What is here is enough to be a fun little mini-game collection (again, for kids). In our review for MySims Kingdom last year we wrote that Electronic Arts could be doing much more with this franchise. That is still the case.In a Nutshell it is a decent Mini-game collection for kids, similar to Mario Party or Carnival Games.
You can read the entire interview here [Gamespot.com]
Buy and Build modes have been tweaked in The Sims 3, and neighborhood lots will also work differently. Previously, furniture for your house was sorted by function and type; now they'll have a revamped room-specific sorting list as well. The larger part of the story of the Buy and Build modes will be the use of create-a-style to paint all of your furniture, as well as your house, with whichever patterns you want as freeform wallpaper and carpeting--such as with, let's say for the sake of example, leopard print. (We tried this, and you can absolutely have leopard-print sofas in a room with all leopard-print walls.) Swapping in custom-built items created by the fanatically loyal Sims community will also be made easier in The Sims 3 with a built-in application that runs out of the game's launcher (as opposed to having to quit the game, open up a Web browser, and pulling up the "Exchange" community site, which is being updated to include YouTube-like and Facebook-like functionality, such as blogs, friends lists, favorites lists, and user ratings). In addition to uploading and downloading furniture, customized sims characters, and housing to and from the community site, The Sims 3 will have an in-game movie-making tool that will let you upload and download videos to and from the Exchange. More details on that at a later date.
IGN has been doing a top 100 countdown of the best game designers of All time, and today they have released 10-1 of the list. Will Wright managed to snag the #3 spot, behind the greats of Sid Meier, who led the civilization series to stardom, and Shigeru Miyamoto the legend behind practically anything nintendo. IGN had this to say about Will WrightWill Wright is one of the true pillars of modern game design. His work on SimCity, The Sims, and the recently-released Spore has rightfully earned him a spot among the most celebrated designers working in the games industry today. Wright is well known for his far-reaching and eccentric analysis of the videogame industry as well as his fixation with popular culture. He is one of the few people in the business that can mesmerize a room with his observations on just about any subject you can imagine.He's the creator of a string of wildly successful games dating all the way back to Raid on Bungling Bay in 1984, the aforementioned SimCity series in the late '80s and early '90s -- which defined the modern simulation in just about every way -- and of course, the enormously popular life imitator, The Sims. Wright has been intrinsically linked with all Maxis properties (a company he helped start) for years. The success of his wildly ambitious and approachable games has allowed him the freedom to continue creating titles that were sandbox experiences more than linear experiences.
Wright has continued to develop "Sim" games, which are among the most successful and widely-played gaming titles of all time. The Sims' popularity inspired Wright to create the even more ambitious Spore -- a procedurally-generated simulation that tracks development from single-celled organisms into an entire galaxy. It The concept sounded impossible before it became a reality in 2008, enjoying commercial success and critical praise.
"When you give someone a toy of a system," Wright told Apple.com last year, "it gives them a new perspective on it. They see that system as a dynamic, organic thing. Living in it in the real world, they don't notice day-to-day changes in it, but when that system is sped up over 50 years or more, they see the changes clearly. And they gain a new perspective on it."
Indeed, it's a new perspective that Wright provides the entire industry with every new idea he brings to the table.
The release of a new numbered Sims game represents a tectonic event in PC gaming. So the fact that Humble was recently promoted to act as chief executor of this launch says volumes for what he’s done for the franchise in his five years of constant Sims 2 production. Humble for his part has earned every rung of the ladder; he’s a veteran of 16-bit game design, and his years of high-level production on the classic EverQuest were a significant contribution to the incubation of the entire MMO sector. And he continues to pay his dues, releasing one-man indie efforts like The Marriage despite his ever-increasing professional responsibilities. It’s likely that few people are more passionate about the medium than Humble.
You can read the full blog here [Thesims3.com]
The gardening skill also has many different fruits and vegetables to discover and grow. This includes old favorites like the money tree, and many new types of plants including a special sort that will allow you to grow almost anything from eggs (not your normal type of eggplant!) to steak, as well as much more. Some of these rarer plants can only be obtained after completing special opportunities, exploring out of the way parts of town, or even by fishing them up.
One big thing we have insisted on from the start is that the Sims won’t need you to hold their hand every time they need to use the toilet. They are now able to take care of their basic needs on their own, leaving you to focus on more important things: building relationships, expanding your career opportunities, and exploring the world around you.You can read the blog here using the code: 57821
"The demo of The Sims 3 started off as the game itself does, with the Create-a-Sim mode, which packs the basic framework of the character-creation system from The Sims 2 with more granular customization options. There are four discreet color regions for your sim's hair. There are three sliders dedicated to just the size and shape of your sim's nose. You can now choose to start your sim in one of five age brackets, creating a distinction between a young adult and a middle-aged one. If all that sounds like a bit much, there are plenty of presets that you can choose from during the process, which still work plenty fine. Spending only a few minutes with the Create-a-Sim tool, I was able to shape and clothe a decent, if admittedly idealized, approximation of mysimself."He also had an interview with Ben Bell who had plenty to say about the game, and talked a little about the new Playable Ghosts. You can read the preview and watch the interview here [Giantbomb.com]
