After 10 Hours Of The Sims 3

I like the body modification thing: You get fat by eating too much and you get thin by excercising:



The sceneries are amazing. Mostly the game looks like The Sims 2.



A sim can tutor someone when they are skillfull enough.



Most of the textures, clothes, hairs and accessories are fugly, but with a little work, you can get pretty decent furniture and clothes:



What is cool:

Music by Steve Jablonsky (though it sounds too simmy, not Jablonsky-ish)
Enabling/disabling aging from the options
Semi-dynamic lighting
Scenery on both neighborhoods
Waves
45 degree angles
Half-grid (the old grid is cut in four parts, so you'll have more options when decorating)
Sim lifespan from 30 days to epic 960 sim days, choosable from the options
Amount of free will (but they still are idiots)
The graveyard
The gnomes
The opportunities
Characteristics

What is not cool:

Jobs
Playing another family in the same "game" is too difficult for beginners
Transportation is not as cracked up as they let us believe
Recycled models
Too little everything unless you want to buy them from the EA shop (for way more than they are worth)
Vegetation is half-life type sprite stuff. Fugly and the sprite thing is very noticeable
Too much of your day goes to hygiene and eating (unless you buy traits)
Relationships are too hard

Cheat codes:

kaching - 1k
motherlode - 50k
familyfunds - any k
hideheadlines on/off - hides everything from above their heads
jokePlease - prints a lame joke on the console
testingcheatsenabled true/false - use shift + mouse on the mail box, there are some good options, like "make all happy" that will fulfill their needs
hideobjects on/off - objects won't fade when you're zooming closer
help - (on build/buy mode) shows most cheats


What's best: You can get The Sims 3 for only 29.99 from Play.com (but you must pay £, if you pay with €, it's more expensive.

EA Approves Sims 2 Donation Sites

EA approves Sims 2 donation sites..

At least in my opinion. Today I came across to a Sims 2 fan site named Holy Simoly that announced it's second creator was invited by EA to play Sims 3. In my opinion, that's their statement that selling that stuff is okay. By inviting someone that sells stuff they have the rights, I say it's announcing they don't care. Or that they care more. I bet there are some studies telling how the amount of available custom content raises the chance to sell expansion and stuff packs. Well, at least, it was. Since it's time for Sims 3.

Today I found a pre-order Sims 3 that included a plumbbob usb memory. I so wanted that. But the salesperson didn't know the price for the game. He said it's now in 60 euros and it will probably rise a bit. I hope they crack the game soon, cause I sure as hell am NOT paying 60+ euros a game. Geez, I thought Fallout 3 was expensive. Sims 3 doesn't even look much different from 2. The furniture is ugly as hell - again and the clothes ever fuglier. What the hell are those people? 90? Floral and animal patters ARE OUT FOR GOOD!

Overpriced games remind me of Left 4 Dead. I was among the first who heard about it and was expecting it all excited, but then I got my hands on the demo and found out it looked like shit and it was boring after an hour. I could have bought that to play with some friends, but the price tag.. Jesus christ, $45!! It looks like a Half Life mod for geez sake!

Missed The Geminides & A Few Words About Mansion/Garden

So, I've been waiting another year for the Geminides meteor shower to arrive. And the weather HAD to suck, of course, so I missed the maximum. I'm not angry, just furious.

The Sims 2 Mansion & Garden Stuff: RIP-OFF! Do NOT waste your money on it. You'll get a few decent plants, but: They won't match seasons -> will not wilt in winter. The rest of it is bull. No trees (WTF?), just a few indoor plants and useless, ugly items, such as a weird horse-type statue. I found only a few usable items, the windows and doors were mostly ugly (recolors needed!) and the Apartment Life "bugfix" f*cked up my game because I use a lot of annoyance-removing hacks and these hacks were broken because eAxis decided to break everything - again.

I've had a day of disappointments today. Well, yesterday.

An Open Letter To Josh Groban

Dear Josh,

The thing you did at the Emmy's...

It cracked me up. It was great! I had the best laugh for weeks! Anyone who said you shouldn't have done it are uptight cu*ts! You always sing these doo-do-loo-la-la-lovey-dovey -songs and that was a breath of clean air! You actually can sing other than pretty churchy songs too! Awesome! Amazing! I'm not a fan of yours, I don't even like more than two of your songs but your v-log gave me the impession you're not this pure little cute church-boy and I LIKE IT! A little bad boy in your image would do great!

I also think that you could ditch your eyeglasses to something more.. umm.. less gay. Check out the Police Eyewear, they'll look great on you. Try V 8270 for starters and fire your stylist for letting you wear those hideous Dame Edna things.

Also, I'm going to be stealing your song to make a Sims 2 video, hope you'll forgive me and not sue. Tell that to your label too.

What else..? Oh, right. I have never-ever-ever though of you as something more than the too-good-awkward neighbor boy type, but your late night kitchen blog made me think what kind of a kisser you are. Than I remembered how young you are and I realized I probably wouldn't get to try unless I became a Natalie Portman myself. Anyway.

