the only difference is my holidays are nice and spread out over the four months and not crammed together like this calendar.

First summer holiday is Canada Day. One of the traditions I chose for this holiday is a barbeque. I sold Rana's hot tub and made her little backyard into a little picnic area instead with a BBQ, picnic table (with a red umbrella for shade) and her chess table.

Another tradition on Canada Day is drinking! I wish I lived in a Sim world where there was no alcohol only juice. Sims don't get drunk in TS4, only back in TS1 days was that acceptable. There is lots of "juice" to choose from and it's non-alcoholic alcohol. LOL!

Next tradition is fireworks. I tried to get Rana to light some fireworks but they kept blowing up from being faulty (I tried five different times!) so I could only get her using a harmless sparkler. I prefer sparklers anyway since in real life I would prefer that all loud fireworks be banned for the sake of our animals, wild animals, and people suffering from PTSD.

The second summer holiday is Labour Day. Rana goes for a jog as exercise is one tradition I chose. FYI you can choose five traditions for each holiday that you create (or edit if you choose to use default EA holidays). The more traditions your Sim takes part in the better they enjoy a holiday. If they take part in none or one they get pretty upset when the day is over.

This tradition is called Holiday Gnomes and I chose it for fun and not because we actually do this on Labour Day. LOL! If you have gnomes on your lot you can Appease The Gnomes and they will give you gifts if they are nice OR they will send a lightening bolt and you get fried if they are mean. Nice gnomes sport halos and mean ones have fire over their heads.

PS: Do not do as Rana did and kick the gnomes because they WILL come for you with their friends! They broke everything in Rana's house and left garbage piles everywhere. I wanted to know what would happen if I really pissed the gnomes off! It was a bit scary actually. They kept disappearing and reappearing all over her lot. I thought they'd never leave!

Like I said above I am loving the thunderstorms in game. They are especially lovely in summer.

During the summer these kiosks show up around the world selling lemonade and other goodies. It's a bit annoying since the salesperson CONSTANTLY yells trying to get Sim to buy their food and drink. In a residential area this is really awkward. It's not a county fair!

Since I don't really celebrate Thanksgiving all that much I'm just doing one image of the Grand Meal tradition that Rana cooked for her girlfriend. You click on the fridge and choose the option Grand Meal and you have five choices of dinner; ham, fish, turkey, tofurkey, or grand breakfast. You can invite a bunch of guests but Rana chose an intimate setting for her partner.

MY FAVE HOLIDAY! HALLOWEEN! You knew this would be the focius of the autumn holidays. The first tradition I chose was wear costumes and here's Rana in her llamacorn costume.

Rana's house has been decorated for Halloween!

Kids & teens come by to trick or treat and you can choose which one! I was very disappointed that all that happens is the Sim hands one piece of candy to the kids and they don't even have a bag or bucket with them. TS3 had trick-or-treaters carrying a pumpkin bucket for candy.

The last tradition for Halloween is a bonfire. Those are always fun with a few friends or by yourself while you act like a pyromaniac and add tons of fuel to the fire.

Apparently if leaf piles get left for more than a few hours they start to stink and attract flies. The worst part is a new pile is generated OVER the stinky pile so the new pile still looks like this. I have to burn the piles and throw away the ashes before I get a clean pile again.

A lovely little feature in the Winter is the footprints your Sim leaves in the sparkling snow. Pets also leave little pawprints in the snow. Super cute.

Rana's home all done up for Christmas!

Rana had to put a lot of furniture in storage to fit her Christmas tree inside. I thought it was going to have to put up outside. I wish they had a smaller option especially for Sims that live in small houses and apartments. The big beautiful tree is NICE but doesn't work in many of my houses without displacing a lot of furniture and belongings.

I managed to fiddle around with things in Rana's bedroom so she has a fireplace for Father Christmas to come through to visit and leave presents.

On Christmas Father Winter pays a visit to Rana and her kitty Tabitha.

I love snowstorms. They make me want to cuddle up on the couch with Mocha even though the AC is on high and it's hot as hell outside.

On New Year's Eve Rana's girlfriend had to work (she's a DJ) so she and her best friend, Summer, decided to have a girls night. To kick off the night they shared a NYE toast. I was hoping there would be more to the New Year's Countdown but it was crap. The Sims just stand around watching the countdown on TV and then they stop. Nothing special at all.

The last photo for winter is Rana enjoying some time on the skating rink.

The flower bunny is VERY cute but a bit annoying. It danced around Rana's home throwing flowers that I couldn't delete. That's it. Besides interacting with other Sims it does absolutely nothing. It feels like these traditions were not thought out properly.

I could add this to the disappointed list but the egg hunt was a BIG one. I was expecting some nice little chocolate eggs my Sims hunt for. Instead the eggs you find are already part of the game. There was a free Easter Egg hunt available in 2015. Instead of creating something else they used objects from three years ago and are decorative only. LAME!

The last holiday is Valentine's Day. I love all the heart decorations.

Giving some flowers to her lady friend.

On a date with Candy at Magnolia Gardens. I thought it was a cute idea to go use the swings together. Swings are a new item added with Seasons. I've missed them!

That's it for now! Until next time, happy simming!

Last updated September 29, 2019