Horrifying! The Sims 4 Paranormal Stuff Gameplay Review 

the Sims 4 in a nutshell: "there's some good stuff here but hey, don't expect it to be complex."

“Get messages from the dead” Yeah it’s not like my dead sims and their dead friends always message me through the phone to hang out anyways!

slowly it becomes clear that the target group is around 6-14 years...

It's only five levels because it's a Medium Skill...if it had 10 levels, it would be a Large Skill

Bonehilda is going to get modded ASAP, best believe it.

“Don’t worry, we have The Sims 3 Supernatural at home!” The Sims 3 Supernatural at home:

I just hate that they keep reusing the animations so that they don't have to make new ones. Kicking a creepy doll to remove a cursed object?? WTF??? even children know not to do that, it's so stupid

I want to be excited for this but it’s hard when there r still base game problems like simulation lag, adults taking turns taking a toddler in and out of the high chair and sims standing in front of the refrigerator to eat and then cleaning the dishes in the bathroom 🤦🏻‍♀️

I wish they had actually expanded on the pre existing ghosts rather than just having you be haunted by blobs. Like, I would've liked to see this in a bigger pack with some sort of actual ghost world, ghost life states etc

I don’t take this ghost seriously the creepy people in stranger ville are scarier. Why does this look like they stole the little ghost from animal crossing

I like that they're finally making things difficult, I just wish hauntings were dangerous instead of just disruptive

“who is she to knock on my door uninvited? you call before you show up Janice!” LMAOOOO this part had me cracking up

I feel like the creators of the game don't even play it

I think that kicking haunted items would aggravate the paranormal activity even further. Apparently, The Sims has other ideas. 😕

I’m a little turned off by the cuteness of the ghosts. Even when they’re evil they look harmless. Pack seems well packed though (pun intended). A lot of stuff but not my jam.

So the new patch dowloaded last night and I was playing and my sim was running around the house terrified because he had “thalassophobia” (fear of the ocean) except he was no where near an ocean and hadn’t been anywhere near the ocean. Legit crying under the covers and I couldn’t get him to stop. So this patch is already great. Love it

I can't wait for Jim Pickens to become a Medium, all his victims will scare the hell out of him 😂

Needing to summon Bonehilda every time you want her was definitely a choice, not a result of EA rushing the developers, because they already made Patchy. They could have made Bonehilda a re-skin of Patchy, with an upright coffin instead of Patchy's stump and she prioritises cleaning and repairs over gardening. They chose to not do that, and not give the community what they expected. I don't personally care about Bonehilda but I find it weird how they are either out of touch with the community and don't know that people wanted her to be a live-in maid, or chose to disappoint people.

Why do ghosts get scared too? That's just weird.

God this game is awful. These ridiculously goofy ghosts are a perfect reflection of how much this game has declined in quality. In Sims 3 ghosts were so comprehensive.. so many cool ways to die (shark attack, performing water grave trick, time anomaly).... and the grim reaper was so well designed and interesting to watch.. remember in Pets how he would hug and comfort the dogs and use a toy mouse to send the cats off to heaven..and he even rode the horses into the sunset! TS4 is an empty vessel.

I think they could have made this great like add a trait like Scaredy-cat that makes Sims easily scared or a trait called Intuitive that makes it easier to do the job or level up in the new skill

You are absolutely the best Sim RU-vidr. Your reviews and LGR's are the only ones I trust!

Adding Sims 1 burglar with the scary theme should be haunting enough. This pack seems too soft to create a proper haunting experience.

Take a panicked poop? Really. Because Angry Poop was such a well used option. This game is getting so childish. We knew this when they added Care Bears to Freeplay, but it is becoming so apparent. Missing the actual saucy content from past games. Bet the next Sims game will be E for Everyone. If you want to make a kid's game, just go the whole way EA. 😒

Sims 4 is basically like playing with dolls in my opinion. Not too much gameplay, but hey you can make your barbie dreamhouse and be a paranormal investigator and I like that.. May utilize the golden rule.. Always wait for a sale...

Kinda dissapointed with how the hauntings work, I thought it would be like the gnomes in Seasons because that can be really chaotic and some guess work is involve specially if don't have a guide.

Soooo since apartments can only be residential (besides penthouses) that means they can’t have the haunted lot trait?! Boo

XD kicking a haunted doll in real life is a bad idea, just ask anyone who is dumb enough to kick Robert the Doll or Annabelle. 🤣

Imagine a little girl sim ghost appearing each time the voodoo doll popped up?! Now that..I’d buy it lol these “ghosts” are far too cute.

