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371. Open for Business Commercial Contest

Written on Sunday 12 March 2006 at 22:28 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Maxis is giving away prizes again, and this time it's a PC from nVidia as well as three graphics cards. If you want to win one of them, you have to make a video commercial for a business ran with the Sims 2 Open for Business. Whether it's for a store, company, club, or any other type of business you can come up with, is up to you. You can enter by posting the video on your MySim page on the official site and filling in the entry form before 24 March. The video has to be 60 seconds or shorter, including the "Made with the Sims 2" cinematic, and must be published in QuickTime, Avi or Windows Media format. Only citizens of the United States and Canada, except the states Colorado, Arizona, Maryland, New Jersey, Tennessee, Vermont and Quebec. Winners will be selected by EA around 5 April. For more information about the contest, read the rules page.

372. Oscar Skins by Fans

Written on Sunday 12 March 2006 at 22:17 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Last week the 78th annual Acadamy Awards, a.k.a. the Oscars, were given away. Reason for MaxoidKane to post a request on the official site's BBS, asking fans to recreate the favourite dresses and outfits worn during the Oscar night, only for Sims. This has resulted in a lot of creations ranging from George Clooney to Tim Burton and Reese Witherspoon to Samantha Harris. You can find all the links in the thread about it. Several national news websites have also reported on this challenge, including Reuters and USA Today, in which they tell that Keira Knightley's Vera Wang sheath dress was the most downloaded. It was closely followed by Reese Witherspoon's Christian Dior Haute Couture dress.

373. Open for Business Mini Game

Written on Friday 10 March 2006 at 16:38 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Where NightLife was accompanied by a web-based Mix Master mini game, Open for Business is being promoted by another little game. The game consists of 3 mini-games all in a theme of the three new craftables: you need to find faulty clown in the boxes, reconnect the wires of a robot, and bind flowers together to make bouquets. The game can be found at a new "EA Viral" domain - if this will be used for future mini games like these as well is unsure. For now you can go to the Open for Business Mini Game to play it.

374. GameSpot Reviews Open for Business

Written on Friday 10 March 2006 at 16:24 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

After several other reviews, gaming site GameSpot has now also reviewed the new Sims 2 expansion, Open for Business. They say the gameplay is flexible. The time in the game also works to an advantage - time spent on a community lot isn't counted at home, putting more hours in a day for Sims who own a community lot and run their business there. Also, although a second job is a possibility for a Sim, it's not a necessity once you're running a successful business. The review also mentions "same old technical problems such as weird pathing, buggy items, and so on" as one of the downsides, but doesn't elaborate on that. That GameSpot thinks the expansion is a good one, is reflected in the score they give it: 8.0 out of 10. For more details, read the entire review.

375. Open for Business Reviews

Written on Wednesday 8 March 2006 at 16:45 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Several reviews are appearing about Open for Business, and although some of the big gaming sites haven't covered it yet, other, smaller ones have. Two of them are the Australian PAL Gaming Network and PC GameWorld. The first one says the game is the deepest expansion for the Sims 2 yet, but it's designed to work with University and Nightlife - something other reviews have also mentioned. The gameplay is complex, but addictive, especially when you get the hang of running a business. Unfortunately the interface isn't as easy to learn as PAL hoped it would be. The final score for the expansion pack is a 7.0, as you can read in the entire review. A shorter review that doesn't mention much more than all the features is to be read at PC GameWorld, which rates the game at 88%. You can read the review if you want more details. If you want our opinion, read our growing review.

376. Chat with Open for Business Team

Written on Wednesday 8 March 2006 at 16:15 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

With Open for Business out in stores now, it's time for the team that worked on the expansion to help players in running their businesses, and asking other questions. They'll do that in a chat next week Thursday, 16 March, at 3PM PST (11pm GMT, midnight in western Europe), on the official site. Don Laabs, Hunter Howe, Shannon Copur and Lyndsay Pearson will share the tips and answer your questions. To join the chat, head over to the chat page next week.

377. OfB Hints and Tips by Maxis

Written on Saturday 4 March 2006 at 23:37 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Maxis has posted several hints and tips for the Sims 2 Open for Business on their BBS and website. The first tip is about selling cars - to be able to do so, you need to toggle the game to Wholesale mode. This can be done by clicking the Wholesale Mode Toggle button (which looks like a lock) in the Business Build Tools panel on the Business Tracker in the right-top corner of the screen. Next, if you've had an unsuccessful makeover, all you need to do is change the appearance of the Sim (using the mirror) again, then going to the Make-up tab, and there choose to remove the selection. Finally there's also a small, six-step tutorial, about running a business. The easiest way to start is at home, and training some talents there. It's also recommended to start playing a few of the premade families in Bluewater Village, to get the hang of the game. What also might help, is building just a little, cheap home, and leaving the rest for building up a community lot business. Real Estate might also help in getting some money, through buying a community lot, building up the business' value, and then reselling it again. As final tip, Maxis says selling cheap items is good for building up customer loyalty, after which you can raise the price to make a bigger profit. For all of Maxis' tips, check out the thread by MaxoidKane at the official BBS.

