Sims 3 has been my ‘game of choice’ this week before deadlines hit me hard for work and I’ll barely have time to do anything else, and I’ve had a blast playing. It started out simple enough. I created one Sim and started working on her career. When she was established in that, I started getting her out and involved with the community and meeting other Sims. She eventually fell in love and (thanks to the fertility goal) had twins, two baby girls.

Things started to get complicated after that, and it was actually the first time in any of my sims adventures that I controlled a whole household instead of just one sim. Much like others out there, I enjoyed making the decisions so much in day-to-day activities that I decided it would just be easier to control one sim and let them do their thing, instead of actually raising a family.

Having four sims to control was actually turning out to be a LOT of fun. I do allow them to have a mind of their own and so from time to time they do their own thing, but the majority of the time I’d say it’s still me who’s controlling what they’re doing. Watching sims interact with one another has been especially fun – and I have to say the way children are handled in the game are amazing. The sim children develop traits from both the mother and father, as well as appearance qualities. If you don’t raise them ‘properly’ and give them the qualities they need in life (like walking, talking, and potty training) they can develop bad traits. One of the sim babies had a particularly horrific upbringing, so she developed the evil trait, and takes sinister baths and cackles randomly. The other sim child had an ok upbringing and she turned into a vegetarian. I forgot this, and called the family to a meal of hotdogs. Woops. That poor sim spent more time in the bathroom getting sick then my mother sim did when she was pregnant with the twins.

Even the pregnancy of a sim is involved. You have a choice of giving birth at a hospital or at home. You watch your sims body change, watch them get morning sickness. They get a few days off work and you watch their back cramp in pain. Nothing like the real thing of course, but it’s fun to see just how detailed everything is.

When the twins were just newborn sims things were really complicated. Especially since all they did (literally) was eat, sleep, cry, and poop. As they’ve ‘grown up’ and developed a personality and traits it’s slowed down some what, and it’s a comfortable pace for a game (for me in any case). I couldn’t see myself having any more then two at a time though, it just gets too complicated with the decisions and choices that have to be made. As the sim children grow the quality of their homework will determine any other negative or positive traits that they’ll inherit. I can take a look at my family tree, and I like watching it grow. Eventually my two adult sims will grow old (and eventually die) while their two girls will carry on the line.

Another aspect I love to sims is how open it is with the ‘family’ concept. It doesn’t matter if you’re gay, live with 5 women or any other combination of sims. You may not be able to get pregnant from your sim partner but you CAN always choose the ‘adopt’ choice from the list of services available. The game really is all about choice, and that’s fantastic.

You’ll have to excuse my messy house in the picture above, heh. Still teaching the sim kids how to clean up after themselves. Oh. Be careful with the ‘tinker’ ability, too. It’s been known to kill the president.

Being a big Sims fan, I knew it wouldn’t be long before I picked up their latest expansion – World Adventures. I had heard a lot of negative comments about this expansion, mostly about bugs. Basically it allows your families to plan vacations to three locations (for a cost of course). Once you start playing with it, it’s a lot more involved. You can invite foreigners to visit and learn about their country. You can learn songs and foods from them. You can choose the length of your stay in these locations but you’ll need visa points if you want to stay for any length of time. You can eventually also purchase a vacation home in one of these posh locations.

My first trip was to China (pictured above) and not only can you visit, but there are adventures for your sim to take part in. You stay at what is known as “home base” which is basically a hostel, it includes beds, food and bathrooms as well as lots of other visitors to get to know.

You can pick up an adventure from a huge sign outside, and then you’ll want to stock up. You’ll want to take some rations with you as well as a tent and maybe a few other odds and ends. My first adventure sent me to an ancient tomb, the vacation was only three days long and cost my one sim (he left the family at home) $1600 or so.

Unlike previous versions of the sims, the adventures are like little mini quests – and I had a LOT of fun doing them. It was like playing EQ2, but sims version. My little sim had to find keys to unlock doors, wander through a tomb and complete puzzles to move onto the next stage. He had to explore tunnels, get rid of rubble, dive under water and swim through caves, all to find fame and treasures. You can earn ancient coins which are used in special markets to pick up relics for your home, and there’s a LOT to do. I did experience one bug when I first loaded up the zone, but once I restarted the game it ran just fine.

