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1421. 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!

1422. Urbz Screens

Written on Saturday 14 August 2004 at 00:08 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Games site WorthPlaying has published a bunch of new screenshots (of both the handheld and Console versions) and artworks of the Urbz. The artworks show a family of punks, namely a Dorky guy, a Goth, the group together, "HellaScary", a Leader and the Ugly. The 4 GBA shots show some spooky stuff, and the 2 console shots just show some more in-game stuff. You can see them all below (click the thumbnails to enlarge).

1423. 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!

1424. Psychology and The Sims

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 17:27 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

There have been several articles in the past about the Sims and its relationship with psychology. There's another one that's been found recently. "Suburban Rhapsody" talks about how people use the Sims to simulate their own lives, or to express themselves. The Sims is very much like real life, and certain elements of the simulation are made after real life. The article also tells some bits of Will Wright, and where he got his ideas for the Sims from. Wright has used several books about psychology to make the simulation. "His games may be mass-market hits, but they're based on some very brainy theories about behavior, economics, and human psychology." If you're interested in reading all of it, then visit this page at the San Antonio Current. Thanks to WorldSims for the tip.

1425. Alan Yu to fill A&R position at Maxis

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 17:14 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

WorldSims reports that Alan Yu will become director A&R (Arts & Repertoire) at Maxis. It's the first position of its kind within EA and even the gaming industry, but if successfull other EA studios will get a similar position. Yu's task will be to bring in talent from other studios or industries, like the movie or music industry, to Maxis, so new technology can be incorporated in the simulation games.

"Whether you're a musician or a filmmaker or a fiction or screenwriter, even if you don't realize it, you might be good for the video game industry," Yu said. "Today's games use Hollywood lighting techniques, camera angles and story elements to enhance the interactive entertainment experience," he said, "but people with those types of skills might not be aware of that fact."

The entire article comes from HollywoodReporter bus is available to subscribers only. You can read it right here on WorldSims as well.

1426. 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.

1427. UrbzDay

Written on Thursday 12 August 2004 at 21:38 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

Somewhat bigger than SimDay, there are a few new things for the Urbz. The first thing to notice is that the new logo is now placed on the official website as well. Old news is the "new trailer" which has been posted at IGN earlier. The announcement that Sims become toys, posted here yesterday has also been put on the website. Furthermore there are fourteen new screenshots (see below), of which 5 show off the EyeToy capabilities of the PS2 version. Finally there's of course the weekly blog, by Scot Amos again. He talks about how close The Urbz on the consoles is getting to Alpha stage:

"Call the neighbors, wake the kids, it's almost ALPHA! That's right... just a few days away until The Urbz goes "ALPHA". Alpha, as I've stated before, is EVERYTHING in the game and you can play it all the way through. We're actually almost there now (ahead of schedule) but we have to really, honestly, thoroughly be able to play the thing from start to finish before we can be declared Alpha."

For the entire blog, see official Urbz website.

1428. SimDay: 3 New Screens [Update - And a contest]

Written on Thursday 12 August 2004 at 21:12 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

This week's SimDay is extremely small. All that's new are 6 screenshots of the Sims 2, of which we posted 3 earlier this week together with Lucy's Mail. You can find them below. There's nothing else, unfortunately.

[Update 13 August, 15:00] A mention of a new sweepstakes contest, organised by Teen People and the Sims 2, has been added. People from the United States, between the age of 13 and 24, are elegible to enter. You can win a "trip for 2 to L.A. including: Airfare, hotel, dinner at a hip Hollywood hangout, and a shopping spree at one of Hollywood’s hottest boutiques," or one of ten copies of The Sims 2 together with a T-Shirt. See the contest page for details, and make sure to read the official rules.

1429. New Poll

Written on Thursday 12 August 2004 at 02:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

It's been a week since we put up our previous poll, in which we asked you if your Sims water their plants. 427 people have voted, and most Sims pay to do the watering. 67% said their Sims have a gardener coming over every 3 days. 15% says their Sims water the plants and flowers themselves and they stay alive too. 10% of the Sims does the same, but their plants and flowers die for some reason after all. 5% are anti-green and don't have any plants, while 4% of the Sims doesn't water the plants at all - according to our poll anyway. See the results page for precise details.

As for this week, we want to know which (pre-made) family of The Sims 2 you'll most likely be playing the most. We have made a list of all the known families in the three neighbourhoods, and you can pick your favourite on the right or on the latest poll page.

1430. Urbz DS Interview

Written on Thursday 12 August 2004 at 00:20 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Planet GameCube has posted an interview with Virginia McArthur. She's worked on the Sims Online and the Sims vacation before, and has been active on the Sims for consoles for two years. She's now the producer of The Urbz on the Nintendo DS. She talks a bit about the upcoming handheld game. She says the second screen of the DS will be used as XAM - the PDA for Urbz. The touch screen can of course also be used, for example to create your urb or to navigate through menus. Most GBA mini-games will also be moved to the touch screen to give it a unique feel, and some unique DS mini-games will also be included. Splicer Island is an exclusive location for the DS as well. Finally, players will be able to create and share paintings. It's also said he DS will probably not be able to interact with the GBA version, but instead Maxis focusses on DS to DS wireless connectivity, for wireless multiplayer mini-games, auctions and trading. Read the entire interview for some more in-depth details.