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Insider Trader: Crafting speculation in the Flower Kingdom
Insider Trader is your inside line on making, selling, buying and using player-made products.To celebrate the kick-off of HKO-Insider, Insider Trader will be doing a bonus column this week! As the closed beta has only just been put in the works, there are understandably few details floating around.Currently, we have confirmed at least the following professions: Mining. Gathering fruit from the wild. Tailoring. Furniture-crafting. Farming. Cooking. House-building. This week we will speculate on what we might see, and compose a wishlist for what we would like to see. Join us on Friday as we resume our normal schedule and delve deeper into the concept of mining as a profession, building on today's overview as well as player feedback.
Sim City 2 almost as cute as My Sims
The characters in Sim City 2 (which released today in Japan) may act like robots, but they sure look adorable -- check out our gallery if you don't believe us. They also seem to have hooves for feet, which we don't understand. Would it have been that hard to give them real feet? Yet, we can totally support a game that gives cavemen glasses and distinguished looking facial hair. The characters and the Sim City name aren't the only appealing things about Sim City 2, though. The game lets you start in ancient times (hence the caveman) and progress to the modern era. Certainly not a novel idea for a civilization sim, but one we enjoy nonetheless.Unfortunately, this game is virtually unplayable for folks who don't read Japanese. Sim City fans, let's hope it gets localized -- and, while we're at it, let's also hope that this game is better than the first Sim City DS.%Gallery-12347%
Toys "R" Us: Quest for a Brawl deal
Haven't hopped onto the Brawl bandwagon yet? If you're still looking for one more reason to pick up the epic fighter, keep this deal in mind! Starting today until next Sunday, Toys "R" Us will throw in an extra game for half its regular price with every order of Super Smash Bros. Brawl. The list of eligible titles isn't 100% quality, but there are a few that you might be interested in: Bee Movie Game My Sims Mario & Sonic At the Olympic Games Raving Rabbids 2 The Spiderwick Chronicles Super Smash Brothers Brawl (Buy two copies!) Super Smash Bros. Brawl Guide (Prima book) Zack & Wiki: Quest for Barbaros' Treasure (only $14.98!) Now is the time to use up that Super Mario Galaxy gift card you've been saving for a special occasion!%Gallery-3283%
MySims improves just in time for release
GoNintendo offered us an updated look at the DS version of MySims, and we must say that we're pleased to see such vast improvements. The few review scores that are in so far are all over the place, however, so the jury is still out on whether or not the updated graphics will be enough. If you're picking up the DS version, let us know what you think! The updated screenshots are in the gallery below, along with some older shots for comparison. %Gallery-3498%
See MySims in their natural habitat
var digg_url = 'http://digg.com/gaming_news/See_MySims_in_Their_Natural_Habitat'; If you're already a Sims fan and interested in the unique look of the new Wii iteration, you will be pleased. We finally have some detailed video of the My Sims gameplay, and it looks quite similar to its predecessors, with some significant tweaks made in the "community" and "general cuteness" categories. The first video shows the main gameplay-- setting up furniture, wandering about the little town, listening to music, and being a huge jerk to neighboring Sims. The second video details the character creation process, wherein your Sim waits very patiently for you to finish deciding what skin color to paint him or her. You can change your Sims' voices in this mode as well, and they provide voice samples by chatting in Simlish on their little cell phones while you adjust the voice with sliders. How novel! Of course, along with the return of Simlish comes another only-in-Sims kind of event: Simlish music, or the even darker side of EA Trax. Unlike Sims, we can't turn your free will off, so we can only ask you to check out the two videos. We think they're worth your time anyway.
Moving The Sims from PC to Wii
At GDC, Maxis Game Designer Robin Hunicke spoke about her process of transferring The Sims to the Wii. Her team was excited to be working on a Wii title because of its new controller and Nintendo's history, but Hunicke's most important lesson was to stay true to the defining elements of a franchise instead of starting over for a new console.Hunicke said, "The Wii is so cool ... oh my gosh. ... Almost everyone on my team is a Nintendo fan. Almost all game developers are Nintendo fans. ... We were really excited to build a [Wii] game." But since the team began work well before the console's launch, they only had tradeshow experiences and Nintendo ads to approach the MySims design.Hunicke noticed the clean lines, family oriented approach, and tactile aesthetics of the early Wii marketing material. She followed those elements instead of trying to build the game around flailing controller movements. Hunicke said, "We wanted to bring The Sims to the Wii in a way that we could say we were at home on the Wii."%Gallery-2064%
Nintendo raining on EA's Mii Parade
One of our astute readers was just speculating in the My Sims DS comments thread about why EA didn't use Miis in My Sims, especially given that the Sims as they appear are very similar to Miis, and now we have an answer: Nintendo is being stingy! According to a quote in Next Generation from a producer at EA named Eric Chartrand, Nintendo hasn't let any of its third-party friends have development tools for integrating Miis into their software. Whether this means they haven't yet or they won't is still unknown.Nintendo not cooperating with third parties... this sounds familiar somehow. We hope this isn't an ominous portent for the future of non-Nintendo games.The Next-Gen article is not just about Miis, although they do figure into the whole idea about user-created avatars and content as a step into, and reaction to, the Web 2.0 participatory culture. It's a pretty good read.[Via NeoGAF]
My Sims coming to US
My Sims, EA's designed-for-Japan take on their amazingly popular franchise, is coming to the US, and bringing its strangely Servbot-esque characters along! We actually weren't sure we'd see this one, since it was made expressly for Japanese audiences.They've set up a web page for the localized release, with an English trailer and screenshots. Strangely, the website doesn't seem to distinguish between the Wii and DS versions at all, and between the simple art style and EA's too-perfect screenshots, we can't tell which one we're looking at, if not both. Therefore, we decree that the game either looks fantastic on DS or not that great on Wii!We're ... kind of looking forward to The Sims again! What a nostalgic feeling. We'll try to remember this feeling in a couple of months when we're rolling our eyes at My Sims Pets Go to College Expansion 2: New Dorm Furniture for Rock Stars!!![Via Joystiq]
EA announces My Sims for US release on Wii and DS
Remember that whacky, Japanese-centric version of The Sims that EA cooked up for the Wii? Well, they finally got around to announcing it for us! MySims will be making its way to the Nintendo Wii and DS this Fall and boy are we ever excited. Ever since The Urbz (Serious question: Does anyone even remember The Urbz?) The Sims have been due for a serious makeover. Turning them into adorable, toy-like kiddies seems like a step in the right direction. At least until we get over that whole "Uncanny Valley" nonsense, anyways. EA also launched a new website to promote the game where you can view an English language version of the original trailer. Check out the screenshots below and start hoping for some sort of WiFi Connect gameplay to pop up in the months to come. %Gallery-1810%
