Robin Williams On The Wii [Clips]

If you ever wanted to know how Academy Award winner Robin Williams feels about the Nintendo Wii, we can’t help you. We can just direct you to this one bit of comedy wherein he mentions it. It’s right at 6:44 in that video. The rest of it is pretty hilarious, too, though. Fans of Williams were probably already well aware of his Weapons of Self-Destruction tour. Sadly, I was in the dark about it until I came to my mother’s house for the holidays and discovered her TiVo. There’s also a bunch of The Big Bang Theory and Men of a Certain Age on here too. Perhaps the holiday vacation won’t be as boring without my Sims 3 as I thought.

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Robin Williams On The Wii [Clips]

You Led Me On! — Dating In Video Games [Ramblings]

I peruse columns on Sundays and today found myself cracking up over Emily Short’s GameSetWatch column, ‘Homer In Silicon’: Communicating Character. In it, Short recounts her first brush with Fable II ’s romantic interaction system. She was told non-playable characters would have gifts for her, so she mistook the ring icon above a villager’s head as being the thing that would be gifted to her if she raised their relationship stats. It’s an easy mistake to make, I guess — and you do get that gift in a manner of speaking. But Short took issue with the whole system, because it made a cock-tease out of an otherwise honest woman. [W]hen he’d fallen in love with me and wanted to get married, I was startled and not at all pleased. I realized what the ring on his meter indicated then, when it was too late and I’d led him on. I had no intention to get married, but when he started to follow me around (a mistake thanks to more confused socialization on my part), I let him. Then she led him out into the wild where he was killed by bandits. Bummer. But it got me thinking about dating in video games and how the courtship ritual is either over-simplified or confusingly elaborate. Take the entire Sims series, for example — in the early days, you couldn’t even Ask Out On Date, just Flirt. Now, in the Sims 3 , you can sleep with somebody you’re not even in love with, but damned if you can get them to marry you without sinking a ton of time into the Flirty interactions. And then there’s weirdness like Final Fantasy VII ’s Gold Saucer date. Which you can wind up having with Barret, despite not being able to pursue any other romantic interaction with him. Strangely enough, the only “normal” dating scenario presented to me in video games comes from Grand Theft Auto and Bully. That’s even funnier to me than Short’s misunderstanding. Column: ‘Homer In Silicon’: Communicating Character [GameSetWatch]

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You Led Me On! — Dating In Video Games [Ramblings]

Sims 3 World Adventures: Chopsticks, Mummies & the French – Oh My! [Preview]

