939 results found.
Displaying results 801 to 810

<< Previous | 76 | 77 | 78 | 79 | 80 | 81 | 82 | 83 | 84 | 85 | Next >>

801. SimDay Preview!

Written on Thursday 26 September 2002 at 01:28 by Matthew - 0 comments.

Amazingly enough, it looks like there might actually be something worthwhile coming on SimDay tomorrow. No, really, there might. Along with the release date changes mentioned below, the official site brings (for the first time in quite a while) a preview of what to expect this SimDay. It mentions that they'll be releasing the new 'Unleashed Lot Exchange', as well as the 'Deluxe MySims feature'. Hmm... no further information is there, so I can't tell you anymore yet.

However, only one more day to wait! Come back around mid-to-late Thursday, and I'll fill you in further on the details of these new site features. Promise!

802. The Sims Unleashed - Nearly Unleashed!

Written on Thursday 26 September 2002 at 01:16 by Matthew - 0 comments.

Those of you in the US are 'lucky' enough to now be able to trot down to your nearest GameStop, EB or whatever and pick up a copy of the latest Sims expansion pack. However, us Europeans aren't much worse off.. we've only got around nine more days to wait! The Sims: Unleashed is currently scheduled to be coming out on Friday 4th October, so it won't be long before you can play with your pets. Incidentally, for our UK readers, I'd recommend you take a look at Play.com where it's available for just 14.99.

As you'd expect, as it's out in the US, reviews have started appearing. One of the first of these is over at IGN.com, where it earns a fairly repectable score of seven out of ten. Only fairly respectable, though. The review doesn't paint that good a picture of the pack, really.. here's a quote:

'..by now, the only people still playing The Sims (besides those people who just bought a computer and with it their first game) are serious, hardcore Sims players who are going to buy every expansion pack regardless. And we've already downloaded hundreds if not thousands of new skins and objects, so that part of the expansion isn't very impressive. So once the novelty of cleaning up after cats and dogs wears off, we're left with a $30 utility that adds twenty new lots to each neighborhood.'

The full review is well worth a read, and can be found here.

803. The Sims Deluxe Discussions

Written on Thursday 19 September 2002 at 23:27 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Recently, since the press release about The Sims Deluxe came out, there have been lots of discussions about it. Many - according to a recent poll at this site, a lot of people think it's a rip-off. But many people in the discussions had no objections to Maxis releasing the pack the way they did. Now The Sims Deluxe has been released, and a few people had commented on it. As said, there are some people like this person (WorldSims forums) who like it. Apparantly the Creator is worth some money (in my opinion, I still doubt $40 - which most people will pay for it - is really worth it). Also it seems that it loads a bit faster and graphics look slightly better. But as Davybear commented in alt.games.the-sims the extras are of the type that "Most of them you would not download if you saw them on a web site". If you'd like to see for yourself, then here (at Club MOTS) are some pictures. I must agree with Davybear that they're not too original and do not really seem to be worth 5 bucks for all of them. Even if it was all great, it still doesn't rule out part of the open letter about neglected Europeans: Europeans cannot get a rebate. At all. And considering the costs there are to make the program - probably no more than $5000 - after which the costs per package (box, cds and paperwork etc) are no more than $5, they'd need just 1000 sales of $10 each (with just those extras, for the loyal fans) to start making a profit. No doubt that they'll reach that from all the 6 or 7 million fans who already bought the game. As many people already paid nearly $200 for The Sims (if not more) it seems that Maxis and EA could easily sell the extras separately for a small fee, or even give them away for free to fill up some SimDays - which have been pretty worthless recently. Of course it's still up to you whether or not to buy The Sims Deluxe, but I do not recommend it. That doesn't mean you have to listen to me, but you don't have to listen to EA either...

804. 5 Unleashed, 5 PS2 screenshots

Written on Sunday 15 September 2002 at 00:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

PC.IGN.com has posted a few new screenshots of Unleashed. 5 to be precise. This time there are images of the community areas, namely a pet show and a farmer's market. There's also a filled table. As if that's not enough, you can see some pet training in action, and last but not least a cat that wants a bird. The screenshots are quite nice and worth checking out right here.

There are also 5 new screenshots of The Sims on PS2, like some sims working hard - in a hot tub, some skill fixing going on, the creating of a female sim, a nice house overview and finally some more hot-tubbing. And they're all on this page with some more older shots.

805. The Neighborhood Handler 4.0 - Coming soon!

Written on Friday 13 September 2002 at 14:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

It's been a while since version 3.8 of The Neighborhood Handler was released. It's also been a while since the last news bit about it. However, the project isn't dead. Actually, I'm currently working on a new major release: version 4.0. Besides compatibility with Unleashed, there will also be several other changes, some quite major and some just minor. A few of the major differences between 3.x and 4.0:

The graphics mode will no longer exist (because of the following change)

You can have 99 back-ups and 99 regular neighborhoods, making the total of 198 neighborhoods... More than you'll ever need

Back-up and Neighborhood Details are stored in a better way, and so less error will occur. This makes back-ups made with v4.0 incompatible with v3.8, but you can convert old back-ups to the new version with just a few clicks. And yes, you will indeed be able to give regular neighborhoods names and/or comments

The ability to zip back-ups. This makes back-ups a bit smaller saving some diskspace. Also, that adds the ability to password-protect back-ups. Note that this doesn't work for regular neighborhoods.

