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151. The Sims 2 Movie and Screenshots

Written on Monday 23 August 2004 at 01:10 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

German unofficial fansite thesims.de has been to the Games Convention in Germany too, and they've posted a special with screenshots and a video. The video, 22 Mb, shows a fire being extinguished by 2 firemen. That's something that hasn't been seen before (except in some screenshots). See their GC Special page for the download, as well as some screenshots and photos. Some more pictures can be seen at their first newspost and second newspost from the Games Convention. The quality of all the media isn't great as the shots are taken from a PC screen with a camera, but it's worth looking at.

152. Sims 2 Previews & Lots of Screenshots [Update]

Written on Sunday 22 August 2004 at 16:49 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

A Portuguese website, PTgamers, had published a massive amount of 589 screenshots of the Sims 2 along with a preview. The screenshots are in English, but for unknown reasons they've been taken offline now (at least you can't access them without tricks anymore). Nevertheless they can be found in this thread on the forums of the (Dutch) SP Zone.

To see all screenshots (very slow!) from the original site - start with http://www.ptgamers.com/fotos/50917.jpg and increase the number by one each time to see the next shot.

Furthermore our colleagues of SimsZone are visiting the Games Convention in Leipzig (Germany). They've written a part of the Sims 2 in their GC 2004 special. They don't give much new info about the game though (unlike their review), but there are some details of the filmmaking feature in it. They've seen a video which will be published soon, but the main info is that it takes a lot of work to record the video stories that we've seen. Every scene is recorded multiple times from different angles. It will take time to get the hang of recording top movies, and once everything is taped you will still have to paste everything together using a movie editor - which will take some patience. Finally SimsZone also tells us that there of course will be more SimDays with downloads, and that the exchange will play an important role in the future. See their Sims 2 GC page for some pictures. There's also an article about Jeanette Biedermann, a German celeb who is promoting the Sims 2 in Germany, with some pictures.

[Update 18:00] SimsZone has reported that some of their members found this site which has copied all the new screenshots from PTGamers. It's a faster site which still has everything available. Thanks to The Sims 2 Junkbox for hosting the images.

153. Lucy's Mail: Bloopers

Written on Saturday 21 August 2004 at 15:25 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

This week's mail from Lucy is full of bloopers. During the development of the Sims 2, there have been many bugs (which won't be in the final version). And besides the ones causing severe headaches and costing a lot of coffee and aspirins, there are the fun ones. The last group of course raises a few laughs, and thanks to Lucy you can now laugh along as well. Included are several screenshots, and a 3.7 Mb AVI movie (7 seconds) to show some bloopers which occured during the development. To download the movie, click here. For the screenshots, see inside (the read more part). Read More!

154. New Sims 2 Screenshot and Video

Written on Wednesday 18 August 2004 at 15:26 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

Affiliate SimsExtremos has sent us a screenshot of The Sims 2 from EA Spain. It shows how you can mix genes to create a child of 2 Sims using the in-game Create A Sim/Family. You can click the thumbnail below to see the large version. Furthermore, another affiliate, SimsZone, has news about a video preview at 4Players.de. Although the full version is available to subscribers only, but everybody can see 1:36 minutes of it in streaming format. Go to this page to see it.

155. TS2 System Requirements Updated

Written on Tuesday 17 August 2004 at 14:45 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

As the release of the Sims 2 is getting closer, the system requirements are going to be closer to the real thing as well. Maxis has updated the system requirements on their site, and now they say an 800 Mhz processor is the minimum, whereas previously 'just' 600 Mhz was said to be required. As for graphics cards, a little has changed as well. It's no longer said that the Radeon 7xxx series need at least a 2.0 Ghz computer, and the Radeon VE series is now supported as well (which does require a 2.0 Ghz or faster processor). The latest Radeon cards, the X300, X600 and X800 have also been added to the list. Finally, the Intel Extreme Graphics 82915 card is now also supported, but as it doesn't have T&L that does also require a 2.0 Ghz processor. As always, the better the hardware, the better the game will run and look. That makes the entire list look as follows:

If you have a T&L capable video card with at least 32 MB of video RAM then you need at least:

• 800 MHz P3 processor or better
• 256 MB RAM if Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98 or Windows 2000
• At least 3.5 GB of hard drive space

If you have a non-T&L capable video card (such as Intel Extreme Graphics or Radeon VE Series) then you need at least:

• 2.0 GHz processor or better
• 256 MB RAM if Windows XP, Windows ME, Windows 98, or Windows 2000
• At least 3.5 GB of hard drive space

Supported video cards (and the more video memory the better):

• ATI Radeon™ series (7000 or better)
  • Radeon VE series (Non-T&L - requires 2.0 GHz processor)
  • 7000, 7200, 7500
  • 8500, All-In-Wonder 8500
  • 9000, 9200, 9500, 9600, 9700, 9800
• Nvidia® Quadro™ series
  • Quadro, Quadro2, Quadro4
• Nvidia® Geforce series (GeForce2 and better)
  • GeForce2
  • GeForce3, 3 Ti
  • GeForce4, 4Ti, MX 420, 440
  • GeForce FX 5200, 5600, 5700, 5800, 5900, 5950
  • GeForce 6800
• Intel® Extreme Graphics (Non-T&L - requires 2.0 GHz processor)
  • 82845, 82865, 82915

156. SimsZone Sims 2 Review part 7/8

Written on Monday 16 August 2004 at 19:49 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

Our affiliate SimsZone has posted 2 more articles about the Sims 2. This time they're discussing the collections and community lots. As usual there are some screenshots as well. For info from other parts of their review, please click the following links: Part 1/2 (Installation, First Impressions), Part 3/4 (Create a Sim, Neighborhoods), Part 5/6 (Build and Buy mode). For info about yesterday and today's articles, please read on. See the Sims 2 Review Index at SimsZone for all the original articles and the screenshots. Read More!

