E3 2011: The Sims Social

A Facebook game reminiscent of The Sims 1. Players customize their own character and interact with others. Not much details were given but you can enjoy these screens from E3.

Official Description: The Sims Social brings the fun and creativity of The Sims to Facebook! Create unique Sims and live out their dreams—or stir up trouble by pulling pranks. Develop deep relationships to unlock new features and advance: befriend and fight, date and cheat, love and betray. Play with life in a whole new way—with your real friends, for free!

E3 2011: Need For Speed: The Run Lets You Run On Foot!

Electronic Arts announced Need For Speed: The Run, a high speed game where players race across the country from LA to NY by any means necessary. Certainly the cops will be on your tail as helicopters and police cars chase you.

One of the surprising new features is how you can leave the car and run on foot to avoid the cops. Footage shows there will be Quick Time Events as you escape the clutches of the cops, or avoid an oncoming train from an overturned vehicle.

Parkour quick time events coming to Need For Speed: The Run

Race on Car, Escape on Foot? Sounds like GTA.

EA also plans to integrate Auto Log into the storyline

EA Claims Sims 3 Leak is not the Final Build

In an interview with the Associated Press, EA claims The Sims 3 leak is only a “buggy, pre-final” version. This is pretty good news on behalf of the whole  Sims gaming community as the leaked copy featured some glaring bugs that should have been caught during testing.

The Second Leak (May 25th, 2009)

The Sims 3 has been leaked again, this time by another group. This group claims their leak is the final retail version and has been posted on many different websites and torrents.

After several observations found from forums and blogs we can conclude the retail version does not present the same bugs as the second leak. Click here to read more information about the  second leak. The article below consists only of the issues and bugs concerning the first leak. 

The Major Concerns with The Sims 3

The police station, so far EA hasn’t sued file sharers.
Screenshot via [SimGalaxy]

In the leaked copy, players found numerous bugs and oddities that would potentially disrupt the fanbase. It was very interesting to see SecuRom  packaged within the leak. This lead to doubts over the authenticity over EA’s statements. They claimed the physical copy of the game would be shipped without it, however, the digital copy would still include SecuRom.

Fortunately, it was later found within the EULA that the leaked copy was derived from the digital release. Even though SecuRom is used to protect unauthorized copies of the game from running, it was already bypassed by the time the leak was released.

The lack of objects, clothing, and hairstyles became a hot button issue among fans. EA has not revealed if the base game will include more items when it hits retail. EA does plan to sell more objects through The Sims 3 store, and will allow 1000 points free for all players who legally purchase the game.

As the hours went by, the mystery surrounding the leaked copy took on a huge forum debate whether the game was the final build. Players brought up major points to support each side of the argument. One issue that supported both sides were game freezes and crashes. In each case, players reported crashing incidents starting within 3 minutes to 6 hours of gameplay. However, some players did not receive any crashes whatsoever.

A general theory over the cause of the crashes were related to old graphic and audio drivers. It’s recommended that players should update their NVIDIA or ATI graphic card drivers before installing the retail copy of the game.

Bugs, Bugs and more Bugs!

Screenshot via [SimsDomination]

We do expect the Sims 3 will ship with bugs, and many of these bugs will most likely get patched. Alas, players were complaining about various glitches and screwups within the leaked copy.

A bug some players found early on during gameplay was the inability to kill a Sim in a fire. This bug was quite interesting in that one would think EA would allow this ability in the first place as it’s one of the most popular deaths in the whole series.  On May 20th, we finally saw the first leaked video that included the fire death animation, so we’re not sure as to why some players couldn’t do it and others could. Rumours and speculations arose as players felt that maybe EA was trying to soften the game’s image by removing the death. However, the leak was programmed to include other methods of killing a Sim. We concluded that this form of death will return in the retail version.

Another bug found by players was the inability to deactivate story progression. This feature controls any drastic changes your neighborhood Sims would do, for example, this feature controlled if your neighbors would move in or out, become pregnant, advance in jobs, and die. This became problematic towards players who wanted a similar play style of The Sims 2. They did not want to worry about other Sim families they created to suddenly die or move out of the neighborhood for good.

There were also some minor issues with the music not playing, fast forward speed button malfunctions, and guitars stuck on a Sim’s body.

