Breaking Sims 3 News

Sims 3 Announced

It's official: Maxis is hard at work on Sims 3, the next major step forward in the greatest selling PC game series of all time. While a ton of details have been revealed through various interviews with major gaming publications and PC Gamer, a few really caught our eye.

• Personality points (sloppy/neat, shy/outgoing, etc.) are gone, since middle-of-the-road characters tended to be rewarded and sims with personality were shortchanged. Those points have been replaced with a pool of eighty traits (Kleptomaniac, Nervous Around Wallpaper, Big Mel Gibson Fan) which you can choose from to create the exact Sim you want.
  
• The entire neighborhood ages along with the household that you're playing. Instead of being surrounded by the asshole neighbors that time forgot, you are now constantly reminded that we are all temporary meatbags that begin rotting away the moment we're born.
• You can now interact directly with the world, using your "magic hand" to clean up after a Sim so he or she doesn't scrub the floor for three hours while crying every day. It can also be used to ring the doorbell at all hours of the night and dial 911 for absolutely no reason.
  
• No more juggling the Bathroom/Environment/Sleep/Hunger bars. They have been removed, and a new system "buffs" your sim with temporary effects when something in particular makes him unhappy. For example, if your sim has to urinate he will receive the "Full Bladder" buff until he relieves himself, which grants him a -2 critical hit chance against bugbears.

It's nice to see that Maxis is taking the Sims in a new direction. It would have been easy for them to milk the cash cow indefinitely by relying on the same old formula.

First Seventeen Sims 3 Expansion Packs Announced

With so many exciting details emerging, it was easy to miss Maxis' confirmation that the first seventeen expansion packs for Sims 3 are in the works.

While the specifics of each expansion are still under wraps, we did manage to uncover a few of the packs' titles: Sims 3: Dog Houses!, Sims 3: More Yawning Animations, Sims 3: Mexican Soap Opera Costumes, Sims 3: Slightly Racist Thought Bubbles, Sims 3: Nonstop Compulsive Texting, Sims 3: More Dog Houses!, Quake V, Sims 3: Home Mortgage Crisis, Sims 3: Papercuts, and Sims 3: Jokes For Your Sims That Go Absolutely Nowhere.

Today In Gaming History

March 22nd, 1998 - Warren Spector, the legendary game designer behind Ultima Underworld, System Shock, and Deus Ex, is born.

Spaceforce: Captains
Captain, our force has received a space message from another captain - a force has placed space in danger and only a force with a captain can stop it! 2/10

City Life 2008
The perfect advertisement for property in the suburbs and countryside. 3/10

Condemned 2: Bloodshot
So scary that if the game didn't already take place on Planet Solar Eclipse, I'd recommend playing through it with your eyes closed. 8/10

Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas 2
If Rainbow Six doesn't completely clear the infestation this time around, Las Vegas might want to consider renting a crop duster and spraying Las Vegas with anti-terrorist spray. 8/10

Turning Point: Fall Of Liberty
The game asks "What if Winston Churchill had died before World War II?", but a much more interesting alternate history to work with would have been "Several years ago this company began making a game that was actually fun". 3/10

PDC World Championship Darts 2008
Just as Wii Sports was responsible for impaled television screens, PDC World Championship Darts 2008 will be held responsible for dented dart boards. 2/10

Ninja Gaiden Dragon Sword
A fantastic - if not difficult - installment in the series that can only be faulted for prolonging the relevance of lame "ninja humor" in popular culture for a few more months. 8/10

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Ring Of Fates
If removing the "someone has to carry a bucket instead of having fun" mechanic improved this game so much, imagine how awesome Dirge Of Cerberus could have been if they removed absolutely everything and sold a blank disc. 8/10

– Dennis "Corin Tucker's Stalker" Farrell (@DennisFarrell)