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481. SimsZone Sims 2 Review part 7/8

Written on Monday 16 August 2004 at 19:49 by ChEeTaH - 2 comments.

Our affiliate SimsZone has posted 2 more articles about the Sims 2. This time they're discussing the collections and community lots. As usual there are some screenshots as well. For info from other parts of their review, please click the following links: Part 1/2 (Installation, First Impressions), Part 3/4 (Create a Sim, Neighborhoods), Part 5/6 (Build and Buy mode). For info about yesterday and today's articles, please read on. See the Sims 2 Review Index at SimsZone for all the original articles and the screenshots. Read More!

482. The Sims 2 Screens and Info [Update]

Written on Sunday 15 August 2004 at 15:55 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

The past couple of days have been very busy, as news and screenshots kept flooding in. Today's no exception. First of all there are 15 new screenshots (click thumbnails below to enlarge), of which 5 from SimsZone Poland and 10 from the Spanish Terra.es, which were found by SimsExpress. As for info, our affiliate SimsZone has held a chat of over 4.5 hours yesterday. The transcript has been posted. You can read the most important highlights in the read more part of this article.

[Update 14:10] SimsZone Poland has posted a 3 Mb movie as well. It can be downloaded from their front page, in the "Film prosto z gry TheSims2" post (click the "[ Pobierz film - 3,001MB ]" link). It requires the VP6 codec to play. Thanks to SP Zone for the link.

Read More!

483. New Sims 2 Info

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 22:38 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The information flood of the Sims 2 continues to flow. First of all, there is SimsZone Poland, which has posted a major load of new screenshots of The Sims 2. They have over 110 screenshots on their screenshots page. Those screenshots aren't taken with extremely high quality settings, which is why they might not look as good as Maxis screenshots. Depending on your hardware, it may look somewhat like that instead of what Maxis shows us all the time. A good graphics card will always help.

Our German colleagues at SimsZone have posted a new part of their huge review. This time they explain the build and buy modes. News is that instead of just 3 floors, it apparantly is possible to have up to 5 floors for a house, plus an attic. You have to keep in mind that the foundation does count as a floor though, so usually you'll end up with a maximum of 4 floors plus attic (which Sims can get on to as well). Put in another way: there are 6 levels on which you can build. A roof is one of them, and the foundation also counts as one floor (and thus occupies one level). You can even make a special roof-top with objects on it, by putting the roof below the highest level, and then adding a floor on top of the roof.

But not everything is as great as it may seem to be. SimsZone has said to be disappointed with the amount of content in the game. They've mentioned it before for Skins. There are some hideous ones, but the amount is not too high either. Custom skins can solve that problem, and with the Body Shop being out there's quite a lot of them already. However, something similar goes for walls, floors and roofs. A lot of the content seems to come straight from the Sims 1, and hasn't been altered much. From the screenshots, you can also see just 8 roof textures - which is all there is. As there's no tool similar to HomeCrafter available yet, nor something to create objects, fans might be disappointed by the lack of (decoration) options.

To read most highlights on the building and buying options (in English of course), click Read More (or read on below). To read the German article about the build or buy modes, or to see the screenshots for it, please visit SimsZone. English translations (without the screenshots) can be found in the official BBS (here, here and here). In the article of the buy mode there are also two sample movies made with The Sims 2. They require the VP6 Codec to be played (see also earlier news). Read More!

484. Psychology and The Sims

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 17:27 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

There have been several articles in the past about the Sims and its relationship with psychology. There's another one that's been found recently. "Suburban Rhapsody" talks about how people use the Sims to simulate their own lives, or to express themselves. The Sims is very much like real life, and certain elements of the simulation are made after real life. The article also tells some bits of Will Wright, and where he got his ideas for the Sims from. Wright has used several books about psychology to make the simulation. "His games may be mass-market hits, but they're based on some very brainy theories about behavior, economics, and human psychology." If you're interested in reading all of it, then visit this page at the San Antonio Current. Thanks to WorldSims for the tip.

485. Alan Yu to fill A&R position at Maxis

Written on Friday 13 August 2004 at 17:14 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

WorldSims reports that Alan Yu will become director A&R (Arts & Repertoire) at Maxis. It's the first position of its kind within EA and even the gaming industry, but if successfull other EA studios will get a similar position. Yu's task will be to bring in talent from other studios or industries, like the movie or music industry, to Maxis, so new technology can be incorporated in the simulation games.

"Whether you're a musician or a filmmaker or a fiction or screenwriter, even if you don't realize it, you might be good for the video game industry," Yu said. "Today's games use Hollywood lighting techniques, camera angles and story elements to enhance the interactive entertainment experience," he said, "but people with those types of skills might not be aware of that fact."

The entire article comes from HollywoodReporter bus is available to subscribers only. You can read it right here on WorldSims as well.

486. New Poll

Written on Thursday 12 August 2004 at 02:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

It's been a week since we put up our previous poll, in which we asked you if your Sims water their plants. 427 people have voted, and most Sims pay to do the watering. 67% said their Sims have a gardener coming over every 3 days. 15% says their Sims water the plants and flowers themselves and they stay alive too. 10% of the Sims does the same, but their plants and flowers die for some reason after all. 5% are anti-green and don't have any plants, while 4% of the Sims doesn't water the plants at all - according to our poll anyway. See the results page for precise details.

As for this week, we want to know which (pre-made) family of The Sims 2 you'll most likely be playing the most. We have made a list of all the known families in the three neighbourhoods, and you can pick your favourite on the right or on the latest poll page.

