Slashdot Mirror
Sims University Ships in March
Gamespot is reporting that EA has pinned the launch date for the first Sims 2 expansion at March 1st, with the game being in stores on the 3rd. Gamespot also has an interview with the producer discussing new gameplay options, and the first official trailer. From the interview: "We expect the college experience for a single sim to last about double the length of the teen life span. But a single sim won't necessarily be able to experience all that college has to offer, so we anticipate that players will bring multiple sims to college and play them in very different ways."
hope the makers release an easy to use object editor. the mods and objects are what kept me going on the original sims game.
Virtual Ramen, Macaroni and Cheese, and hangovers!
Actually, since the wife is a rabid sims fan, I've been watching this, and I'm actually pretty impressed with what EA is doing in this expansion compared to the original sims expansions. They're actually adding a whole new life stage (young adult) in to the game, and more career paths upon a sim completing the college piece. Very spiff.
How Jaded Are You?
EA has pinned the launch date for the first Sims 2 expansion at March 1st
So that means the programmers have been in crunch time for, what, the last 8 months?
-Adam
Jimmie: "Like, I thought I was playing Sims University all those months, It, like, turned out I was accidentally connected to the University of Phoenix Online. Had no idea until this diploma came in the mail yesterday, dude!"
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
is it strange that I'm looking forward to this despite actually being in university?
this sig has been discontinued.
When I read this post, I started thinking.
I just got out of college a few months back. And it made me chuckle.. "heh, now I can go back and play a virtual version of what I suffered through for five years".
The more I thought, the more this whole idea seems vaguely.. disturbing. You have this game (which is a very nice game, I admit), which is being constantly tweaked to become a closer and closer approximation to actual IRL social life.
What's the point of playing a game, whose whole point is to simulate real life to better and better degree?
I'll take a stab at it: The Sims provides an arena where you can simulate social interactions which are not possible, or are hard in the real world. You can create a character and make him be a doctor.. and it might take two weeks of play in the game.. but it would take 5 years, lots of money, and hundreds of sleepless nights in real life.
But the thing I've noticed with these games is.. to get anywhere significant, you need to invest valuable time. So you're taking time away from your real world interactions, to put into virtual interactions. But these aren't just any virtual interactions.. they're virtual interactions whose main appeal is that they model, in a close a way as is currently feasible, real social interactions.
This loop-de-loop, the whole snake-eating-it-own-tail imagery that it evokes, somehow just doesn't sit right with me.
Or maybe I'm completely wrong about this observation. Maybe the REAL appeal is the ability to play god. Maybe it's actually more like interactive storytelling (To me, storytelling is essentially a way of playing god - you script a literary universe, and its laws, each time you create a story).
You create your own story, and that story's characters, those characters' interactions, all with a little bit of graphical help. That interpretation of the Sims' attraction seems a lot less sinister than my first interpretation.
I still havn't decided. But I think it's very interesting to think about how these games relate to society, social interactions, as well as what kind of effect they will have on the real-life interactions between people.
Anyway, I don't have an argument to make.. but I'd like to invite people to post their thoughts about this.
Thanks.
-Laxitive
Boycott them!
I'm serious this time..
We all know how they treat their employees, yet we all rush to get the latest game from them.
What the hell is wrong with you people?
I'm surprised they haven't made Sims Sims.
Give your sim a copy of the Sims, or some random MMORPG, and watch them sit around all day playing it and ignoring their friends and loved ones. You can train your sim to make his sims fall in love and form a functional family-- or you can make him an evil bastard that locks them in a room until they pee themselves! Oh, what fun!
Right. Carry on...
Hate me!
sweeeet. can i play as a sim that's too busy playing sims to study? (..who's playing a sim too busy playing sims to study... ad infinitum)
Next up: Sims Gone Wild - College Spring Break
Will we get 'The.Sims.2.2.in.1' 22 expansions?!
I don't think it would be very fun to watch your Sim be promising throughout grade school, then sit around in his tiny dorm room, occasionally going to classes, constantly on his computer or masturbating or watching cartoons, until he flunks out the second semester. Man, what a depressing game The Sims is. Also, life.
I'm on a road shaped like a figure eight; I'm going nowhere but I'm guaranteed to be late.
put a sim through college, then when he graduates, make SimEA hire him.
Watch him become irremediably ill and depressive when all he gets is all work and no play.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!