378. First Bugs and Issues in Open for Business

Written on Saturday 4 March 2006 at 23:23 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Every expansion pack for the Sims comes with its flaws, and Open for Business is no exception. Now it's been released, the first issues have already been found. One of them was already known since the last patch for Nightlife: Sims at University might be flagged for missing the final exam, if it overlaps with college. See our earlier post for more details about that. Another somewhat small issue, is that custom content is by default disabled. When starting the game for the first time you need to enable it explicitly, and restart the game after that, to make any downloads or hacks available in your game. It's also known that several hacks are still incompatible with the expansion pack, and thus may cause problems with Open for Business. If you're having such problems, disabling hacks might solve the problem.

But there is a bigger problem too, which can cause corruption of lots. Details are a little sketchy, as they are posted on forums anyway, but it seems that if you visit a community lot with a car from Nightlife, they might be unable to get back home properly. The game will let the Sim drive off in their car when directed to, but after that the game doesn't load the home lot. The clock will run fast (similar to what the game does when all playable Sims on the lot are at work or sleeping), and quitting the normal way isn't possible - you have to hit Control+Alt+Delete to terminate the game. The family will probably become unplayable, as the game still thinks the Sim(s) are visiting the community lot, but when trying to load that lot Live mode is not enabled. When visiting the lot with a taxi, this problem does not occur. Some users have also reported that first loading another community lot, that is unowned (i.e. not a business, but a 'classic' community lot) and going home after that helps. A similar problem also seems to exist, when saving the game while visiting a community lot. When reloading the family, Live mode is disabled, only Buy and Build mode are as if you're just editing the community lot. It's impossible to play the family again. Maxis is currently working on a patch to solve these problems, but it's unclear when it will be released. Until then, Maxis advises to visit owned community areas by taxi only. If the problem does occur, press Control, Alt and Delete at the same time, and kill the Sims 2 process. Do not bulldoze the offending community lot or the broken family lot, and avoid playing them until the patch is released. After the patch is released, install it and then you can revisit the family and community lot again. A few more details can be found in a post by MaxoidKane on the official BBS.

Finally, some people are reporting lots to become blank - with all walls, objects, etc. removed - under certain circumstances. It's not yet clear what causes this problem, though it might have to do with custom content.

Maxis is working on a patch to resolve these issues. A release date is not given, but naturally we'll let you know when we know more about this. Meanwhile, if you notice any problems in the game, filling in the feedback form is probably the best way to help Maxis with solving the problem.

379. OfB Reviews

Written on Saturday 4 March 2006 at 22:13 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

What was started by GameSpy last week, is now slowly advancing, as new reviews of Open for Business are starting to be placed online. We'll have our own review up soon, but until then there are - for now - two more reviews you can read. Websites 1Up and Yahoo! Games made up their opinion about the expansion pack. The main point 1Up makes is that it's not as easy and straightforward as the previous expansion packs, and although it does add some new objects fans will like, it lacks the "whimsical feel of playing a 'Sim God.'" Yahoo! has a little more to say, and notes that the business system is surprisingly open-ended. It's not as intuitive as may be expected, and if you run a business at home the customers won't notice much of a distinction - though it should be taken into account that doors are lockable now. Similar to GameSpy, Yahoo! also says the expansion works best in combination with Nightlife. Nevertheless it's a good game that'll add many hours of gaming time, although if you don't have any other expansions yet, University or Nightlife might be better to start with. The 1Up Review gives the expansion pack a score of 7.0 out of 10, whereas in the Yahoo! Review you'll see a score of 4 out of 5 stars.

380. Depeche Mode Simlish Music Video [Update]

Written on Thursday 2 March 2006 at 22:11 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

The band Depeche Mode has recorded their hit "Suffer Well" for Open for Business, in Simlish. Maxis has created a music video of this song, naturally starring a lot of Sims and robots. Other artists, Kajagoogoo and Howard Jones, were interviewed in a podcast, and it's not sure if this video is instead of a Depeche Mode podcast, or if it's an extra - but time will tell. For now you can download the video, in QuickTime format, from the news page.

[Update 3 March 11:10] The QuickTime versions of the video have been taken offline from the news page, but instead a Flash video has been put online, together with some information about the band's latest album. You can find it all on the video's page. If you prefer getting a QuickTime version, you're not completely lost yet. The files are still available, either in high quality (17.3 Mb) or low quality (4.4 Mb) - these files can be removed at any time though, so it's best to get them quickly if you want them.