Tag: SIMS

Thanks to video games, franchises, reboots, and TV shows, Hollywood executives never need to have an original idea again. So take an extremely original idea from the creator of 'Sims' and turn it into a movie with cute, super star-voiced characters and attach a big director and, bam, easy Hollywood bucks. Will Wrights' 'Spore', an evolution, RPG-type game where decisions made as an amoeba affect ...

Since the dawn of the Atari, developers have striven for realistic gaming: titles that mimic real-world situations. Problem is, not everyone's life is like Solid Snake's, and sometimes replicating virtual reality gets a tad too realistic. For every pulse-pounding 'Grand Theft Auto' or mind-expanding 'Katamari,' there are yawn-inducing titles like 'Walk It Out.' Games are for escapism, we say, not ...

Here's an interesting plot for a video game: avoiding danger. As part of a recent study, researchers at England's Durham University have used Valve's Source engine (the graphics and programming that powers such titles as 'Half-Life 2' and 'Portal') to make fire drill simulations. The team began by recreating several of the university's departments and, then, setting them on fire. Intended to ...

EA's 'Spore,' the latest from 'Sims' creator Will Wright, was hailed by critics as being revolutionary when it was announced -- back in 2005. Since then, it's been delayed and delayed some more, but somehow the hype just continued to grow and grow. The game is now released on the PC and Mac platforms, receiving some mediocre scores from game reviewers who can't quite find a point to it all. More ...

Shawn Fanning (pictured, above) is, in many ways, the man who started the decline of the music industry. Back in the late '90s while still a college student, he created Napster, the peer-to-peer file sharing service that allowed millions of users to swap illegal copies of music quickly and easily. More importantly, his invention got people thinking about the value of recorded music and ...

Yes, EA has been churning out new Sims games since Day Two of the franchise, and no, they've never made one quite like this. On its surface, the most obvious point of reference for EA's new Wii-exclusive title is 'Animal Crossing': The player is able to create his or her own character and home, and furnish them accordingly. Although the character creation is relatively simplified versus other ...

Sometimes a program comes along that we can't quite grasp the purpose of. 3D Mailbox is one such program. It's made by Robert Savage, who previously released a program that visualizes Internet traffic as 3D avatars which disembark buses labeled 'Google' or 'Yahoo' or wherever your site's visitor originated from. 3D Mailbox has all the standard features you'd expect of a desktop e-mail program. ...

Today, while disappointing investors with less than stellar fourth-quarter financial results, gaming juggernaut Electronic Arts revealed that it has four new games for the iPod in the works. EA has previously released 'Sudoku,' 'Tetris,' 'Mini Golf,' 'Mahjong' and 'Royal Solitaire' on iTunes, each available for $4.99. All we know at this time is that one of the games will be 'Sims Bowling.' No ...

'The Sims' is now the latest crossover from the world of video games to the world of high art. Like the I am 8-Bit exhibition, The Sims: In the Hands of Artists takes a fresh look at the world of popular video games and how we relate to them. It's part art exhibit, part student art competition (with a $12,000 grand prize for the best entry), and part multimedia extravaganza. The exhibit runs at ...