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331. History of EA

Written on Wednesday 21 February 2007 at 00:57 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Gaming site GamaSutra has published a feature about the history of Electronic Arts, publisher of the Sims series. It starts off with Trip Hawkins' ideas from the '70s and the actual launch in 1982, 25 years ago, and the move to Redwood City (from San Mateo) in 1998. The necessary new strategy after the "crash" when consumers lost interest in Atari's machine (VCS/2600) in 1983. After the eighties the article describes some of the acquisitions made in the previous decade. This includes the purchase of Maxis and the release of the Sims in 2000. The game is discussed with some more details later in the article, with Frank Gribeau telling how it appealed to many women - even though that was not the original intent. The concept of Hot Date was made when EA realized so many teenage girls were playing the Sims games. The entire special covers 7 pages, of which pages 3 and 6 are probably of most interest to Sims fans. Read the complete feature for more details.

332. The Sims Life Stories: Our Review

Written on Friday 16 February 2007 at 03:59 by Andy - 4 comments.

Last week, The Sims Life Stories was released.

Following on from ChEeTaH's preview of it earlier in the month, this is our official critical review of this new sim game.

Check the review out!

333. Valentine's Community Showcase

Written on Thursday 15 February 2007 at 18:06 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Last month Maxis published a Blood Donor Showcase, and this month there's another one: yesterday was Valentine's day, and so Maxis asks you to upload "Perfect Date" downloads to the exchange. If you've created a Lot, Sim, Video or Story in this theme, upload it to the exchange and make sure you put "Perfect Date Showcase" in the description. That way Maxis will be able to find your item, and you might make it to the spotlight after the end of the month. The web team will pick various items and highlight them. For more information and instructions check out the Showcase page.

334. Seasons System Requirements

Written on Thursday 15 February 2007 at 18:06 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Those who have even the slightest idea of what the upcoming expansion for the Sims 2, Seasons, is about, will know that it's quite graphics intensive. Because of this the game will require more of your system, and so the pack may not work well on some older PCs, even if the Sims 2 itself runs without problems. Rather than having enough with a 800Mhz or 1 Ghz processor (for the base game and previous expansions), it requires at least 1300 Mhz (just like Pets). Without a T&L capable graphics card you'll nAlthough 256 Mb of RAM will still suffice as a minimum, at least 512 Mb RAM is recommended if you're running either Vista or if you have some other expansions installed as well. The pack requires an additional 1.5 Gb of hard disk space, common for most expansions. Another difference with the Sims 2 is that, ATI Radeon 7x00 graphics cards are no longer supported. You need at least a Radeon 9600 or GeForce 6200 or better if you run Vista. Some other cards are now supported though, including the S3 GammaChrome, S18 Pro and the S18 Ultra Intel(R) Extreme Graphics 82865, 82915 and above. The last ones will require a fast processor though.

See the requirements page for all the details, and check that you meet at least the minimum requirements before trying to install or play the new expansion pack. Thanks to SimsNetwork for the news tip.

335. Seasons Clear Back Shot

Written on Thursday 15 February 2007 at 18:03 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

We already told you about the backside of the Seasons box was published on a Brazilian fansite, now online shop Tesco has posted a sharper version of the same thing. It shows the four seasons and highlights a few new objects in the fifth expansion pack. Click the thumbnail below to see a slightly larger version. Thanks to BBS user callum11skyes and SimsZone for the links.

336. 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.

337. 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.

338. Seasons Chat

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

Developers for the Sims 2 are often very eager to answer many questions from fans about upcoming expansion packs and products. One of the chances at least some of them will get is next Thursday, when there's a chat about the fifth Sims 2 expansion pack, Seasons. The chat will start at 2:30pm PST (5:30pm EST, 10:30pm GMT, 23:30 CET) at the official site's chat page. There you can also find older chat transcripts, and in case you can't make it to the Seasons chat you'll be able to see what was asked and answered from the same page after the chat.

339. January Showcase

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

Last month we told you about a new showcase on the official site. Since January was Blood Donor month Maxis asked to upload your unique Sims and Lots to the exchange, all having to do with vampires or goths. A total number of 16 downloads made it to the spotlight, of which there are 8 sims, 7 lots and 1 pet. All these creations are to be found on the January Showcase page, where you can also download them from. Note that some of the creations may contain custom content.

340. Seasons Guide info

Written on Wednesday 14 February 2007 at 00:46 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Prima Games has recently published some information about the upcoming strategy guide for the Sims 2 Seasons on their website. As usual Prima publishes the official strategy guide (written by Greg Kramer, like previous Sims 2 guides), and this one will count 240 pages. Some of the topics covered are the new objects and social activities of the pcak, as well as all the possible potions that you can make using the new gardening system. The gardening and fishing talents are also discussed, and the guide will help you master both. The expansion also comes with six new careers, and the guide will explain which they are and how to make sure your Sims will get that promotion. Last but not least the book will tell you all about the different aspects of all seasons. You can pre-order the guide from our shop now, so you'll get it delivered to your doormat as soon as it ships the 27th of this month. For more details check out the information page.