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]

Can The Sims 3 Help EA Get its Groove Back?

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Click For Newer Details for The Sims 3

Electronic Arts has been known for its struggle on garnering trust to its gamers. Economically EA’s potential for profit is huge with their Sports line, Maxis, Boxing, Action, and Mobile gaming department. They continuously flaunt their in-game advertisements and its economic success.

Still this all takes a toll on a consumers by the recent drop in stock shares and quarterly earnings reports. The Sims 3 has many potential spots to solidify game play and do well with gamers. But we worry if EA’s marketing strategy will get the best of it.

A New Gaming Approach

The Sims 3 has an ambitious goal ahead of it. One of the major changes is that it now focuses on ONE household. Your person is placed into a world where everyone’s lives evolves with or without you. It sort of follows the lines of a MMORPG. Everyone existing in the game has their own schedule, love life, and personality. This doesn’t seem to worry fans too much since this concept was used during the Life Stories product line.

The Art Style

The most critical component for potential consumers at this stage is the graphics. The graphics look marginally better than they appeared in The Sims 2. A more realistic approach was expected, unfortunately the only areas so far that seems to be visually improved are the outdoors.

This screenshot depicts of a more detailed and realistic look of how a neighborhood is like. Now that the world is seamless, the gameplay allows you to leave your house and walk to another in real time. You will be able to move around the world with as much freedom as the console games. Hopefully as you move around, there should not be anymore loading splash screens that break up the action, but I do expect a loading screen before you enter another building.

Interior design still has that barren Sims 1-like look, every object is placed on a grid. The only new feature with object placement is diagonal rotation. This is not enough to make this game stand out from its predecessor. [Editor's Note] They have now revealed 360 degree rotation. This will now place the game way above Sims 2. Path finding need’s to be able to adapt to these rotations though.

This is the only screenshot so far has the most radiant lighting effect. The sun shines through the windows and the couch gives off its glossy glow, if only every screenshot presented this rise in quality…

User Feedback

Here are some various user comments from different message boards:

What I was most looking forward to in Sims 3 was a major overhaul in the department–a more realistic looking game–after all, it is a life simulation, but apparently that’s not going to happen. This looks like more of same to me, with incremental improvements.

Actually I looked at some of the graphics and they are dramatically improved hardware wise. The problem is that everything is unquestionably UGLY

Lindsay Pearson Interview Response:

However the screenshots give a somewhat distorted image, because when you see the Sims 3 live at work, you immediately notice the high detail in the world and its characters.

We shall see how this will turn out, there isn’t much uproar for this game as Simcity Societies. So far EA, your on a positive note here.

The Sims 3 will be released in US 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

Learn More About the Sims 3