A lot of rewritten and revised code, resulting in the fixes of a few bugs. For instance, the bug that causes the dialog with the actions happening (e.g. while making a back-up) to stay up when TNHH is deactivated during the progress, will be fixed in version 4.

One thing will stay the same though, and that's that it will be free as always. As most of the new version is already done, I expect to be able to release the new version early November, or even sooner. It's done whenever it's done, but it won't be released until after the European release of The Sims Unleashed. Keep checking this space for the latest news, and maybe even some screenshots.

 

806. Poll Result: Deluxe is a rip-off

Written on Thursday 12 September 2002 at 02:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

As part of our actions to give loyal The Sims fans the goodies that come with Deluxe for free, there's been a poll last week about it. And apparantly, most of you agree that The Sims Deluxe is a rip off. Exactly 61.11% - which is 77 of 126, voted for "Yes, The Sims Deluxe is a rip off". That's quite a lot against just 4 votes from people who said they'd get it without rebate for $40 (3 people, 2.38%) or without the rebate (just 1 person, 0.79%). 15 people, or 11.90 % said they don't mind getting the extras on a separate CD for a small fee, like $5 or $10. 11.90%, exactly 15 votes - again - have never heard of The Sims Deluxe, where 7.94% (10 votes) said they don't need the extras in the game. 5 people, or 3.97%, said not to have The Sims or Livin' Large yet, so it's not as much of a rip off. That leaves exactly 0 votes for "I'll give away The Sims and LL, and then buy Deluxe". The conclusion that can be drawn from this: The visitors of a Sims fan site like this one generally think The Sims Deluxe is definately not worth the money EA asks for it. To support our actions, please sign our petition.

This week's poll: somebody has to leave the Sim Brother II house again. Who is going, is up to you and you can now decide on the right or this page. As always, all our previous polls can be rechecked - but not voted for - in the poll archive.

807. Critical (and late) SV Review

Written on Wednesday 11 September 2002 at 23:59 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

The Sims Vacation has been out for over 5 months now, but there still is a new review of the game. And unlike many others, this one isn't that positive about the expansion. In fact, it gets just 6 out of 10, and the reviewer lets us know he really doesn't like EA milking out the game:

"Thinking of the secluded nerd stereotype that has played through all the expansion packs and is eagerly awaiting the next, will be still want to play a sequel or an online version when he finally tires of rehash? Companies have tried this before (cough, Tomb Raider, cough) and it nearly killed the series, and if this review turns more into an editorial, so be it, but I don't want to see a good series of games get turned backwards and despised (like Myst) because they were too successful for their own good."

It's obvious the expansion didn't really attract him. Interested in a critical view at Vacation? Read this page at ESCMag.

808. Top Of The Pops

Written on Thursday 5 September 2002 at 02:13 by Matthew - 0 comments.

The current issue (Oct 2002) of PC Gamer magazine has some interesting statistics. It contains an article about the bestselling PC games of all time in the UK, and it makes good reading for the accountants of Electronic Arts. Here's where The Sims and its relations came in..

#1 - The Sims - Sold 750,000 in the UK since Feb 2000
#7 - The Sims: Livin' It Up - Sold 388,000 in the UK since Sept 2000
#21 - The Sims: Hot Date - Sold 240,000 in the UK since Nov 2001
#35 - The Sims: House Party - Sold 185,000 in the UK since April 2001
#46 - The Sims: On Holiday - Sold 149,000 in the UK since April 2002

Read More!

809. Deluxe: What do you think?

Written on Thursday 5 September 2002 at 02:00 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

If you visit this site recently, then you might have noticed our criticism towards Maxis, and even actions when it comes to The Sims Deluxe. There's been an open letter which later resulted in an Online Petition. Although the discussions have quieted down a bit now, the petition has received already 300 visitors who spent the time to sign it. The petition is still open to be signed right here. Now there's something else where you can quickly and anonymously show us your opinion: the weekly poll on this site. Simply vote on the right if you agree with that The Sims Deluxe is a rip off, or that you think it's totally the worth $30 or even $40. So, go to the right and vote, or visit this page to vote. Last week's was a Sim Brother II eviction poll, so you'll have to visit Sim Brother II to see those results... or you can go to the poll archive to see that poll's and all older poll's results. As always, the poll will close in a week.

810. Late SimDay: TWO links!

Written on Saturday 31 August 2002 at 01:41 by ChEeTaH - 0 comments.

Although the last SimDays were practically nothing (just one old link), this week we get more! Two whole links, both not the latest ones. In fact, we've reported about both here earlier. One is about a special at GamePro.com that features The Sims on PS2. Want to know what we said about it at 15 July (Note: over one and a half months ago!), then simply follow this link. The other article is a bit more recent, as we reported about that 2 days ago, the 28th of August. More info is right here. To go directly to the articles, then click here for the Sims on PS2 feature, or right here for the Unleashed article. Have fun, if you hadn't already read both articles.