My addiction to the Sims series gives me a lot of tolerance for endless expansions and stuff packs that add new dimensions and new furniture to gameplay. However, I do have high standards. The Sims: Superstar was a revelation in college that nearly cost me my grade point average. Ever since, I’ve been consuming Sims expansions at a steady rate – always looking for that same sense of wonder and entertainment that makes me forget to eat. Here’s how World Adventures measures up. What Is It? The Sims 3 : World Adventures is an expansion that gives your Sim the ability to visit three exotic locations on a travel visa: China, France and Egypt. Rather than just being a new place to shop and seduce the locals, each country features “tombs” – that is, dungeon-like locations your sim can explore, plunder and suffer odd and painful misfortunes within. The better you do at this, the higher your can raise your visa level – which lets you stay in the foreign locations longer, and also nets you the right to buy vacation homes. What We Saw I got to play through a dungeon in Egypt and was treated to a look at one of China’s Zen gardens/karate dojos. How Far Along Is It? The expansion is out November 17. What Needs Improvement? Point-And-Click Adventure Much? I supposed when you break it down, the Sims games all play out like point and click adventures – except, it never feels that way normally because there’s no “right” thing to click. World Adventures changes gameplay fundamentally by requiring gamers to jump through the typical point-and-click adventure hoops to disarm traps or find hidden doors. Some hardcore Sims fans may not like it. But I Want To Move To France! I’m a little bummed you can’t relocate to the exotic locations. You can, of course, bring pieces of it home with you. Artifacts you find in tombs can either be traded for special items or hung up in your boring old sim house. Also, there are special artifacts that you find in pieces and assemble over time back at your permanent pad. And, you could always marry a native and bring him or her home so you’ll always have a bit of the country with you. Still not as good as actually moving to France, though. Advocating Child Labor: Children (but not toddlers or infants) can go into tombs and do adventuring of their own. But, for obvious reasons (*cough* ESRB rating *cough*), they can’t suffer the same dangers as the adults. This seems to me like the perfect set-up for some child exploitation. Yes, send the small child into the tomb for the expensive treasure – the mummy won’t attack him What Should Stay The Same? Now You Can Go Inside Stores: Finally! I hated sending my Sims off to shop and having to stare at the outsides of buildings for forever like I was playing a real-time strategy game and waiting for the battle to end. Naturally, the game also lets you build your own stores and fill it with whatever kind of junk you want to sell. Now You Can Be a Real Hobo! The game introduces tents that you can pitch in tombs – or in public parks – and actually gain Energy from sleeping in. Oh, the possibilities . Your Own Private Island Dungeon: Via a code entered in buy mode, World Adventures opens up the editing tools to include pretty much everything the developer can build in a tomb or a ruin site. You can build an entire deathtrap from the ground up just the same as you would a house (only, you know, filled with mummies and fire traps and stuff) and then upload it to the Sims 3 community site to inflict on others. Yay, Karate! The game adds several new skills and traits to mix up your sims’ personality. My favorite is probably the Discipline skill which helps with karate (called Martial Arts). The higher you level this skill, the more badass your sparring animation looks – at the highest level, you even get little speed lines along your arms and legs while punching and kicking. There’s also the Adventurous trait which helps with tomb exploration, and the Photographer’s Eye which builds out the new picture-taking activity. Oh, and if you do marry a foreigner and bring him or her home to have kids with, your children will have cultural traits from their foreign parent’s country (like eating with chopsticks). Tons Of New Things: World Adventures adds a ton of new furniture, ingredients, collectables, recipes and other things to the usual inventory of stuff you can get in buy mode or find in the world. It gives the diehard Sims fans something more to do now that they’ve discovered the Ambrosia recipe. In particular, photography will eat up the collection freaks because the game can recognize what you’re taking pictures of and classify the photos in sets. For example, there’s a nature set that gives you a special bonus for taking a picture of a Death Fish and a Life Fish in the same tank. A Step Toward Multiculturalism: I think some people might claim the portrayals of France, China and Egypt are shallow and therefore insulting. However, based on what I’ve seen of the Sims from its earliest origins, World Adventures is a huge step toward a multiculturalism-aware game. That sounded horribly Californian of me, I know. But I’ve got two little cousins who are half Chinese – they are going to love that their Sims get to eat with chopsticks. Final Thoughts I’ve got to get a new graphics card. How can I properly appreciate my sim turning into a mummy if I can’t make out his face in the mirror when he looks at himself?

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Sims 3 World Adventures: Chopsticks, Mummies & the French – Oh My! [Preview]

The Sims 3 offers a mixed bag of new and old

There are many different Sims players out there buying this game from years of playing The Sims 2, and I think some of them will be impressed with The Sims 3, while others disappointed.

Create-A-Sim Players: 4/5
If you have an juiced up computer, the graphics are amazing. The customization you can give a sim is also very rewarding; you can now color customize the different parts of a sim’s outfit with virtually any color, and the pattern system they’ve created only increases the amount of customization you can give a sim’s clothing. A sim’s hair coloration is now broken up into four parts, all of which can be set to any color you wish. The only disadvantage I found is that there doesn’t seem to be as many ways to customize the face as there had been in Sims 2; there are some new, different ways though.

