Happy Musings Thursday my friends! I’m back with another musings post for you. I’ve got some thoughts, so let’s get to ’em…
Well, we may be a couple of days into the Van Houten Multi-event, but that doesn’t mean we can’t reflect back on the mini-event that just left, Summer Games. No time like the present to share some thoughts on the mini-event.
As I did with mini-events prior, I’m comparing this mini-event to other mini-events. It’s the only fair way to assess each event, to compare it with other like events. So, comparing Summer Games to other mini-events, and reviewing it in the same light…
Not a terrible mini-event. It wasn’t spectacular by any means, but it also wasn’t awful. Just kind of middle of the road.
The prize track was an improvement from the Pride mini-event, in that we got a new character, but I wasn’t a fan of the decorations. Kind of lame and destined for storage.
Now let’s get into the Good, Bad, and Ugly…
The Good
-Patriotic Homer is probably my favorite costume for Homer. His donut eating and flag-waving animations are the best. And his phrases make me giggle every time!
-Full character for Springfield on the prize track. Stephanie Brockman was a nice addition, with fun animations. Nice to have a full character as a prize again, especially after no new characters with Pride AND the Game of Games Sequel.
-The dialogue was great, what else is new? Lol
The Bad
-This event started two days later than it was supposed to. Which meant we had two days fewer to finish. Not that finishing on time should be an issue, but it would have been nice if it started on time.
-While I understand they program these events months in advance, the topic was a little sad. With COVID canceling the Olympics this year, and the Summer Olympics are my favorite, it was kind of depressing to be reminded of it. While I appreciate the writers trying to tie it all together and have it makes sense in the COVID world, it was still a bummer.
The Ugly
-The decorations on the prize track. The useless podium and the dancing kids? Come on. How many crowds/groups do we really need in Springfield? And a freaking useless podium? What a waste.
Final Thoughts
Overall I give this event a B-. Decent, but not great. I’ve scored it slightly higher than I did the Pride Event for two reasons…Stephanie Brockman and Patriotic Homer. Those two alone made this event.
Thoughts? Sound off in the comments below, you know we love hearing from you!
I agree with the points on the mini event. Patriotic Homer, Stephanie Brockman and the Summer Games Chairman were the highlights of the event. The Summer Games HQ and Villa were also decent buildings and the 2 decorations were not the worst items we got but could’ve been better.
Some more good points I thought of: 😀
*As pointed out on the prize posts, Patriotic Homer has a permanent task at the Fireworks Factory, PH and the Summer Games Chairman also each have a permanent task at the Springfield Mall or Sprawl Mart, and Stephanie Brockman has a permanent task at Painless Dentistry.
*The Duff Center Arena (DCA) got used for some tasks in the main questline and the animation here is pretty cool.
*The Summer Games Chairman (SGC) was also a decent character with good visual and non-visual tasks plus he’s voiced and he had a permanent 3 hour task which is rare for new characters.
*Summer Games HQ (SGHQ) and Summer Games Villa (SGV) were good buildings in the event.
Some more bad points I thought of: 😐
*The DCA still doesn’t have a permanent task there since it got used in the event.
*Even though, they still get used, there’s only one task at the SGHQ and SGV for Mr. Burns and the SGC. It would’ve been great if the SGC had a permanent task at the SGHQ and he had another task at the SGV (or at least another character had a permanent task at the SGV.
*While collecting cheap trophies, Barney earnt the same amount of trophies as the freemium characters. Barney is premium so he could’ve earnt 6 or 7 trophies every 4 hours instead of 5.
Possible improvements I thought of: 🤓
*The Sports Winners Stand could’ve either had a task for Homer (or Patriotic Homer’s “Wave a Big Flag Around” task) there or an animation with NPC characters standing on the stand.
*A permanent task at the DCA and an extra task at the SGHQ and SGV.
*Prize totals could’ve been increased slightly, maybe Stephanie Brockman could’ve required 245 cheap trophies (since each prize seemed to require an extra 35 cheap trophies onto their total than the last one).
Overall, it was an okay mini event with some good prizes and some prizes that could’ve been improved on and a decent premium character and building. The questlines and dialogue were great. I give the event a B/C grade. 🙂
The 200th update was a nice addition to the event. The 30 donuts, Truck Truck Truck, and Parking Lot Lot Lot were great to receive even though the Truck x3 and Parking Lot x3 are massive and can be hard to place and design with. I give the 200th update a B+. 😀
Decent assessment👌
😏…at least we got some minimal filler for the missing Summer Olympics…
Here’s another magnificent one to enjoy that our ‘glorious funky haired leader’ can be seen viewing in the grandstand:
🌈🤓🤘😬💩🏆https://youtu.be/7GHNWZFfrWI
I concur with you that a podium without winners is useless, like the wrestling rings without wrestlers were in a previous event. But the dancing kids fit nicely with Xoxchitla stage, makes sense if you saw some Xuxa shows in the day.
Unfortunately, Xoxchitla does not use her own decoration…
https://www.dropbox.com/s/i35bubaarpp8758/IMG_0566.JPG
Is it just me or does Milhouse look like he’s recently puffed on some wacky tabaki??
Summer Games 2020 Event – C Grade and that’s being generous! Yes Patriotic Homer Simpson is still my favourite to play with (“USA! USA! USA!” He screams while on the floor eating patriotic donuts 😂) and Stephanie Brockman is appreciated (not voiced, but I will take it and this completes the Brockman Family – for now!) We got quality writing with fun character dialogue and those are the GOOD!
Here is the BAD, padding an event with Crap Prizes (Dumb Decor that ends of getting Stored) and I can tell the Van Houten’s Family Event is going to be no different (except it’s even more Crap stretched over 6 weeks!) When an Event is 80% Crap Prizes, you feel like investing in the Premium(s) and ignoring the Event!
UGLY is when EA doesn’t bother to drop a hint at what to look forward to (we just randomly get a Mini Event, or Event that’s divided into 4 Acts – these formats are beyond stail now!) It’s also when you have zero interest in the Premium Character Combo (this is the first one I ignored in a long time!)
Can’t stress enough that Tappers truly need a Land expansion + increased Item Limits …. as long as those who remain a problem in TSTO? That’s BAD and UGLY!
Have fun and stay safe 👍🏻
Don’t forget the absurdly HUGE parking lot and big rig we got for free. Definitely belongs in the Ugly category.
The 30 free 🍩’s was GOOD!
the ridiculously oversized Parking Lot and Big Rig with Triple Stack was BAD and UGLY (EA’s tiny dedicated staff to TSTO already knows that a lack of Land available and increased Item Limits are still a problem! Perhaps they thought these were funny, but they were not!)