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13. Seasons Reviews

Written on Tuesday 20 March 2007 at 20:04 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Now Seasons is out several of the major gaming sites have reviewed and rated the latest expansion pack. The first to do so was 1Up. Their short review tells about the fun coming from watching how each season has its influence on the game. That's about all too, nevertheless they do give it a score of 8 out of 10. Read on for other review information, which are much more in-depth. Read More!

14. Seasons Commercials Online

Written on Monday 26 February 2007 at 18:43 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

As with every Sims 2 expansion pack, new commercials are being made to promote the release. As usual these are fan-made videos, showing how they play the Sims. Three new videos have been made for the Sims 2 Seasons, and all three can be found at SimsPlayedBy.com. They show a scene in fall, playing with the weather machine, and a snowman taking revenge. Check out the campaign's website for the three new and all old videos. There's also a Behind the Scenes look for the Pets campaign that we haven't mentioned before, available on the same website.

15. SingShot Media joining Sims Division

Written on Wednesday 14 February 2007 at 01:43 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Electronic Arts announced Tuesday that they acquired SingShot Media, an online karaoke community based in San Francisco. Their platform allows users to record karaoke videos of famous songs and share them with the world or compete with others in contests. CEO Ranah Edelin and CTO Niranjan Nagar will enter Electronic Arts in the roles of Vice President. SingShot was launched in February 2006 and they've built a team and technology "focused on establishing and maintaining live communities." Nancy Smith, Executive Vice President and Group General Manager at EA is quoted saying the SingShot team consists of true experts in developing user-generated communities through music. Although all of this doesn't have much to do with the Sims yet, the press release says that the five person team of SingShot will join the Sims Division. What their task will be is not completely clear and not mentioned, but it'll most likely have to do with music and the Sims 2 community. Once we have more news about this, we'll let you know.

16. Seasons Designer Walkthrough Video

Written on Wednesday 14 February 2007 at 00:47 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Hunter Howe, one of the designers for the Sims 2 Seasons, is starring in a new walkthrough video for the upcoming expansion pack. During 7:30 minutes he talks through the four seasons of the year, starting with spring. The first thing you'll see is rain. It'll rain more in spring and in winter it'll snow more, so it depends on the season how often certain weather appears. Next he shows how to give a gift, one of the small new family activities. Catching butterflies is another of those spring activities, just like fishing. Gardening is one of the biggest things in the pack, and Howe shows orchard trees as well as a greenhouse. The latter are slightly more intensive to tend, but more rewarding. Planting some eggplants is explained. It depends on the season when you can harvest the food. Sims with a good gardening talent may be able to talk to and communicate with plants, making them grow better. Next up is summer, which is all about having fun. The pool upgrades are shown: the curves, shading and reflections, new pool games like Marco Polo, the slide and painting the walls and floors of the pool. Hunter also explains how seasons help in certain things: summer makes building relationships easier, during fall it's better to do skill building. In fall the leafs have fallen off the trees, and it's time to do some harvesting. Sims will have warmer clothes to make sure they don't get cold during this season. The lighting in the pack is enhanced so each season gets its own look. Back to harvesting, the orchard trees will generally have food in fall by themselves, but tending them generates better fruit. Good food can have positive side-effects, like curing colds. Finally Hunter goes to winter, showing the new cursor which uncovers anything under the snow. There are some new activities using the snow, like building a snowman, creating a snow angel or throwing snowballs. The last one is a group activity to which an entire community lot can join in. Hunter also explains that if you like you can create a neighborhood that is in winter all year round. At the end of the movie Hunter shows the wishing well, a new reward object, which can have very surprising side-effects if you wish too often. He doesn't go into any details though.

To see the video head on over to the Seasons videos page. If you prefer to download a very high quality version of the video, then the official German site has a newspost linking to a 317Mb large edition of the same video.

17. Seasons Pictures and Videos from Europe

Written on Wednesday 14 February 2007 at 00:43 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Sam Player is touring through Europe to show The Sims 2 Seasons to press and fans. From Spain the website Capital Sims has posted some videos and a few screenshots. Also from Spain come some videos on YouTube posted by user Noika86. More videos and screenshots come from SkySims, which has published a feature summary along with pictures and movies. French fansite Toto & Nono has interviewed Sam Player. The interview is in French though, but online translation tools can help you out making something of it. Another French fansite, Urbania Sims also has a preview of the event in Paris with several screenshots. There's also SimsForever Magazine with an article with several pictures. Finally, the official French site has also posted a preview of the new pack, along with several pictures and videos.The "Cliquez pour voir la vidéo throughout the article all point to different videos. Thanks to SnootySims and SimsZone for some of the links.

18. Stories Website Relaunched

Written on Thursday 8 February 2007 at 05:19 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

The official website of The Sims Stories has been relaunched, reflecting the release of Life Stories. The full website has gone live with the welcome kit, Riley's diary, a support page, a newsletter to sign up to and of course basic game information combined with tips for the stories. Upcoming features for the website include message boards (a BBS), photobooks and blogs. Remarkable is that the official website is not hosted by EA, but by Yahoo!. The Sims portal is one of the first entertainment portals that Yahoo! is launching; Yahoo announced they are making small branded sites for video games and TV shows, piloted by the Wii portal since October.