I haven’t figured out how to work the whole visa points / upgrade system yet, nor could I figure out where to purchase a tent for the adventure (my sim ended up sleeping on a bench outside the tomb for the night, he was just that tired) but I had an absolute blast playing. Of course now that the vacation is over he’s got to get back to his regular job so that he can afford the next one. I’m going to try to bring the family along next and we’ll see how that goes. Maybe Egypt.

My sim family has grown by leaps and bounds since I reinstalled windows 7. I started from scratch, with one little sim woman who eventually got married and had twins. Oy. Don’t pick the fertility goal just as a heads up.

The twins (Jessica and Emily) are growing up and are in elementary school now, since both my parent sims work and the children have school a lot of time is spent sleeping, and working on homework. Why on earth I would be amused with a video game that replicates real life I have no idea, but I’ve been playing it fairly steady the last few days. I guess it’s a nice representation of a “dream world” where you can make $1000 an hour and work three days a week.

Oh yeah, and the graphics are absolutely amazing. Every time I play I’m astounded and amused by some little tiny detail that I didn’t notice before. Like when the twins were growing up, they frequently picked their nose and squealed in delight as they flung it some where in their cribs.

Ha.

During the week I have very little choice in what games I play. I need to write about certain ones, or I need to prepare for an article, or I need to familiarize myself with it. Where I used to play video games for fun as a hobby, it turned into work, and thus I have been slightly less inclined to play on the weekends because of this. I am sure that would be true for anyone in my position. One thing I’ve done to ‘entice’ myself on weekends to still find the things I love in games is to make sure there are a few around that I play ‘only for me’ and not for work. Dragon Age, Sims 3, the Lord of the Rings Online, and a few other games I have fit into that category.

I spent pretty much all weekend playing Sims 3, and I had so much fun. The game is so involved compared to the older versions, and I giggled and laughed over their antics. I also went out to EBGames (after some groceries and other chores of course) and picked up the latest expansion, World Adventures. I installed it, and then barely touched it because I was still having so much fun completing the goals in the first game.

While I was at EBGames, I also found a collectors edition copy of the Lord of the Rings Online for $10! Wow, what a deal. This comes with the original game, the Mines of Moria expansion, a map, a small bag with ‘the one ring’ inside, a poster, a soundtrack CD, an art book, and a few other goodies. Even though I already have a LoTRO account, I’m tempted to start this second one up and close down my first one (my highest character is level 19, which I am fairly confident I could reach again). Maybe I can find a friend who would like the first account and they won’t have to purchase the game (or Mirkwood, as I’ve already bought that) and they can just take over the billing, who knows.

In any case, it was a great weekend, with lots of gaming but not the usual games I play. I did get some more EQ2 time in, and worked on a few achievements as well as finishing off the Chronomagic quest from Sunday which was Acadachism. I didn’t get the three final aa that I need, nor did I work on NaNoWriMo at all, which means today I’m well behind. Hoping to take care of that as soon as I post this entry.

Happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!

Yesterday morning I was heading into Aion to get some work done, but alas the game was down for patches. So I decided to turn to Fallen Earth – which was also down for patches until 5pm EST. Dang it! With all of my regular choices down, I had a few options still. I could log into EQ2 which I haven’t really felt the pull of lately (sorry!) or play someone off line. Dragon Age has been taunting me and begging me to play – but something with an even stronger pull, was Sims 3.

I love the sims. I played Sims before I was into any other video games at all. Before I got into MUDS, MMOs, consoles, etc. Sims was the game for me. I even played the Sims Online and started doing online radio shows as my persona “April Love” in the wee hours of the morning. It was fun, though I burned out fast.

Since I recently reinstalled windows on my PC everything from my previous games was wiped. I decided to start over fresh, and I simply had a blast with it.