487. New parts Sims 2 Review @ SimsZone

Written on Wednesday 11 August 2004 at 16:18 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Our affiliate SimsZone has posted two new parts of their review of the Sims 2 yesterday and today. Yesterday's part is about creating your family. You start by giving your family a last name, after which you can quickly start creating the Sims. That starts with a name (and biography) as well, as well as the basic characteristics. Pick your Sims' sex, age, body type and skin colour and you're ready to go a bit further. SimsZone also notes that all your Body Shop Sims were automatically imported upon installation, so you can also choose to use one of those.

For the rest of the details, including info about the neighborhoods, read on (and click Read More if necessary). Read More!

488. Sims become Toys [Update]

Written on Wednesday 11 August 2004 at 02:44 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Besides the Sims 2, there's also the Urbz to be released later this year. And some slightly remarkable news has been announced about the last title today: Atomic Toys is going to make toys based on the characters in the GBA version of the Urbz. The first series of the toyline, called "Miniopolis Urbz" will be launched at the same day as the release of the GBA version. Toys based on the characters of the console version will be released later in the year, but before the holiday season. The availability of these toys is not mentioned, so it could be US only. For more information, read the press release. Meanwhile, the Urbz has also been officially added to the Nintendo DS launch lineup of EA, meaning it will be released simultaneously with the Nintendo DS platform. That will be November in North America and probably Japan (if the game's released there at all - I don't know), Europe and the rest of the world will have to wait until early 2005, as the DS system won't be out until then in those areas. The other versions of the game should be available in November worldwide.

[Update 22:25] There's a mini site available for the toys, which includes a photo with the toys on them. You can find it on this page, which also includes an interactive demo. Noticable is that one of the logos, previously used at TheUrbz.com is now seen there. TheUrbz.com now has the Atomic Toys logo on it.

489. The Sims 2 Preview @ SimsZone.de

Written on Monday 9 August 2004 at 22:08 by ChEeTaH - 11 comments.

Our colleagues at SimsZone in Germany have been lucky to play a (test) version of the game. They got a copy from EA, and have posted the first parts of their preview today. For the first time ever, they tell something about the installation procedure. Instead of grabbing a coffee during the install, with the Sims 2 you can play a "Grow your Sims" mini game while waiting for the game to be copied to your hard drive (2.65Gb at least). The game starts off with a memory clone, in which you have to match some images. After that there's a trivia about the development of the Sims 2. After another memory game, you're presented with the results. According to SimsZone it does get boring after a while, but it's not needed for much longer and it's a nice addition to the otherwise boring installation.

When starting the game, their first impression says that everything's alive in the new game. Sims also move in a smoother way than before. It doesn't even come to its right in screenshots: "Whoever watches the game in action will not be surprised, but astonished." Controlling the game is easy, despite the large number of new features and improvements. The tutorials should familiarise you enough with the camera control, as it is something to get used to. For Sims 1 players there are 2 tutorials which highlight the changes since that game. That's about all SimsZone has to say until now, but they've promised more articles in the next few days.

Of course the preview is posted together with a bunch of screenshots of both the installation as in the game. You can check all of them out in their Sims 2 Preview special. Of course when new info arrives on their site, we'll let you know.

490. Giga Games Screen captures [Update 3: 22:45 - and videos]

Written on Friday 6 August 2004 at 14:44 by ChEeTaH - 1 comment.

The Sims 2 was shown at Giga Games yesterday, and quite a bit of in-game material was found. Unfortunately the live stream wasn't of too great quality and it wasn't possible to record it from that properly. However, I do have 11 in-game shots for you though, from the first bits they showed. They are from selecting a neighborhood, a view of Veronaville, a family selected in the neighborhood (the green lines indicate where friends of the family live), a loading screen, and some in-game shots showing different panels at the bottom (personality, career, relationships and aspiration rewards). Another site, TheSims.de (unofficial), has also posted 12 shots from the same show, but all taken slightly later onwards. On those you can see a few general in-game shots, including the 'menu', but also the PIP (Picture-In-Picture), the "Online Job Finder", and more. The quality of all the shots isn't very high, but it's all there is (for now anyway). You can see all shots in the "Read More" bit (either shown below or follow the link to it), click the thumbnails for larger versions. Please do not leech (hot-link) to these pictures, but copy them to your own server or link to this article instead.

[Update 13:05] Affiliate SimsZone has also ust posted a bunch of shots from the same show. They're somewhat similar to the others, but slightly bigger. New from those shots are the descriptions of some of the Aspiration Reward objects. They screenshots have been added below as well. Another thing they tell about is about two of the aspiration rewards: the first one is a "Noodle Shooter" which will get your Sim in a good mood when they put this cap on. The "Thinking Cap" is another object, though it's not said what it does exactly.

[Update 2: 19:30] Spanish site SimsExpress has been able to capture the livestream properly. In two segments (one of 7 Mb, another of 14 Mb in .asf format). You can find them in the "Reportaje de Los Sims 2 en Giga Games" news post at their front page. The talking is in German, but the in-game images might be worth a look for everybody. Besides watching the images, there's also some in-game music to listen to.

[Update 3: 22:45] Another German site, inSims.de, has posted a video of 3 minutes and a half, containing a compilation of in-game pictures from the Giga Games broadcast. It's in DivX format, and it can be downloaded from its details page (26 Mb). Thanks to TCAM for the tip. Read More!