The welcome kit you can download consists of three (separate) downloads to put in your game: a Drum Kit (from The Sims 2 University), a VocoPhonic Karaoke Machine (from The Sims 2 Nightlife) and a Club Cube (also from Nightlife). The links at the frontpage are not completely correct at the moment, though proceeding to the Downloads page will set things right. You need to register your game before you're able to actually get the files. The wallpapers from the same page can be downloaded by everybody. Check out the website at Sims.yahoo.com or www.thesimsstories.com for all the details. If you prefer a lighter website, with Riley's diary not in flash, you can also check out the renewed TheSimsStories.co.uk which has much of the same content, and no game registration is needed for the welcome kit downloads. Due to typos you may have a little more trouble downloading the largest wallpapers from that website though. Some other international websites have also already launched, others are bound to follow soon.

19. Seasons Producer Mail

Written on Thursday 8 February 2007 at 01:15 by ChEeTaH - 3 comments.

A little while ago Senior Producer of the Sims 2 Sam Player sent out an e-mail giving an update on the status of Seasons, the upcoming fifth expansion pack for the Sims 2. These producer e-mails have been around since before The Sims 2 was released, and after skipping any for Pets they're back again. Sam mentions the fan event back in December last year, and he addresses the key features of the expansion pack. He names the possible heat strokes and freezing to death, as well as custom content features for the pack. Little touches make the game complete, including the pool upgrades, the new careers and the ability to set unique hairstyles for each outfit type. Leftovers get a quick mention too, as well as the recently posted trailer. Sam doesn't really mention anything completely new, though he does confirm the 27 February release date. Read on for the entire e-mail. Read More!

20. Stories Podcast

Written on Monday 5 February 2007 at 02:01 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

After a long pause, the official site has published a new podcast, this time all about The Sims Stories. MaxoidDano of the web team talks to senior producer and head of the Sims studio Sam Player about the new product line. Sam explains that it's a new line of Sims games with stories in popular genres. Life Stories, the first game, has two romantic comedy stories. The stories are directed and basically consist of a series of (predefined) events that come up as you play. At the end of the story you can play the game in free form as you like it, making your own story. In the first story of Riley, Sam tells how at first the goals are fairly easy to complete, by just giving her a new dress to go out in. Later on you'll need to solve a relationship in a restaurant, an example of a more complicated goal. Custom content is disabled in the Stories products, as it's aimed at people new to the Sims. It works on lower quality computers, as well as laptops, but the exchange is too much for experienced users to fit in the Stories line. Some custom made objects (from EA) will be available through the Sims Stories site.

Sam also briefly goes through the first two stories. Riley is the first character you'll meet. She just moved to Four Corners with her Aunt after losing her job. She meets a great guy, but an old boyfriend comes back into her life. The story is all about finding her true love. Vincent, the other main character, has a successful career, he has the looks, but is unlucky in love. Several dates have to help him finding the right girl, though in the end he will have to make a choice between career and love. The reason to create Stories is that the Sims 2 is deep and intimidating. Stories is an invitation to the franchise. Sam also draws the analogy to a book store, with all the videogames you know on the shelves. They will cluster quite closely, and EA decided to "fill the rest of the store" with the genres for the stories - genres which are not touched by many games yet. The classic titles, the romantic triangle for example, are put in the first product. Although the games are laptop friendly they'll also work on PCs, of course, but with lower system specs and an easier installation. Sam also tells about his experience, and says he enjoyed the game despite coming from a hardcore gaming background. He hopes that Sims fans will recommend the game to people interested in the Sims. The podcast ends with what sounds like a radio commercial for the game. For complete details check out the podcasts page on the official site. For more information about the Stories games check out the Sims Stories website.

21. NPD 2006 Report: Sims Sells Well

Written on Sunday 4 February 2007 at 18:56 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

The NPD Group, which provides retail information about the video games industry and others, has recently released the 2006 annual report for game sales in the US. Although no Sims title appears in the console top 10, the PC games list of ten contains five Sims titles. The base game scored high, being sold the most of all Sims games and being outsold only by World of Warcraft. Other than that the expansion packs Nightlife, Open for Business and Pets make an appearance in the list. The first stuff pack, Family Fun Stuff, has also done well in the past year and is on the eighth place in the list. The full PC sales list over 2006, by units sold, is as follows:

1. World of Warcraft
2. The Sims 2
3. The Sims 2: Open For Business Expansion Pack
4. Star Wars: Empire At War
5. The Sims 2: Pets Expansion Pack
6. Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
7. Age of Empires III
8. The Sims 2: Family Fun Stuff Expansion Pack
9. Civilization IV
10. The Sims 2: Nightlife Expansion Pack

22. Seasons Trailer and Screenshots

Written on Friday 19 January 2007 at 17:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Over on the official site a new trailer and two new screenshots of the Sims 2 Seasons, the upcoming fifth expansion pack for the Sims 2, have been published. The trailer goes through all four seasons, from Winter to Spring, Summer and Fall. Several new activities and possibilities of each season are highlighted, from making snowmen, ice skating, fishing, jumping or sliding in the pool, gardening and harvesting. New items like the pool slide, the greenhouse, wishing well, scarecrow, mountain rainbow trout and the new country furniture set also get a chance to display themselves in the video of 1:48 minutes. Check out the videos page on the official site for more details. The two new screenshots are below, just click the thumbnails to get them in full.