I guess what's worse is this might as well be for kids...theres nothing really screaming 'spooky' or 'scary' in this pack. It's mindless fluff that doesn't make sense and like we all expected, doesn't work with any other pack, the ghosts are WAY too cute ( a phrase i never would of thought to say about any ghost), The career and skill is disappointing....and the furniture is so colorful and yet so bland?? nothing screams "hey im a spooky pack about ghosts!". At least with sims 3 i would freak out if i heard the ghost sound near my house because it could genuinely be terrifying. this does not give me anywhere close to that feeling of dread because my sims is freaking out that a ghost flew through them or that a ghost possessed their bed.

I feel that this pack was a huge missed opportunity, everything is just so lackluster and tbh I'm really tired of all the reused animations. The Sims 4 just feels so lifeless and like the developers just don't care.

If you become an investigator with a license, why the hell would you get scared?! Why wouldn't you be able to get a brave trait that eliminates this? 🤦🏻‍♀️

I wish they would have made this a proper expansion and put the time and effort this type of system deserved, there is so much they could have done with bonehilda and the ghosts, and like you said in another video this would have been perfect for developing a graveyard system. But these days thats all I feel about sims, giant missed oppertunities with systems where minimal effort was put in, a basic themepark with little complexity and connecting tissue. It just feels like every pack in sims 4 is less then the equivlent sims 3 expansions, pets being a perfect example, in sims 3 we had the equestrians, horses and just a wide variaty of options compared to sims 4, and then with island living, in sims 3 we had house boats and actual underwater places to explore, I just hope in sims 5 they do better, thar or paralives does well. I know its EA, but it seems they are trying to put more effort in these days, so maybe theres hope for sims 5.

Why is this game so... goofy? I mean The Sims has always avoided adult content but they can't make a paranormal stuff pack be remotely spooky? The haunting ghosts look cute, not scary. The game is rated 13+ (I think?) but this content looks like it was made for really young kids. I'm so disappointed, I thought this stuff pack might gives TS4 a bit of edge. I guess I should have known from the Strangerville pack

Imagine Selling one of the Careers from Sims 3 Ambitions as it's own dlc. don't buy it. Make EA and Maxis work for your money.

So haunted houses are just residential lots but with dolls spawning around? I'm out, what's the point now of creating something like "a haunted museum" or something similar.

Carl :v I've been following your guides since i was a wee tot on TS3 and i just had to say, ily. thank u.

You’re the OG of The Sims Carl. Your guides have been immensely helpful for me the past decade if not longer. You mentioned complexity in the video which I agree with. I had to study your sims 3 guides and look at your website constantly to complete challenges and things in that game. Sims 4 is so basic in comparison. Even this stuff pack, the mediumship skill is only to level 5 and you have a ghost tutorial. Wheres the challenge? Probably going to be the shortest skill write up you’ve ever had to do!

I don’t understand why they didn’t include purple color swatches for the items. Seems like a no brainer 🤔

The paranormal investigator career and the medium skill interested me when it was announced but it looks like you just clean up stuff and there's nothing to the medium skill outside of the "seance" stuff.

Im glad they added a new emotion breaking a new frontier, BUT I WOULD HAVE LIKED IT SOONER

This is third review I've watched for this dlc and it's the only comprehensive and unbiased one so far. Looks like this dlc might be a nice distraction for people who love the paranormal investigator concept. But there's no way it's worth £10 for me.

thank you for being honest, i can never trust game changers because they always butter up their reviews to make it seem better than it is. won’t be buying this, just like i haven’t bought any since university. i feel like i wasted my money on ts4 to be honest, i never play it now because it’s so boring and glitchy. ts3 forever for me :)

Imagine wanting to buy a STUFF pack that had actual stuff in it. I think EA adds minor gam play things like this because they didn't want to be bothered to make an ACTUAL expansion pack that would give us several careers maybe even a new world and actual LOT traits we could apply to other locations, and let us not forget about Bonehilda, I mean the fact that we can't keep her as part of the family really bothers me. This is just another lazy move on EA to do a little as possible to try and keep people interested in their game what should have died after they pulled Journey to Batu on us. I hope people are starting to realize that EA is ALL about aesthetics, ALL of their games are like this, not just Sims. The only reason most people are just now seeing it is because they may not of ever played TS3 when MAXIS still had creative control, or they were blinded to what was really going on with this game. It's like playing with Barbie dolls with reused animations/recolored objects and random pointless emotions. At this point and I feel like they are trying to gear their game towards the younger crowd because most of them either are too young to have played the other Sims games so they don't know any better, or they just don't care, they will buy anything just because.