Players are still skeptical

Protesting at City Hall

It’s quite hilarious to see the debate move right back to where we all started, as now there is still a lot of discussion on whether or not EA is telling the truth. Discussion among forums and blogs seem to theorize that EA is now speaking out to avoid bad press. It’s still likely that EA will release a patch to fix all major bugs related to the gold copy on release day.

We’re also concerned with EA’s choice of wording with the term, “pre-final”. This implies the leaked copy is probably just a few small builds away from the gold copy. If this were the case then it means the leak pretty much sums up everything that’s going to be in the game. Fans will not be happy!

The Sims 3: The Road to Sunset Valley

New Info! 5/21/09!

The Sims 3 is nearing its June 2, 2009 release date.

As we get closer and closer to the date, it’s time to update some information from the previous articles.

Over the past few months various information, promotions, and CDs have been released to the public.

We”ll try to condense all that information into one blog post, sticking on the more important things.

Obtaining The Sims 3

EA has listed several release dates based on where you are in the world. The two options for buying The Sims 3 include purchasing it in a store, or purchasing it as a digital download. Please note that the digital download version includes the SecuRom DRM.  

EA states you will be able to download The Sims 3 at 7am PST on June 2nd, 2009. This may not apply to other areas outside of US/Canada. The Sims 3 costs $49.95 and is available for Pre-ordering now!

May 17th, 2009: It also appears The Sims 3 has been leaked illegally online. Please don’t ask on this site where to find the game.

The Sims 3 Story

The storyline is sort of a prequel setting up all the families you’ve seen in past games. The main family everyone keep’s track of is the Goths. This time Mortimer Goth will be a kid. You’ll be able to see both his parents Gunther and Cornelia Goth.

The second family everyone loves to hate is the Crumplebottoms! This time Mrs. Crumplebottom is at her younger adult age and will be haunted by the ghost of her husband. (Presumably if The Sims 1 is Canon, her husband died from a chandelier accident.)

Next up is the Landgraabs who were featured in many Sim titles, including Simcity 3000. There appears to be a rival between the Landgraabs and the Altos.

Welcome to Sunset Valley

Sunset Valley is the main town featured in The Sims 3. In Sunset Valley there are a few areas your Sim can visit, the beach, science center, gym, library, city hall, park, public pool, hospital, cafe, police station, graveyard, stadium, a local diner, movie theatre, and more. Though your Sim may be able to visit such places it does not mean you as the player will be able to see inside all of them.

Updated 05/18/09 Message for SnootySims Forum:  As for the areas you can walk  inside with your Sim, so far the park, public pool, library, beach, gym, the art gallery, and the graveyard, are currently known. These are the non “rabbit hole” areas shown to the public.  This list is not 100% complete and confirmation of other areas would be revealed eventually.

You will play as one family at a time, you can switch between different families if you choose to. Everyone around you will age and die alongside with you. Your neighbors can get married, move in, move out, have kids,  and get promotions on their own. Your neighbors actions are directed through story progression and autonomy sliders. The higher the autonomy, the more drastic changes you will see in your neighborhood.

The Map view will be your guide to getting around on the game. In this view you can see every building with their appropriate icons. By hovering your mouse over an area, you can see what Sims are currently in that vicinity, and instantly zoom in without any loading screens at all.

You can also allow your Sim to travel to different buildings by zooming out to this view. You can select a house icon and your sim will travel their by car and even by bike.

This zoomed out shot will also be the home for a neighborhood editing screen.  This is where you’ll switch families to play with. After you create a Sim you have the option to move a family into a lot. You select the family you want at the bottom right corner and click on an empty house or lot to move into. If you would like to switch between families, click on the options button, then click Edit Town, then Click Change Active household.

Neighborhood View screenshots via [gamesguide]

Selecting the hand will allow you to move lots around. Selecting the bulldozer would allow you to delete a lot. The paint and saw would be editing a lot. The button at the top of the shot means “return to game.”

You can also view where your Sims go to work and actually see them travel to that location. However once they are at work they will disappear from the map screen. The map view actually reminds me of  the canceled Simsville game.

Welcome to Riverview

Riverview is the second Sims 3 neighborhood to be released after you register the game. Not much is known about this particular neighborhood other than it includes a river that splits and converges back into one. This neighborhood takes place along the Simomon river. More and more Sims have escaped city life to this picturesque and serene town.

Riverview screenshots via [simfans]

Careers and Entrepreneurs

The Sims 3 explores different ways one may earn income. The main system will be through careers. Your Sim can travel to one of the many career buildings in town and start a job there. There will be different careers shipped with the game, some of these include athletic, music, medical, politics, chef, and more.

