Both The Sims and Planet Zoo are interesting simulation games with unique premises. The Sims franchise with its most recent series, The Sims 4, is all about playing with life, whether it be creating one resembling the life the player leads or something else entirely. Planet Zoo is dedicated to simulating what it’s like to own a zoo, with an important emphasis on wildlife conservation.
While these two games may fall into different genres of the same category, they have more in common than meets the eye. Though they have different artistic approaches, with The Sims 4 being highly stylized, the life simulator may still have something to learn from Planet Zoo when it comes to building and world creation.
When Planet Zoo was first announced, it was easy to draw comparisons between it and a different well-known zoo simulator—Zoo Tycoon. For all intents and purposes, Planet Zoo is undoubtedly the spiritual successor to Microsoft’s beloved franchise, and with that title came a heady responsibility. It seems Planet Zoo rose to the occasion, expanding upon the elements that made Zoo Tycoon so enjoyable for players, but it doesn’t feel like a knockoff, either.
For a game about owning a zoo, Planet Zoo has a seriously in-depth build mode. Players use these advanced controls to create the perfect zoo, including creating habitats for the many animals available and crafting personalized shop exteriors. Planet Zoo also has incredible terraforming tools that let players create lakes and even deep water, thanks to its new Arctic Pack DLC. These game mechanics seem to be fine-tuned upgrades reminiscent of Zoo Tycoon, but that’s far from a bad thing.
What’s most impressive about Planet Zoo’s construction opportunities is how they are practically limitless. Players can create a lake, decide to put a sunken boat at the bottom, and merely click the boat and drag it down to the bottom of the lake’s floor. They can even merge it into the land itself, giving the illusion that sediment has partially covered the boat. There’s no slotting into a designated area, and players can freely layer rock upon rock or plant after plant with no issue. And that’s just scratching the surface of what Planet Zoo is capable of as far as custom building goes.
The Sims franchise has undoubtedly come a long way from its first release over 20 years ago. Players are now able to place things on a diagonal, or even press and hold “shift” to place something exactly where they want it instead of in line with the grid. It wouldn’t be fair to say the game has not progressed or improved its building mechanics at all, but it is fair to say it could be even better.
Without a doubt, The Sims 4 introduced players to the most efficient and well-designed Build/Buy mode that the franchise has released. It’s easy to navigate between build items like walls or windows and then curtains and couches within a few clicks and with no loading screen between. For The Sims, it was revolutionary. The ability to place things freely can be toggled not only by pressing and holding “shift,” but also inputting the code “bb.moveobjects on”, which essentially turns off grid slotting and will let players layer up however many objects they want.
Though The Sims 4 is the most advanced in the series, it could definitely learn a thing from Planet Zoo in construction. Instead of players having to input a code to turn off slotting, it would be nice if there was a built-in toggle (like hitting “g” to show or hide the grid) so players could turn it on and off as necessary. When creating lush backyards or gardens, flower and rock overlaps aren’t a big deal, but too much overlap in a Sims’ house could cause it to work incorrectly. It would also be efficient to allow players to sink or raise items with a built-in option like Planet Zoo, as opposed to players having to hit “9” or “0” to achieve the desired height.
While it would be refreshing to see these changes implemented in The Sims 4, the game coding may not allow for such advancements to be patched in so easily. However, that doesn’t mean The Sims 5 couldn’t take these changes into account to create an even more advanced Build/Buy mode.
The Sims 4 is available now for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One.
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