157. New Sims 2 Video

Written on Saturday 14 August 2004 at 15:44 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Besides the video Lucy sent us, another new one has popped up over at IGN. It shows the Grunts and the Smiths, and especially how General Grunt doesn't really like the other family in town. The video of 17.1 Mb can be downloaded from IGN's videos page, and Insiders can even get high quality QuickTime versions of 24.5 Mb or 62 Mb.

An article has been posted along with the video, in which IGN tells that the game is very close to Gold status now, at which point the game goes into mass production. Lucy Bradshaw, producer of the Sims 2, tells a bit about the development process. She says there is now a team of 120 people working to finish the game, while there were just about 10 at the beginning. The entire development has been fun, especially with bugs like headless Sims giving birth to a body-less baby, or toddlers doing a "Hey There" move. Lucy also tells how you can make the aging of your Sim a big happening or just something small. A few more general features which have been discussed to a great extend before are also mentioned. Read the complete article for that.

158. Lucy's Mail: New Video

Written on Saturday 14 August 2004 at 15:21 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

Yesterday was Friday the 13th, and that's what this week's e-mail from Lucy is all about. Her advice for the next Friday the 13th is to sit at your computer, and let your Sims have it - for the sake of fun. She explains you can do whatever you like with the Sims 2 to give them a bad day, and it's shown through a new gameplay movie.

"There are nearly unlimited ways for you to engineer, or simply suffer through, a terrifically horrible day for your Sims, from a series of minor inconveniences to indulging in their fears. Your bad day can involve minor offenses, like an embarrassing body odor problem at a dignified social gathering, or major bummers the like of which you can see in today's special link."

The movie is about 90 seconds long, and can be downloaded from the following links:

• High Quality (10.9 Mb)
• Low Quality (2.8 Mb)

Read on for the entire e-mail from Lucy. Read More!

159. New Sims 2 Info

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 22:38 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The information flood of the Sims 2 continues to flow. First of all, there is SimsZone Poland, which has posted a major load of new screenshots of The Sims 2. They have over 110 screenshots on their screenshots page. Those screenshots aren't taken with extremely high quality settings, which is why they might not look as good as Maxis screenshots. Depending on your hardware, it may look somewhat like that instead of what Maxis shows us all the time. A good graphics card will always help.

Our German colleagues at SimsZone have posted a new part of their huge review. This time they explain the build and buy modes. News is that instead of just 3 floors, it apparantly is possible to have up to 5 floors for a house, plus an attic. You have to keep in mind that the foundation does count as a floor though, so usually you'll end up with a maximum of 4 floors plus attic (which Sims can get on to as well). Put in another way: there are 6 levels on which you can build. A roof is one of them, and the foundation also counts as one floor (and thus occupies one level). You can even make a special roof-top with objects on it, by putting the roof below the highest level, and then adding a floor on top of the roof.

But not everything is as great as it may seem to be. SimsZone has said to be disappointed with the amount of content in the game. They've mentioned it before for Skins. There are some hideous ones, but the amount is not too high either. Custom skins can solve that problem, and with the Body Shop being out there's quite a lot of them already. However, something similar goes for walls, floors and roofs. A lot of the content seems to come straight from the Sims 1, and hasn't been altered much. From the screenshots, you can also see just 8 roof textures - which is all there is. As there's no tool similar to HomeCrafter available yet, nor something to create objects, fans might be disappointed by the lack of (decoration) options.

To read most highlights on the building and buying options (in English of course), click Read More (or read on below). To read the German article about the build or buy modes, or to see the screenshots for it, please visit SimsZone. English translations (without the screenshots) can be found in the official BBS (here, here and here). In the article of the buy mode there are also two sample movies made with The Sims 2. They require the VP6 Codec to be played (see also earlier news). Read More!

160. The Sims 2 to use On2's VP6.2 Video Codec

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 05:01 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Despite earlier messages saying The Sims 2 will save uncompressed AVI video files when creating a movie, it has turned out that EA has licensed On2's VP6.2 codec for use in The Sims 2. That means movies created from The Sims 2 will need that codec (a little sort of 'program' which media programs use to decode the video files) to be played. On2 claims that their codec provides better video quality than Windows Media 9, Real 9, or H.264. You can find the trailer of The Sims 2 on the VP6 samples page. It's very likely that the necessary files will be included with the Sims 2 when you install it, so there's not really a need to install the codec already. However, you can of course go ahead and get yourself ready to play Sims 2 movies in the future.