Search News Archive
880. SimDay [Update]
Written on Thursday 21 July 2005 at 20:53 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
The
official site has held two contests recently. The biggest one was the USC Student Life competition, where the
winner has won either $5,000 or a four-week intern associate position at Maxis. The other contest was about Nightlife outfits. You could submit an outfit created with the Body Shop. Winners would get to see their outfit in Nightlife, plus they'd win an autographed copy of the game. The results have now been revealed. Over a thousand entries were submitted, and of those two have won. With similar contests being held in different countries in Europe, there are two other winners, one from Sweden and another from France. To see those outfits you'll have to wait for Nightlife to be released, but you can already see them at the
winners page. There are also two honorable mentions there, which you can download immediately.
Other than that there's the news that if you pre-order Nightlife, you'll get a free downloadable car with your game. Instructions on where to find it will be enclosed in the package. It's unsure if this car will also end up on the exchange with lots and such that use it after Nightlife has been released, but until then pre-ordering the game is the way to make sure you'll have it. There will be a new pre-order deal again soon, with which you'll be able to download music from Nightlife. More details are on the official site's
pre-order page. It's unsure whether Amazon also has this offer, it doesn't mention it anyway, but if you'd like to pre-order the game and support TSZ as well, head over to our
Sims Shop to get it. Note that shops that do participate might not ship the game to outside the US or Canada.
[Update 22 July, 0:15] The site has been updated again, this time with a video and two screenshots. They are all about the karaoke machine. You can check out the video on the
videos page, where you can play or download it in high and low quality.
Quicktime is required. The screenshots come from the
screenshots page, but you can also click the thumbnails below to see the large versions.
881. Nightlife Screens, Artworks and Rating
Written on Thursday 21 July 2005 at 20:39 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
EA has released several new things for The Sims 2 Nightlife. These include screenshots, artworks, and videos. The screenshots have been found by
SnootySims on the Japanese EA site. They are mini-screenshots of the game. Most artworks are directly from the EA press site. They have all been scaled down to 33% of their original sizes, but are still very large. Some might look familiar, either from a wallpaper or earlier artwork, but these are slightly different than before. Two artwork, with the Cibersims watermark on them, obviously come from fansite
Cibersims, who got them exclusively from EA Spain. EA has also released the
producer walkthrough and a
trailer again, this time in European versions. The only difference in those, is the rating that's shown at the beginning. For Nightlife that'll be 12+, as rated by
PEGI. An ESRB rating for the US is still pending.
Click the thumbnails for these screenshots and artworks to see them in their full sizes. Note that the artworks can be very large!
882. Expansion 3 about Business?
Written on Wednesday 20 July 2005 at 02:32 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
A new survey has appeared on the official site, asking about the future of the Sims 2. It's a follow up of an
earlier quiz which already mentioned several ideas for expansion packs. The survey is biased to one idea, namely one about your Sims running their own business. The survey will probably go offline soon, when enough people submitted it, but the information has already been posted in
this thread at the
TSR forums and
this thread and
another thread at
N99. Read on for the mentioned ideas for expansion packs and more details from the survey.
Read More!
883. HSN: Nightlife Gameplay Videos
Written on Sunday 17 July 2005 at 04:40 by
ChEeTaH -
2 comments.
Yesterday we already reported about a
preview from
IGN about Nightlife, now they've also added six movies to watch or download. All are brief gameplay movies. The first shows a kid on the dancefloor, requesting a song. That can be either fast, medium or slow. In the second one you see a sim singing on the karaoke machine, and one with some cologne trying to do the same. Movie three is all about a vampire who goes to sleep in his coffin. In the next movie, a vampire has just been exposed to some light of the flasher of the photo booth. The picture appears in the inventory and can be placed on a wall or somewhere else. The same vampire heads over to the bowling alley in movie five, where he stalks a Sim and turns into a bat. In the final one, he drives away from a garage in his car. All clips are short - less than 30 seconds each. You can find them on IGN's
videos page.
884. HSN: 1Up Previews the Sims 2 (Consoles)
Written on Sunday 17 July 2005 at 04:29 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
After
other sites posted their previews of the Sims 2 on the three big consoles (PlayStation 2, XBox, GameCube), gaming site
1Up follows with a preview about what they've seen at the Hot Summer Night event last Thursday. In it, they give a little more new info again. First of all they say there will be more than 4,000 articles of clothing, each with four variants as well. 1Up continues to mention the culinary options. Ingredients can be taken fruit trees, herb gardens, fish tanks and more, all to be either baked, blended or served raw. The editor also calls aging more of a curse than anything else - but it's been left out of the console version. More objects, social options, areas and the new creativity aspiration should all make up for that.
They also go a little more in-depth about the direct control. By pressing the shoulder buttons you can go through the Sims you want to control. The one that is deselected will continue with what he or she was doing. The editor also appreciates the lack of many interface bars etcetera cluttering up the screen. The interface is nice and clear, without any unnecessary information on it. It's "
much more accessible to the more casual console gamer" while keeping the depth of the PC game.
Read the
complete preview for more details.
885. USC Contest Winners Revealed
Written on Saturday 16 July 2005 at 05:07 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
Maxis has revealed the winners of the big Student Life Movie Contest. A new intro on the
official site shows snapshots of the winning movies. Limbo1n has won the contest with his movie "
Everyday", and will receive either $5,000 or an intern position at Maxis for four weeks. Runner up was Aprylhalbrooks14 with "
Day in the Life," which was also awarded as best drama. Best Comedy went to Decorgal21572 with her "
Waking Up" and Greencutie99 won the best documentary award, with her "
Changes". All videos can be downloaded from the
contest winners page. You can also vote for your favourite at
MTV. There you can see an additional movie, "
The Internship" by M1thcm, and vote for that or one of the other four. See the
voting page for more details.
886. HSN: Nightlife Video Interview and Previews
Written on Saturday 16 July 2005 at 04:59 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
The Hot Summer Night information flood keeps going, this time with some more about Nightlife.
GameSpot brings a video interview with Tim LeTourneau, including a lot of in-game footage, as well as a preview.
IGN has a text preview as well. All the details are inside.
Read More!
887. HSN: The Sims 2 (Consoles and Handhelds) Previews [Update]
Written on Saturday 16 July 2005 at 04:28 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
There aren't just
videos, but also several previews of the Sims 2 on the consoles and handhelds. Both
GameSpot and
IGN checked out the games at EA's Hot Summer Night event, and have written articles about them. Read on for the details.
[Update 2:40] IGN has now also posted a preview of the PSP version. The information in the specific paragraph has been updated.
Read More!
888. HSN: The Sims 2 (Consoles and Handhelds) Videos
Written on Saturday 16 July 2005 at 03:47 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
After yesterday's
footage, there are now several more videos of the Sims 2 on consoles and handhelds. There's also a video interview from
GameSpot with producer Scot Amos, who talks about the console version of the game (PlayStation 2, GameCube and XBox). Read on for all the details and information about the videos.
Read More!
889. Strangerhood Studios on TV
Written on Friday 15 July 2005 at 05:02 by
ChEeTaH -
0 comments.
It's been fairly quiet around the
Strangerhood lately, a sitcom series which is made with the Sims 2 and published on the Internet by Rooster Teeth Productions. The team has been busy making six episodes for Strangerhood Studios. It features the same characters as the regular Strangerhood series, but follows a different plotline. You can see the episodes on the
Independent Film Channel (IFC). It's supposedly the first machinima series on broadcast television. The first three episodes can already be downloaded. Two from the
Strangerhood Archive, or all three from the
IFC website. There's no word yet about when the other three episodes will be available for download, if ever.