Where on a console one would instinctively press B to back out of successive menus, half of the time you need to drag your unwieldy cursor back up to the previous sub-menu and click on it to get back to the main game screen. "Clicking" and "hovering" have been referenced because it's quite clear that the game's control systems have only been loosely modified from the original keyboard and mouse setup. While the rest of the game's menu systems never quite reach the same low, they remain incredibly clunky in a way that just isn't acceptable. Often you'll only accidentally trigger a new tutorial because the text of the previous one is blocking your view of the menu about which it's teaching you. That one is lost forever unless you reset tutorials completely. If you happen to click on another menu item that has a tutorial trigger, you'll override the current tutorial. This is when things get really maddening. Sometimes you seem to be forced to click through the entire set of tutorial sides for one system before you can try any of it out, but other times you do seem to be able to "click" out of the tutorial box and access the game screen behind them. These are buggy, inconsistently controlled and bizarrely random in their appearance. These are difficult to read unless you sit no more than a couple of feet away from a reasonably large screen and offer only a vague description of the menu's intent.
Tiny buttons bring up tiny text descriptors when "hovered" over.
Everything in their design feels almost intentionally frustrating and certainly leaves the impression that little effort was put into making any of it work comfortably on a controller.
#HOW DO YOU PLAY SIMS 4 ON MAC SIMULATOR#
This is an annoyance in any game, but in a simulator it can be a deal-breaker. The Sims 4 has one of the most obtuse and maddening graphical user interfaces seen from a major title on home consoles. However, first impressions only take you so far, and it’s not long before you have to start interacting with the menu systems. Even the first impressions of the character creation screen are warmly familiar. The worlds are as crisp and bright as ever, and the musical score has the same bombastic cheer. If it’s been a while since you last stepped into the world of The Sims, everything about the opening and loading screens will bring a nostalgic smile to your face.