Are you gay? I don't mind if you are, I just want to say that the womanhood is missing something in you. If you aren't, don't marry. Or at least do a prenup.

Here's the JG v-log embedded for you few readers:


Late Night Kitchen Time from Josh Groban on Vimeo.

Music Video With The Sims 2

I made this little sappy video for Lostprophets' 4am Forever. Sorry for stealing the song, guys!



This is for the boy who was my first love. He didn't have the courage to live his life. He drowned himself 11 years and a month ago today. Most of the things actually happened except that we never got married :)

My Little Sims Castaway Stories Review

There is only one story to play, but you can choose if you want to play it as a male or a female. I played the female. After you finish the story mode, the freeplay neighborhood will be unlocked. To try the storymode with another character, you'd have to remove the folder from Documents & Settings..

The story mode was a bit too easy and way too short. Someone less familiar with the Sims might find some more challenge there, but for an old addict such as myself, the game was just a way to spend a few hours.

The thing that annoys me most with these Stories - games, is the definite storyline. I had no influence on what was going on and that - to be honest - sucks. For now, Castaway Stories will be the last for the Stories - games, but I would hope they'd make a bit complex story system if another Stories will be available.

The items were - again - mostly ripped from the Sims 2 too. The good thing - however - is the fact that mAxis went through the trouble of bringing Sims Castaway for PS3 to us PC owners too.
Some of the new objects were excellent and the whole concept was much more entertaining than Life Stories. Reward system was good, but I would've excepted something more "useful" such as an unlockable resource tree. Mostly the rewards and gifts were useless.

They should have added a couple more stories to play to keep the "I-got-ripped-of-my-cash-again" - bogeyman out of our minds..

I spent a happy six hours playing the Sims Castaway Stories. As with Life Stories, do not buy it if you already own the Sims 2 and you own a computer that can handle the very "heavy" game. Sims Life Stories is NOT worth the price, so you better save the money from SCS and buy the new upcoming expansion, Free Time (if you - of course - own Sims 2). However, If you own a laptop and you're not as addicted as myself, go and buy SCS. It will be some entertaining. Please take a note that the minimun requirements are a joke, it needs at least 1gig memory and a 2,8 mobility CPU. I played this with a high-end PC and sometimes I lost my nerves because I'd need a RAID system for my hard drives to make the game read stuff more faster...

NOTE: I found out that The Sims 2 compatible objects (non-expansion - that is) can be imported to the game the same way as with the Sims 2 objects are imported except for the utilities such as fridges and stuff. And there's no TV, I suppose. These objects need to be unique meshes with their own unique ID's and their recolors. The cheats are not accessible in the storymode, but some Sims 2 compatible hacked objects and hacks do work, such as Merola's Sims' Hacked painting.

Travian

Currently I'm playing Travian. I'm quite hooked on it, so this might be a little longer project than I first believed it could be..

I'm currently playing on four different servers in three different languages and just might want to start a game on a French server, though my skills on that language are rather vague.

I made my first hack to sims 2. I changed the Mystery Sim memory to "I met Jamie" and made a nice little icon to that.. The name Jamie can be used on male and a female, so it saved me a lot of trouble to try to bind names to certain sex. And sims can be gay too, so that would add just too much trouble.

I'm off to bed now. I've been sitting on the computer for two whole days (because of the heavy rain we're getting and going out is a call for flu) and I have slept five hours in the last 46 hours. I'm feeling - drunk - for some reason.

My favorite Sims 2 -sites

http://sims-2.gameslife.ru/
http://mangosims2.free.fr/
http://www.aroundthesims2.com/
http://www.pimp-my-sims.com/
http://www.raonsims.com/
http://www.holysimoly.com/
http://www.muranomobilia.com/
http://www.modthesims2.com/

Happy Simming ;)

My Little Sims Life Stories Review

There are two stories to play: Riley's and Vincent's. I started with Riley's story beacuse it unlocks Vincent's and I didn't feel like free gameplay. I played Riley's story through in little less than four hours. There were a few nice twists and turns, but for a person who's played the Sims since it was first launched in Europe (and Sims 2 after that), it was too easy and too short. Someone less familiar with the Sims legacy might find some more challenge there. Vincents' story took me about three hours, a bit less - maybe. Not to spoil the surprise, but I really liked the sort of funny ending in Vincent's story!

The thing that annoyed me most was the definite storyline. I had no influence on what was going on and that - to be honest - sucks. You knew what was about the happen.

The items were mostly ripped from the Sims 2 too. The good thing - however - is the fact that they went through the trouble of making new wallpapers and stuff. The objects that are received as gifts were nice and being rewarded all through the story was good.

I also find it weird-ish that Sims Life Stories seems to run on Sims 2 "lite" engine. They only have removed some stuff (like the gardener and decaying flowers) and left most of the bugs there. The idiotisms still excist: the things-to-do queue got flushed away when something happened (needs a hack, someone!), the guests went straight to the refrigerator even though the buffet table was stocked and many, many others .