A haunted temple without having to live in it could have been fun...

I'm just over the Sims. I build a house and exit the game.

Yeah, the max level for paranormal investigation is kinda stupid. I miss how it was in ts3 where you could just join the ghost hunter profession and learn as you go :/

Okay I'll get it. But seeing all those reused animations just makes me salty. I love Sims 4 but come on. I've played the ghost hunter career in Sims 3 again BECAUSE of that pack and it's just amazing. I feel like I'll just use my imagination to make it more interesting than the game actually makes it

I just hope there’s a way to make it so certain sims don’t get scared in a haunted house. I have a vampire and I want her to live in a haunted house, but it would be silly if she, a literal monster, was afraid of ghosts lol

I'd love to see how pets interact with this sp. This feels like a separate game.

it looks like one of those packs in which you play the career once and then you're stuck with the annoying things from the pack

Let’s face it, this could easily have been a game pack adding in new occults, but instead it’s a heavy stuff pack with shortcuts.

I wonder if you can be scared to death?

Thank you for always having subtitles on your videos 💜

“You call before you show up, *Janice* !” 😂🤣

I'm still waiting for more occult races to come around, so they've got ample reasons to build up from this pack (and others for that matter)

Jokes on you if you had expectations

i’ve really been thinking about buying this, but i just cannot stand how silly they made the ghosts look. i really don’t understand why they chose that

I think it'd be cool if toddlers & children could pick up the dolls & keep them, but it wouldn't just turn into a normal doll, and adults can still get rid of them (if that makes sense)

EA should hired Indonesian witch-doctor as a consultant before made this pack. Remove cursed object and doll by kicking, really? Oh, they just want to reuse gnone kicking animation instead offering depth to game play such us 'make contact', 'observe', 'exorcise', and 'burn it' interaction complete with different reaction and consequence. As someone who was doomed by black magic with the rest of my family (believe it or not), TS 4 haunting is really pathetic and laughable, I mean just take a look at Indonesian stories of hexes, there's people who grow wires or vomiting nails, the haunting are more subtle because you are not suppose to realized anything about it until too late, some apparition appears to intimidate you, your parent will fighting more frequently, your mental health slowly decline, and there's localized pain in your body from time to time depending on how much the djinns that inhibit in your body (rarely happen into a possession or that you gonna hears voice like a schizophrenic). It's more like psychological horror in the end with flavour of some paranornal cliche. Instead, like mentioned in some comments here, romantizing occultism and yet still fail to make it interesting because it seem like a chore to do and probably you gonna play it once and never again.

Hey remember the Ghost Hunter career from Sims 3? Yeaaaa..I was hoping to have that again in 4 😐 now people are just gonna get weird with Bonehilda 😥

I once again made the mistake of letting myself get excited for this pack 😭 how disappointing! I really hope they fix things... hopes aren’t high however :(

I honestly feel like there should have been more variety in the animations for this Pack. How is mopping going to completely clean off a haunting? It should not be that simple; Make sims have to buy special equipment in order to get rid of the haunts. DIFFICULTY! There should have been more variety in the Spectres as well; I feel like we should have gotten some lore for how the ghosts came to be. Make some missions that require players to travel! Maybe a partially new world. Maybe a BOSS Battle.

Toggleable difficulty!! Haven’t we been BEGGING for this?!?

Pretty sad about bonehilda. I genuinely would have bought the pack for her and build buy. I like her coffin from TS3 and my rich vampire sims needed a quick bell they can ring to summon her :/

Thanks for the review! I really would've preferred if they'd made this a game pack so we could've had more CAS items, more B/B, more traits and an aspiration, tarot card reading, a fortune teller freelance career, etc. this type of gameplay is right up my alley though so I probably will be buying but I might wait until it's on sale. I'm also a little disappointed that the Medium skill is only 5 levels, and that Bonehilda doesn't have a coffin so she can stay in the house permanently. These things are probably the biggest cons of the pack in my opinion.

I like this pack, the furniture is so cute and it comes with a tiny cow plant. That’s honesty why I got it.