Once your Sim heads off to work they will disappear from the screen.

Your Sim doesn’t have to work in a 9-5 job to make money, there are other ways to earn by looking around the neighborhood. Your can earn money through fishing, collect bugs and selling them, painting, stealing, gardening, becoming an author, investing in businesses, among others.

Pregnancy and Babies

Screenshot via [SimsDomination]

This seems to be a hot topic. I don’t know why. You people are so obsessed! Pregnancy pretty much plays out like it does in The Sims 2. One major change is now you can select which location to give birth. You can give birth at home or at a hospital.

At home your Sim will scream and shout as they are about to deliver. Next, you name the baby and it will show you what traits it has taken from the parents.  The baby appears magically out of thin air and the mom spins around and grabs the baby.

If you choose to give birth in a hospital, the mom and dad will go off into a cab and will walk into the hospital. After a while the mother will walk out with the baby in hand and drive back home in a cab.

The mom and dad can now carry the baby around with them.

Create A Sim – Create a Style

Create A Sim has been enhanced further to allow for more customization over past games. This is due to the Create a Style feature. In Create A Style, you will be able to set up patterns and colors for any object, floor, wall, and clothing. The create a style has a small palette dock where you set all the colors and patterns. If you drag this dock to a specific item, it’s colors and patterns will change. This makes unlimited color combinations for clothes.

For example, in Sims 2, if a dress didn’t come in a certain color, you would have to edit the color through Photoshop. In the Sims 3, all you would have to do is select any color you want and apply it to your dress and it will instantly change to that color.

Personality, Wishes, and Skills

Each Sim will have their own personality through the selection of traits. After you create your Sim, you will be able to choose up to 5 traits that describe his behavior. These traits will dictate his personality and actions. 

The inappropriate trait will let a Sim belch in public or sneeze in public. A Sim  with a kleptomaniac trait might even steal items from your home. A Sim with the hot headed trait will get angry very quickly and yell at others. These personality traits can be changed by purchasing a special mid life crisis item.

You’ll also be allowed to customize what “preferences” your Sim has, like their favorite food, favorite music, and favorite color but you will not be able to change any of these after you create your Sim.

For a little eye candy, once your Sims’ family has been created, they will be placed in a little picture frame on a wall as the neighborhood screen loads.

After you select traits, you will be provided with a few lifetime wishes. If you fulfill them they will make your sim happy. There are also short term wishes that can be fulfilled at any time. By spending your happiness points, you can obtain achievement traits, which are special traits that allow your Sims to “cheat” their way through life. For example the haggler achievement trait lets your Sims get discounts when they go shopping.

Skills have been brought back yet again, but this time skills have a more social experience than before. If you excell at a particular skill, other Sims might want you to run errands for them. Some opportunities at work might arise and allow your Sim to be promoted in a field. There was one example where your boss might ask you to bring in a piece of artwork you made since he knows your creativity skill is high.

Freed from your need

Needs are one of the most boring features of the Sims. You often found yourself  having limited time to do anything just because you had to go pee or sit down. The Sims 3 will still include needs but the game has been designed to have less focus on them. Instead you’ll have more time participating in socialization and achieving your Sims’ wishes and lifelong dreams. Your family for the first time will be able to take care of themselves on their own.  This frees up time for you to explore the town and meet new Sims.

The Sims 3 will be released in NA on June 2nd, 2009

The Sims 3 will be released in UK on June 5th, 2009

The Sims 3 will be released in AU on June 4th, 2009

Minimum Requirements

Windows XP SP2

• Pentium IV 2.0 GHz / Athlon XP 2000+ or equivalent
• 1GB RAM
• 6.5 GB of hard drive space with 1 GB additional space for custom content
• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

Windows Vista SP1

• Pentium IV 2.4 GHz / Athlon XP 2400+ or equivalent
• 1.5 GB RAM of Memory
• 6.5 GB of hard drive space with  1 GB additional space for custom content
• 128 MB Video Card with support for Pixel Shader 2.0

Computers with built in Graphics Chipsets

• Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA X3000 or above.
• 2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
• 1.5 GB RAM (XP), 2 GB RAM (Vista)

NVIDIA GeForce series

• FX 5900, FX 5950
• 6200, 6500, 6600, 6800
• 7200, 7300, 7600, 7800, 7900, 7950
• 8400, 8500, 8600, 8800
• 9600, 9800, GTX 260, GTX 280

ATI Radeonâ„¢ series

• 9500, 9600, 9800
• X300, X600, X700, X800, X850
• X1300, X1600, X1800, X1900, X1950
• 2400, 2600, 2900
• 3450, 3650, 3850, 3870
• 4850, 4870

 iPhone 2.0 or iPod Touch

Spore Patch changes DRM Policy so Users can Regain Installations

The Spore Patch described below has  been released. Download’s Spore’s Patch here!