They should have added a couple more stories to play to keep the "I-got-ripped-again" - boogeyman out of our minds..

...Or was this just another scheme to fool us poor addicts to spend our last dollars to buy yet another buggy EA-money-making game..

The test-settings:
CPU: P4 3,4GHz HT +Zalman CNPS9500 LED
PSU: 400W Be Quiet Straightpower
Memory: PC3200 1,5GB
Motherboard: ASUS P4V800D-X
Hard Drive(s): 1x300GB Seagate Barracuda SATA 7200rps
Video Card: MSI RX1950PRO, 256MB
Display: 1152x864 100Hz

My PC isn't the worst of them all, but still: the same issues caused terrible lags. All the settings full it took a lot of memory (over 250000kb), but I noticed a slight decrease in the CPU usage compared to Sims 2 (and all the expansions and stuff sets I have). But one must remember this game is MEANT to run on mobility CPU's, so their game experience might be a bit better than mine..

So, Sims Life Stories offers you a good way to spend a few hours but that's about it.
Do not buy it if you already own the Sims 2 and you own a computer that can handle the very "heavy" game. Sims Life Stories is NOT worth the price, so you better save the money from SLS and buy the new upcoming expansion, Seasons.. However, If you own a laptop and you're not as addicted as myself, go and buy SLS. Please take a note that the minimun requirements are a joke, it needs at least 1gig memory, 2,8 mobility CPU and a laptop with no internet connection, firewall and antivirus.

NOTE: I found out that The Sims 2 compatible objects (non-expansion - that is) can be imported to the game the same way as with the Sims 2 objects are imported. These objects need to be unique meshes with their own unique ID's and their recolors. Maxian recolors don't seem to work. I haven't tested the objects in the storymode yet. The cheats are not accessible in the storymode, but the freeplay mode is okay with the old ctrl-shit-c help -all -thingy.

Dark thoughts today

I'm worried for my pet iguana. More than I'm worried about myself. What if he dies? How could I ever look at his terrarium empty, though most of the time I can't stand the little thing he does. How can one hate and love someone the same time? Iggy is sick and needs to be taken to a vet again. The last time he went was a week ago. I hate vets, maybe because sometimes pets taken to a vet will never come back and I don't want to give the terminal sentence to my pet. He's too little and too green to be put to sleep.

I know that if that day comes, that he's too sick to be cured, I will let him go. Right now I wouldn't even want to think of it.

It's fall, finally. Now I can say it, because it has been very cold for days and the leaves are turning yellow. I miss the real colors, though - Red and orange. But it has to be very cold at night - below zero - for the leaves to turn red.

It's two days to the release of Sims 2 Nightlife. Bet I won't sleep the night before that.

"This is how you remind me of what I really am."

Something Stupid..

Today is the international Women's Day. Well, J didn't remember it - he never remembers anything. He didn't even remember we have been together for four years, not three, as he told his cousin who lives in California. At least he knows when it's my birthday.

I've been playing the Sims 2 for the whole last week. I didn't even go out as I had fever almost every day. So I've been more or less sick for three weeks now. Last night I had fever too, but I decided to come to school today anyway. The reason? The cutest teacher I've ever seen. He's not really THAT goodlooking, but he has a speech defect. He cannot say the letters "r" and "s" properly, but I think that's the fact that makes him so cute. And it makes people to listen to what he says. That's not a good reason to attend classes, but hey - at least I'm here. AND forgot to take my assignment with me.

Oh, went to see Constantine. Great movie, lots of fun. All the reviews were about it sucking hard, but I simply loved it! I had to see it twice, though I don't like Rachel Weisz). And Keanu Reeves still looks hot. HOT. HOT!

A Perfect Yesterday

Yes,

My yesterday was even better than I thought. More good things about yesterday: I met my good friend L, I went shopping with J (and almost shoplifted a pair of gloves from H&M - thank God we noticed it right outside the shop. I wonder why there wasn't an alarm device in the gloves.), went to see our friend who returned from Japan a few months ago. He made us espressos', we watched a movie called Dragonheart (I cried in the end - and I've seen at least 20 times) and the best, best, best part of the day was onii-giri. I'm not sure how it's supposed to be written, but just to make sure everyone understands it's a triangle made of rice. Usually it is packed with shrimps and fish sauce and the third part I can't remember but as I'm allergic I got the non-fishy version with only rice and some sesame seeds. It was my first onii-giri and I was so happy the whole evening. I've wanted to taste Onii-giri since I was like-what- 14 and now my wish came true.

At home I played the Sims 2 (thank God it's not crashing anymore) and went to bed by midnight. My eczema got itchy and I decided I'm not going to scratch in my sleep. So I'm still awake and soon heading to school. The rest of the night I worked on some JAVA stuff I have to return by thursday morning. And I've only done like half. And drank 3 XLarge cups of coffee. I bet by the time I get to school I'm ready to sleep by the computer.