Great review! I feel like I really know what to expect with this Stuff Pack now

The King has returned finally it's time to learn some more knowledge about the Sims

We just want Bonehilda as live-in maid please.

Great review Carl. One of the most in depth I've come across. Thanks.

Can I just say, your blender animations and characters are a big highlight from your videos and I love seeing what you come up with!

I feel like for TS4 this is okay. However, people would've gotten so mad had they sold something like this for 10 quid during TS3. A whole, rich paranormal expansion pack could've included so much depth. :( This game is so shallow, it's sad.

cant believe dying from fright is not a thing ...

I'm honestly impressed with this pack. For a $10 stuff pack, it's really detailed. The gameplay has more depth than the career we got in Snowy Escape, and there's a lot of stuff as well. Compared to the earliest packs Sims 4 had, this looks more like a gamepack to me (I'm comparing to like Spa Day, Cool Kitchen Stuff, and the earlier packs, not anything released after 2017). Most of the time I wait until stuff packs are half off, but I wouldn't mind paying the full $10 for this one. I love occult content in The Sims and this has plenty of that for what my expectations of a $10 experience would give me! Also, I really love the cute ghost design. I know not everyone loves that, but it reminds me of that Ghost Duet meme, and just general cute spoopyness which I love. ♡

I absolutely love other Sims youtubers like Plumbella or James Turner for let's plays or other types of content, but your reviews are the only ones I trust. The base game still needs so much work, so it is impossible for any game packs or stuff packs to be really well done. They are trying to build on a foundation that is shaky at best. The only reason I still play the game is because I enjoy building. I stopped enjoying gameplay a long time ago and the new packs never add enough to change that. I feel like your reviews are made in the same spirit that I feel about the Sims right now which is "Yeah, this is a thing that exists, and I am technically here for it, but I don't really know why I'm here anymore."

I wanted ghost hunter. not paranormal investigator... T_T I even recreated (back when the voting for the pack was, when crafts won :P ) the Ghostbusters fire station. and finally happy hauntings is here. and it's the side of paranormal investigation I don't care... mystical. and they even botched Bonehilada ... I might need to see more gameplay of this pack before even trying it. as always thanks for the Info Carl :)

Im interested to know how the job works if your sim is already a ghost

Thanks for another in depth review Carl! I mentioned you on an official sims survey that popped up in game for me. It was inquiring about my satisfaction with Snowy Escape and I have to say I was very frank and honest with them about the lack of gameplay Sims 4 has compared to its predecessors. Thanks as always, much love my man!

The "brave" reward trait is not in the pack, it's part of the free update!

Thanks for the review and awesome video as always. 🙂

Why did they have to make the ghost look so cute!

Carl you seem like such a good dude and I enjoy hearing what you have to say in your videos! Thank you for everything you do and all the work you put into making your game guide. I whitelisted your website so the ads on the page will help keep your work afloat and accessible! Thank you again, man. Have a great day.

Sounds like they should have had buying the seance table and performing some ritual would add the haunted trait to the lot, would have been much better for people to get into it without jumping through hurdles.

Thank you for another great review Carl 💗

Awesome video. Thanks for showing and sharing.

“You call before you show up JANICE”... when I say I DIED😂😂💀

If you're terrified and talk to Guidry he'll give you sacred candles. Sometimes ghosts will give you the wax to make them. I enjoyed making a Lydia from Beetlejuice character to make a paranormal investigator. Gifts to give the sectors need to be homemade.

I was just thinking it’s been a while since your last video!!

This would have been the perfect opportunity to add the brave and coward traits to CAS

i wanted brave to be an actual trait in cas. perfect for this pack or meaning a sim will not panic when there is a fire etc

Also thank you for taking the time to review ✨✨🙌💖 loved and appreciated the time.

Thank you for the review. Ngl, this pack looks disappointing, what a surprise...

HEY LOOK ANOTHER DISAPOINTMENT FROM THE SIMS TEAM!!!! YEAAAA!!

"Welcome to the sims 4! Our game is as wide as lake Ontario, but less than an inch deep! Yet somehow we're successfully drowning in it!"

If they could have mixed in a dangerous living pack or the other monsters with this and turn it to a EP this would have been awesome.

Wait could I get some more info on those jumpscares? I got a heart condition. I love sims but not enough to get medical problems over it.

Yes because I act like that when I’m scared 😂💀

Love your reviews. Making Bonehilda an aspiration reward was SPOT ON.

Thanks Carl! Your reviews are always something fair that I can count on.