After the massive amount of complaints about Spore’s “draconian” DRM, EA sheds some light on its future plans. Here are some details Mariam Sughayer shared with MTV Multiplayer Blog.

Up to 5 Computers Authorized

This new patch expected to release sometime in the near future, will allow 5 computers authorized to play concurrently. When one computer uninstalls the game, you will be able to deauthorize access to that computer, freeing up one installation attempt.  With this new method, users will no longer be forced to hit the activation cap that was set in place since the beginning.

Goodbye DRM?

EA shows off its compassionate side by saying they might release a patch down the road that will completely make DRM “null and void.” Don’t expect this patch anytime soon, its more likely to occur many many years from now when everyone else is awaiting Spore 3.

User Reactions

As we wait until the final details of this patch to come forth, users are still not pleased deeming this is “not enough.” Concerns stem from SecuRom’s ability to cripple DVD hardware and burning software. Another concern includes the pirated version as the most ideal to play since it has been wiped clean from SecuRom and can be installed on an unlimited amount of computers.

Further Questions

Feedback from various online forums and websites have brought up several questions that need to be answered by EA.

What would happen if a user uninstalls the game but the deauthorization attempt has failed?

In order to keep this as fool-proof as possible, EA would have to create a new program that can detect whether Spore is installed or uninstalled on the system. Since really, if a user uninstalls the game while they are currently offline for whatever reason, they will have no way of contacting EA’s servers about this change.

Though this previous situation is hypothetical, a more common occurrence is where users will reinstall their operating system because of unforeseen circumstances.  EA has to be able to deauthorize a computer that has no traces of this game within the registry.

Will this patch apply to hardware changes?

If the patch authorizes 5 computers to play the game, hardware changes should not use up an activation attempt. We do hope this new patch will deauthorize a computer once they detect hardware changes and reauthorize after it notifies EA.

Amazon Users disgruntled with Spore SecuROM DRM

The Amazon Controversy

Something strangely interesting occurred over the release of Spore. Spore, the critically acclaimed creature creation game, has a strong list of supporters and gained high reviews on major gaming sites. Yet still, the biggest issue it has is its SecuROM DRM. This has resulted in the game amassing a low review score among its players and critics. This appears to be a protest campaign against SecuRom DRM, from players who have played the game and majority of others who haven’t.

DRM Concerns

The majority of complaints on Amazon’s site deals with the limited amount of activations your allowed to use in order to play the game. An activation attempt can be used if you completely reinstall your operating system or upgrade a certain amount of hardware inside your computer.

Once you have used up your 3 activations, you will need to call or email EA’s tech support and prove to them that you have purchased the game. Otherwise your only other choice is to purchase another copy.

Three is the loneliest number…

Some users have also installed Spore on multiple PCs, effectively using up 1 activation attempt for each PC. Amazingly within days of the game’s release, one consumer has already used up all 3 activation attempts. There are other complaints as users also seem to be concerned over the longevity that these activation servers will be up. What would happen 10 years later when those servers go down? Will players be locked out of playing the game?

Its unknown how EA will react to this. Its likely they will not do anything at all and will continue to use SecuRom in the future.

Even amidst this whole fiasco, one reviewer claims Gamespot deleted his review of Spore because it made  mention of DRM.

Catching up with The Sims 3

So in the past few weeks several fan sites were able to see a glimpse of The Sims 3. No EA didn’t ask me to attend. Anyway we’ll take a look at whats been announced since the last time we covered it, and summarize all the major details from the fan sites.

Seamless Neighborhood

All fansites pretty much agree there will be no loading times from place to place. Everything is done seamlessly so you can play inside your house, zoom the camera out and get a glimpse of whats going on in your town. By that, you select where you want to go and your sim will reach there by walking, cab, or car. The location of the neighborhood is alongside a rocky shore and mountains off in the distance.