Want to know what other people think about The Sims 3? Read More Sims 3 Reviews

House Building Players: 5/5
Because of the new pattern system in the game, building houses now has a new level of customization, making it easier to customize a house’s color and texture to your liking. Another nice thing is that furniture can now be placed at angles, so you no longer have to worry about awkward placement of objects near angled walls. Just keep in mind that since this is the first game, with no expansions made yet, there is a limited amount of furniture you can use. Also, if you’re only interested in building houses, its not as easy as simply clicking on the lot you wish to build, once the game starts; you actually need to be playing your saved household and then exit your household for “Edit Town,” where you can then select a lot to build on.

Neighborhood Building Players: 1/5
If you were big on building neighborhoods in Sims 2, you’re going to very, very disappointed. You can no longer make your own neighborhoods; you are stuck with customizing Sunset Valley (the only neighborhood that comes with the game) or downloading another neighborhood from The Sims 3 website. There are no pre-made empty neighborhoods you can create and then customize and populate. Needless to say, there is no compatibility with SimCity 4 neighborhoods either. You’re stuck with Sunset Valley, and that’s that.

Movie/Story Players: 5/5
If you’re into making movies or stories there doesn’t seem to be big difference between Sims 2. Photo capture now seems to be similar to what the “Print Screen” button does on your keyboard. The quality is exactly what you see on the screen, and the size of the image is as big as your resolution for the game. Video capture options seem almost identical to Sims 2. And like Sims 2, the controls are still difficult to deal with if you’re trying to make smooth transitions. Also, there is no in-game Storytelling option anymore, storytelling is mostly focused online at The Sims 3 website, where there are some neat tools you can use for editing.

Single Family Players: 4/5
If you liked only playing one household in Sims 2 (like if you were into the Legacy Challenge) Sims 3 makes it even more interesting and more realistic with the fact that the entire neighborhood ages around your sim; no more childhood friends always being children, even when your sims have become adults; no more grandchildren out-aging their grandparents because they happen to be on different lots. And not only that, but you can now explore the rest of the world, expanding the possibilities for your sims.

Multi-Family/God Players: 2/5
If you liked jumping between many different houses and creating a complex story between many different households, you may be in for a big disappointment with Sims 3. You’ve ultimately been demoted from being god. You can no longer save individual households for later. Once you leave a household the sims there become NPCs (characters for the computer to control) and continue on their own lives and own story without your help. This may sound odd but Sims 3 is more of a game, and less of a device to tell a huge complex story.

The Sims 2 Console Players: 5/5
For people who loved The Sims 2 for PlayStation 2, X-Box, and GameCube, The Sims 3 plays very similar to those. In fact, The Sims 3 seems like a souped up version of the console Sims 2. For people who hated The Sims 2 console games, well . . . you may not like how The Sims 3 plays.

You’re liking of The Sims 3 is really going to depend on what you did and enjoyed in The Sims 2. And sadly, I have to say this game isn’t for everyone who loved The Sims 2.

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Sims 3 Collectors Edition gives vintage sports car and map at Amazon

With the The Sims 3  just around the corner, Amazon has announced that preorders from their website will recieve a vintage sports car and neighborhood map. 

The freedom of The Sims 3 Collector’s Edition will inspire you with endless creative possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief. Create millions of unique Sims and control their lives. Customize their appearances and personalities. Build their homes – design everything from exquisitely furnished dream homes to quaint cottages. Then, send your Sims out to explore their ever-changing neighborhood and to meet other Sims in the town center. With all-new quick challenges and rewarding game play, The Sims 3 gives you the freedom to choose whether (or not) to fulfill your Sims’ destinies and make their wishes come true.

The Sims 3 Collector’s Edition includes Exclusive bonus content:

• The Sims 3 game
• Exclusive 2 GB Plumbob USB drive and Carabiner
• Exclusive European Sports Car Download
• New The Sims 3 theme music
• Prima Tips & Hints Guide
• $10 in SimPoints to shop at The Sims 3 Store

 

Pre-order Bonus
Pre-order The Sims 3 Collector’s Edition and receive a code for a vintage sports car and neighborhood map. Instructions will be e-mail within 10 days of the game’s release. Offer good while supplies last. Promotion valid only when sold and shipped by Amazon.com.

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