about the unlocking aspect you guys complain about, how is it different from unlocking career rewards and aspiration rewards in ts2?

Has anyone heard anything about how pregnancy will work in this game? I'm kinda hoping that unless they have something neat to add, they just make it exactly how it was in the last two.

Career rewards and aspiration rewards are bonus objects that provide specific, improved-over-regular-objects functions. They are part of a small system, and not a back-of-the-box feature. In TS3, there were unlocks along the lines of what you had in TS2, but you also had "do a bunch of SimPort stuff to unlock more-or-less basic clothing and objects" or "share memories to get basic furniture and clothing." Both of those were much more intrusive, and provided decorative items, not improved skill-building items. In TS4, unlocks are described as "new objects, outfits, and traits," as-in, basic stuff that there is no reason to have to unlock, and unlocking them is from "completing events, discovering collectables, and unlocking achievements," AKA unrelated activities that should be optional. Furthermore, achievement, events, and collectibles are along the lines of the quest-type gameplay in TS3, whereas career rewards and aspiration rewards were unlocked during the course of a normal sim's life by doing normal things. The player didn't have to go out of their way to perform unrelated tasks.