There will be many places to visit in the neighborhood, including civic areas, the beach, the café, and more. Certain buildings will act as jobs which you can plop inside the neighborhood. One of the most requested additions to the Sims 3 is the abilities to place objects in any direction without grids. This will certainly add to the realism that fans want.

Seamless Lives

As you play the game, everyone around you no matter where they are will be doing something and aging alongside with you. Each action they do will have a purpose and their behaviors will be dictated by each traits they have. You will start out with a few traits and expect to gain some more as you play through. Social interaction will play a much larger role, and even “negative” actions might make someone more happier.

Screenshot Analysis

For more detailed information about The Sims 3, you can visit the fansites at the bottom of the article. Now we’ll take a look in some new screenshots to see whats been improved since the game was first announced.

Fat is in! The new body shape adds more variety to the people you’ll likely meet around the ‘hood. Talking on the cellphone is now a base game feature that everyone will have.

The trailer showed off some of the new seamless neighborhood transitions by zooming out. We do know that this may be a huge struggle for lower end PCs. Fan sites have said that developers will be able to solve this problem by making the neighborhood smaller for PCs that struggle. Still I would recommend buying a new graphic card to support this game. Nvidia 8800+ seems to be a surefire way to make this game run smoothly.

The whole neighborhood will transition into day and night at the same time. Some sims may come out at night to do some mischief.  This sunset along shows off some shadow mapping that is based on light from the sun.

Sims will be aware of others actions and may get irritated by them. This was in development for The Sims 2, but it wasn’t so apparent as they made it sound once the base game was released. So we hope they can enhance this even further in The Sims 3.

The Sims 3 will be released on June 2nd, 2009
  On PC then later on MAC

[ via Sims 3 Resource, Eyecandy for The Sims 3, and forum posts]

The Sims: Credit Card, EA’s Newest Expansion pack!

EA released their newest expansion pack this week titled, The Sims: Credit Card. This revolutionary expansion pack brings your Sims as you’ve never seen them before. Now you can carry them around with you and relive the joys of Credit Card Debt in REAL LIFE! Ooooh! Experience hassling phone calls from debt collectors as you show off your pretty new maxed out The Sims™ card to everyone..

EA? What the hell is this? Why is this even being advertised? We know credit cards from stores are the worst. I think its the wrong type of product to expose to teenagers at this level. I’d rather this be an in-game item because quite frankly, your really scaring me now. I’m not even sure who exactly your targeting with this card? Women ages 18-24? Men ages 13-18? When something like this comes up the best way to work around it and make things better for everyone is to have a co-promotion with the big name credit card companies, ex. Chase, Discover, Capital One… Just let them choose a card design and be on their way.

Well we can’t have a parody post without actual factual details of this credit card, lets read the fine print. First off EA assumes no responsibility in controlling the terms and conditions for this card. So don’t think EA’s friendly tech support will call you when your late on a payment. Its all handled FIA Card services, we’re with the big boys now! Well the Default APR Rate is 18.24%, this instantly tells me its targeting college students, why you may ask? Because most of the time the APR rate starts at 0% then goes up to that after 6 months. Now look what happens when your late on a payment, the APR rate goes up to 29.99%. Mmm smell your money go bye bye! On the signup page, they boldly highlight this 4.9% APR and it sure does look pretty but guess what thats for, Cash Advance Checks, and Balance Transfers only, NOT PURCHASES. Ya so pretty much, the average college student won’t use those features. Unfortunately this 4.9% APR lasts only 6 months! Gasp! This sounds like those Cable and Satellite provider commercials, we’re only cheap for 6 months after that your on your own! So basically your stuck with 18.24% VARIABLE rate, Y’all better pay your credit card bills on time or its harassing phone calls for you!

The moral of this story is, this credit card isn’t different from all the other college credit cards out there. Your first credit card will always be stinky, and there’s no way around it. Would I recommend you sign up to it? Well its your decision but if you do, follow this advice. Don’t buy college books with it, Don’t buy Mp3 players with it, and Don’t buy anything costing more than $60 dollars. See this card wants to game you into high interest rates, cause they know college students don’t ever have a stable source of income. So here’s how we can get back at them! Use the card until you owe around $60. Next pay back the MINIMUM payment needed! Don’t pay the full amount back because its not going to improve your credit score at all. Pay back the minimum on time every month! Rinse Lather, and Repeat! After you do this for a year, your credit score can improve enough to the point where other credit card companies will beg you to join their Platinum ranks!

You only wish you could look Cool like them