Posts tagged Sims at Switched

Posts with tag sims

Will Wright's 'Spore' Slammed by Reviewers for Copy Protection

by Tim Stevens, posted Sep 13th 2008 at 1:34PM

Will Wright's Masterpiece Spore Slammed by Reviewers for Copy Protection

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 disastrously, though, is the overwhelmingly negative reviews gamers are giving the game at Amazon due to its "draconian" copy-protection system.

The game has to "dial home" to activate itself when installed, which means if you can't play the game if you don't have an Internet connection. More of an issue is that it will only activate itself three times; after that you're stuck calling EA's customer service, who may or may not activate the game for you. Then there's the life-cycle concern: Even if you still have activations left, if in 5 years EA decides to take its activation servers offline will, you be stuck with a useless game?

Irritated buyers are striking back by giving the game one-star reviews on Amazon, and with 1,355 reviews currently lodged, the average is indeed a single star. So, Amazon shoppers at least will know what they're getting themselves into when it comes to copy protection. Will they know just how generally average the game is otherwise, though? [Source: ars technica]

Napster Creator's Latest Venture Bought by Electronic Arts for $30M

by Tim Stevens, posted Jun 5th 2008 at 7:02AM

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 eventually inspired some bands to release albums for free. Unfortunately for Fanning, though, the original Napster (not the current music subscription service of the same name) went bankrupt in a hurry. Not so for his latest endeavor, which was just purchased by Electronic Arts (EA) for a reported $30-million.

The company is called ThreeSF, and it has so far existed as a platform for a new online service called Rupture. It is basically a social network for gamers; a venue for them to show off their in-game achievements. It ties directly to services like Microsoft's Xbox Live and Valve's Steam, which allow it to figure out what gamers have been up to and post those happenings on those gamers' pages. This way people can show off their skills and also find other gamers with similar interests to play against.

What exactly EA will be doing with the fledgling service is unknown, but expect something like an EA-branded community for players of EA games like 'Spore' and 'The Sims' -- because what the world really needs is an other social network. [Source: Rupture]

We Got to Play MySims, and It's a Blast

by Evan Shamoon, posted Jul 25th 2007 at 4:02PM

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 Sims games, MySims offers plenty of opportunities for variety and individuality. The character generator allows for quite a bit of personality-tuning: Just point the Wii-mote at the article of clothing, accessory, or body part you want to change, and suddenly you're flying through a laundry list of options. The house construction tool and "thing creator" (used to craft various types of items) looks like it'll give budding interior designers and architects a place to get their freak on.

But there's more to the game than just building. There's also a significant layer of "life simulator" involved in the game, bringing to mind other Japanese games like 'Harvest Moon,' and even creator Will Wright's own 'SimCity.' The player is given more of a macro role in the game, with more of a focus on (super simple) urban design and development concepts.

More than anything, though, 'MySims' is about making contact: Where past Sims console titles were about tending to your character's needs, 'MySims' is more role-playing than baby-sitting, as the character must chat with non-playing characters (NPCs) and develop relationships.

Overall, the game is looking like just the breath of fresh air the franchise needed. Look for it in September.

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E-Mail Turned Into a Video Game

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Jul 6th 2007 at 3:39PM

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. The difference is that messages arrive as visitors to a Miami resort. The visitors wander about until you "read" them. The 'Sims' style visualization seems to be all but completely useless, a novel idea that serves no real productive purpose except to utilize the horsepower of your new fancy Core 2 Duo processor.

One feature we do enjoy though is the virtual bouncer who checks visitors before they enter. Real messages are let through the gate, while spam is literally fed to the sharks.

We promise you this is no joke. We were skeptical as well, especially given the campy trailer above which includes narration and a soundtrack straight from a blockbuster film trailer. But, we downloaded and installed it. It's far from a smooth experience and has hefty hardware requirements for an e-mail program (a reasonably new dedicated graphics card is required), but we can safely say this is for real.

From Red Ferret Journal

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EA Gives More Love to iPod

by Tom Conlon, posted May 9th 2007 at 5:12PM

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 word yet on the others, or how much they'll cost to download.

From Mac Rumors

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The Sims Receives the High Art Treatment

by Terrence O'Brien, posted Apr 20th 2007 at 12:15PM

'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 the Chelsea Art Museum in New York from April 19 - May 12 and features art in various media that blends the video game world and reality. Real world scenes are punctured by Sims-styled thought bubbles or rendered to look like characters from the games. There are movies made in 'The Sims' game and even paintings and drawings that explore different aspects of 'The Sims' world and its connections to reality.

from Game Daily

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Gallery: The Sims: In the Hands of Artists

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