GameSpot has posted some news from Camp EA about The Sims Makin' Magic. There's a preview and 3 videos. However, all these movies are locked for GameSpot complete members. For the preview, which tells us that the expansion has a career path like Superstar, only that it focuses on the Cooking, Logic and Mechanical skills (instead of Body, Charisma, and Creativity). Here's another bit from the preview:
The first video shows the Toadification of a Sim, which is easily done by clicking on the Sim, selecting "Cast..." and then choose Toadification. Guess what: the Sim's brother (who she casted it on) turns in a toad for a while. The casting Sim waves to her brother as he turns into the toad. A hungry pet dragon may eat the Sim, but normally the toad will become a Sim again after some time (depending on the casting Sim's skill, or just a random time - they still have to decide about that). The interviewee (who speaks in the background) also says the expansion will be on the shelves a few days before Halloween. You can cast the spell either on just a Sim, the entire lot or on yourself."Some of the spell-like effects that successful sims can bring about include helpful sorceries that create free banquets of food or cause piles of money to rain from the sky; but if these effects backfire, they can have harmful effects, such as summoning a swarm of horned toads to plague your lawn or cause actual rain to rain from the sky, along with thunder and lightning. You'll able to create spells that affect your sims' relationships, including a "marry me" spell that can help your lonely sims get hitched. For other, more-personal enchantments, your sims will be able to cast spells on their neighbors by choosing an enchantment from the regular dialogue options, so along with "tease," "joke," and "talk," your sims might have the new social option of "toadification" that can be used to turn a prince, or anyone else, into a frog."The whole preview is right here. The movies at this page. These 3 videos are 40 mb of footage in total (30 mb low-res), but as they're only for GameSpot complete members not everybody will be able to download them...
The second one shows the Magic Town where you can buy ingredients for your spell. They work like gardening items in Unleashed, so you can grow them at home, but you can also just buy done items like grapes (they just cost simoleans). They also explain you need Magic Tokens to buy some special ingredients for spells, like pixie dust. It shows an exercise arena (which is a sort of mini-game) where you can earn those tokens. They don't show how it exactly works though.
The third clip is about a sideshow, which is a bit like the Superstar podiums, except you perform magic. There will be hidden spells if you have other expansion packs, like there will be a Fame spell if you have Superstar, or a spell to cast on your dogs or cats if you have Unleashed. All these three clips are one minute long each. Get them right here (if you're a Complete member).
Written at 20:28 on Thursday, 10 July 2003 by ChEeTaH.
