The Sims Medieval is a more or less directed game, pointing you in certain story developments to get you further in the game. You have to aim at completing your ambition (at some point), through mini games and quests, although you can put it off for a while.

There are many limitations in the game, such as no build mode and just one choice for the kingdom area, which make you sacrifice quite a bit of the freedom you may be used to from The Sims 3. Therefore it seems that The Sims Medieval is most interesting for new players of the Sims franchise – similar to the Sims Stories series for The Sims 2. Seasoned players may find the game too limited. To increase the replay value of the game, you can continuously start over with a new kingdom and new ambition, but at some point I expect you’ll have “been there, done that.”

Nevertheless the style of the game, even in these somewhat early stages of development, makes an immersive medieval setting. It is an entirely different style compared to the modern Sims we have seen until now, which makes for a nice variation. Also having the quests probably makes the game more suitable for shorter game sessions, in which you just complete a single quest.

continuing reading The Sims Zone’s preview of Medieval from GamesCom 2010

One of the core new features Late Night introduces is that your Sims can become celebrities. Your Sims will have a score of up to five celebrity stars. To achieve these stars, you have to gain points by socializing with more famous celebrities or working on your career. The higher up you are in the career ladder, the more famous you will be.

The celebrity theme isn’t complete without a movie career, which this pack adds. You can either pursue to become a famous actor/actress or even a movie director. If you’re luck you may also win some awards. The musician career is also being improved, although I am unsure in what way exactly.

Being a celebrity will give you some benefits, like random gifts from fans, but also the usual drawbacks. Papparazzi stakeout around your home stalking you. If you behave badly and it’s spotted, a scandal may hunt you. You can choose to sue the papparazzi at the city hall, and hope for the best, or just bribe the papparazzi and hope nothing leaks out. The third and final option: lose some of your fame score.

continuing reading The Sims Zone’s preview of Late Night from GamesCom 2010

]]> http://www.simprograms.com/24367/the-sims-zone-previews-the-sims-3-late-night-from-gamescom-2010/feed/ 0 http://www.simprograms.com/24364/darkspore-preview-featured-in-sept-issue-of-gameinformer-pc-gamer/ http://www.simprograms.com/24364/darkspore-preview-featured-in-sept-issue-of-gameinformer-pc-gamer/#comments Fri, 03 Sep 2010 00:59:33 +0000 Judhudson http://www.simprograms.com/?p=24364 DarkSpore is hitting the rounds of various gaming magazines!  Check out the September issue of GameInformer as well as PC Gamer for exclusive previews on Maxis’ latest game due out February of 2011!  If anyone happens to have the magazine, please let me know what new details were said.  Thanks!

Thanks to Skyline from Simmers News for the tip!

• Loud, Fast, Clash! (consists of Bedroom and Attire) – 37 items @ 1800 SimPoints
• Oktoberfest Celebration – 8 items @ 500 SimPoints
• Speedy Styles – 4 items (FREE)
• More Halloween Treats – 5 items (FREE)
• Halloween Treats (last years) – 6 items (FREE)

Once again, this proves how out of touch I am with the music of today…

* Note – it’s very possible that EW got the list mixed up, as we heard 3OH!3′s “Double Vision” in the Late Night trailer.  However, I can only report what I am given, so for the time being this is what they have to say.

Sims can get married and bring up children. But this time around your sim will not die of old age and children will not grow up and leave home. The Sims characters can also participate in a duel. The demonstration showed me the Knight and king in a fighting tournament. Once the duel begins you can control what moves the King makes. They will fight until their health and stamina each reach zero.

On the screen, I’m briefly shown various rooms including the Kings Throne room and, off to the side, a selection of meeting rooms. These rooms are here for appointments and occasionally to entertain visiting diplomats. Inside one of the King’s rooms is a scribe table at which he sits and writes out proclamations which he  can then read out to the people of the kingdom.

read on

The controls in this game are pretty similar to Spore. I was a bit nervous while playing, but it felt pretty comfortable right after I started, because I had the experience from Spore already. And if you’re not a Spore player but are still eager to try Darkspore, don’t worry, you’ll get those controls under control pretty quickly. You just left click the mouse to walk somewhere and right click to shoot an enemy! Switching between creatures and weapons isn’t hard either. There are special shortcut keys on the keyboard you can use. That makes swapping creatures very easy, even in the heat of the battle.

Some fun facts about Darkspore; when in the creature creator, you can use flare parts. Instead of trading in old parts for parts with better stats, you can remove the abilities from the old part and just keep it on your creature. This means you can use these parts for the looks rather than the abilities. This gives you the opportunity to use more parts to build your creature!

When you play the game you will also get your own profile page at Darkspore.com. This is where you will be able to show off all the awards you got when playing the game. As you play the game you will gain experience, with which you can unlock new heroes to start playing with. Your experience is tracked per player, so getting a new hero doesn’t mean you have to start from scratch again to make him stronger. It also doesn’t matter where you play: as soon as you log in to the game, it will load your creatures, even if it is a completely different PC.

continue reading SNW’s preview on DarkSpore

As it’s the middle ages, Sims can become sick. There is some sort of plague, and in the quests I mentioned sometimes it’s your Sims job to cure people. Other times you get quests where you have to spy on Sims. You’ll get to add new sections to buildings. These sections then unlock actions. When a Sim is sick, in this case it was the monarch, you will have to contact other Sims to fix the problem. You have a choice between the wizard (who will use magic to cure the person), priest (who will try to bless the person which will then hopefully cure the person) or you can try the physician (who might find a medical solution to the problem). It’s like this with many quests. You are presented a problem and you need to find a way to solve it. There are often more choices to choose from. You can guide the story. When completing quests, you earn these special Kingdom Points. You can then use these points to expand the kingdom, to unlock new things, like additions to buildings and quests.

continue reading SNW’s preview of The Sims Medieval

New objects I think are worth the mention are the new musical instruments. I was so disappointed the base game didn’t have the piano anymore. But lucky for me, and everyone else who missed this item, the piano is back! There’s also a grand piano, keyboard, bass guitar and drums. All of these instruments come with new music tracks. All the musical instruments can be developed like other skills.

I spotted a lot of connecting sofas and chairs, like in Hot Date and Nightlife. Actually, some of the connecting sofas are exact replicas from the ones we’ve had in Nightlife. The hot tubs are back. There’s a really cool hot tub you can place in the ground. In the neighborhood, there are parking spots for food carts. Random food carts will appear, like a hot dog cart for example. I absolutely love this idea. Worth a mention are the arcade machines! Old skool!

There is a window like fish tank. Your Sims will be able to enjoy the nice view, but there is no need to feed the fishies. They won’t ever die! It’s too bad we weren’t allowed to take any pictures. I would have loved to show you this in the wall fish tank.

continue reading SNW’s preview of The Sims 3 Late Night