Weekend Wrap-Up: Christmas, Night School Web Series and The Sims 4

Hello my lovelies! As you probably noticed, I haven’t been blogging as frequently the past couple weeks. One little fact has been distracting me: Christmas is less than two weeks away. Yep, I think it’s safe to say, we can all form an orderly line and PANIC! Believe me, I’m in full on Christmas panic mode, and blogging time has evaporated quite drastically!

I envy each one of you that has everything sorted – Send all your wisdom my way, pretty please. We do have the Christmas decorations up, so YAY, progress has been made! But… each year I forget just how LONG it takes to decorate the house. To make it a bit harder, my inner perfectionist comes out. Sigh, it does get a tad frustrating when I end up convincing myself I need to take all the lights off the tree and start again! But it’s worth it; the decorations look pretty good this year, I will admit :)

I’m linking up to The Sunday Post meme hosted by Kimba @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news, recap what has happened on the blog, what is upcoming and anything everything in between.

Night School Web Series

I LOVE The Night School book series – and it’s a little obvious as I talk and blog about it every chance I get! If you haven’t read them, then you’re missing out on so much awesomeness. It’s so amazing to say that The Night School Web series is finally HERE! And I love it!

A new webisode is set to be released every Friday morning for the next two months. There really is only one thing left to say … #TeamCarter! (I really DO love Sylvain, too! But for Allie, Carter gets the thumbs up ;) Read the books, and you’ll know why :D)

The Sims 4

Speaking of Christmas-y distractions, I bought The Sims 4 recently (thank you Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales for making me even poorer!) After the buggy mess that The Sims 3 turned out to be, I was a bit hesitant to get the latest incarnation, but I ended up giving in.

What do I think of it?

It’s … small.

And VERY restrictive.

When I started playing at first, it was all shiny and new and pretty (‘cause it’s a very pretty game, I will give full credit for that, at least!) But, I ran into restrictions with the things I could do quite quickly. And also, things I expected to be there… were not.

1)Toddlers have disappeared. Babies age up straight from the cradle à la The Sims Medieval style. Now, in that game, it makes sense. But in a LIFE SIMULATOR? I don’t think so! (I can’t believe I’m going to say it, but I miss those little suckers.)

2) No family trees. This just boggles my mind that it wasn’t included. I don’t know about you, but I’d like to know if my Sim was about to fall in love with her cousin twice removed! And prevent it from happening!

3) NO BOOK SHOP. <--- Cardinal sin.

4) Actually, community lots in general are SEVERELY lacking. No grocery store, no spa, no stadium, no hospital, no city hall, no restaurants, no diners, no science lab, no military base, no beaches – and these are the ones off the top of my head.

For me, a good game can be rated on re-playability, and how many times I can come back and find something entertaining. I can find that with both The Sims 2 and 3. But I haven't with The Sims 4. Put simply, there is next to no content! I know this is a base game, but there should be some sort of 'hook' to keep me playing and make me want to fork out more money for an expansion pack.

Now, onto the serious question…

Would I recommend buying The Sims 4 for Christmas in its current guise?

I have to say… no. If you can get your hands on The Sims 2, I would highly recommend that. Or even The Sims 3.

Now onto much happier topics: BOOKS!

Books I read this past week

Red at Night by Katie McGarry
Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake
The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Red at Night is a Kindle freebie (and still is, at the time of writing this post) and I LOVED it! I haven’t read anything by the author before, and this novella has convinced me to try some of her other works. Anna Dressed in Blood. One look at the cover and I was convinced it would be terrifying. It wasn’t. I was hoping for a good scare, so that made it even more disappointing.

I finally started The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater! I said I’d read it last month, but I’m only getting around to it now. It took me a little while to settle into the book, but this has been happening to me a lot since I read Heir of Fire. Now that I’ve settled in, I’m really enjoying it! And Ronan! I really hope he’s in the rest of the series. :D

I’m trying to catch up with my Goodreads reading challenge, and it’s sort of happening... Kind of. I have 9 books to read by the end of the year to complete my goal of 120 books. Would reading 5 or 6 novellas be classed as cheating??

Thanks for reading, and have a fab week!