It’s fun to take control of a world that resembles real life. Why? I’m not exactly sure. It just is. Where in previous versions of the Sims my biggest pull was creating and designing houses and very little actual game play, this time around it’s different. The story pulls me in, the choices I can make and the direction I can set my little Sim off to.

It was a great way to spend the day, and one that I wasn’t expecting. I hadn’t played Sims 3 in quite some time, but EA also released a new expansion (the first) for Sims 3, so I was excited about that. I haven’t decided if I want to pick it up yet, but chances are I will. I don’t want to mess with tradition after all!

Hope everyone has a fantastic Thursday, no matter where you find yourself.

We’re certainly not all perfect (some of us not even remotely close) so when I created my sim I decided to give her the kleptomaniac trait. Along with that trait I chose generosity, and a few others like green thumb and lucky.

Now, my sim likes her free time, a lot. I decided she would quit her full time job, and take a part time job at the book store. This freed a lot of time to work in her garden where I sell fruits and vegetables on the side. Of course growing things can also be pricey at first, so I took a trip to the neighbors house and harvested all of their vegetables for them. It wasn’t as though they were going to use them! Onion and garlic and potato that was far better then anything I had currently growing (tomatoes and apples). My neighbors would never miss them!

That’s how it started. Something small and expendable like veggies and fruit.

Over time, I noticed a few more little ‘things’ went missing when my sim was around. I would send her off to work and she would come home with a ‘free’ stack of magazines. She tried to explain that it was just a perk of the job, but they were clearly marked ‘stolen’. She didn’t even read them but dropped them on the table and went about her business.

Feeling a little lonely I sent her over to the neighbors home again, to talk a little. She was feeling hungry so she helped herself to the microwave food laying around (and was scolded over that) then proceeded to walk from room to room pilfering items when no one was looking. It almost became a game to see how much she could get away with.

That night she came home with a new shower (I’m sure the Roomies won’t miss that!) a box of tissue, and a picture one of the Roomies had hanging on their wall. She had no issues setting up the ‘new’ items in her home (and selling the old shower, it only sprayed cold water anyhow) though she did get a few lifetime requests to return the items, I decided she’d rather not – see, she’s not all bad.

Because she has the generosity trait she has the option to donate to charity (often) and she does. $100 increments here and there, on a fairly steady basis. She also has the ability to brighten people’s days and I try to take advantage of that – so despite the fact that she’s stealing from her neighbours at least she is trying to balance the bad traits out (she can’t help but steal after all – it’s like you spot a shiny in EQ2 just LAYING there even though your group may be in the middle of some big fight, can you pass that up? No, of course not!) and trying to make a difference in the small way that she can.

This time around I turned off the aging feature in the options, because I didn’t want my sim to die – a little odd I know but I’d like to be able to play for a good length of time and see what I can work her up to. I’ve left the story line on, and that at least gives me a little direction.

Amusing story, yesterday she was out in her yard working her garden (a typical chore, they requier a lot of work especially when you have a large number of plants) and she was out there a little too long because her smell became quite unsavory. A neighbour happened to come walking along who she had never met before and he laughed and pointed at her due to the scent. At least she was getting a good day of hard work in! Meanie!

The little quirks and twists and turns that happen in game amuse me, the bits that I have no control over while still having control if that makes any sense. You can try to anticipate how someone is going to react or what is going to go wrong, but you won’t always be 100% correct. That’s what keeps the game fun and interesting to me.

After spending two days in bed due to a particularly nasty gallstone attack I’m feeling far better, and able to sit at the desk again which makes me exceptionally happy. I have completely changed my diet (no meats, no dairy, no sugar, no coffee, clear liquids only, etc) for the next month in an attempt at preventing these attacks completely until I can have my ultrasound and doctors can determine whether or not I need my gallbladder removed. Since the attacks are directly related to what you eat and how much cholesterol is in it this is about all I can do. For anyone out there who has dealt with gallstone attacks before you have my deepest sympathy, this is some of the scariest stuff I have ever had to deal with.

I spent the majority of yesterday (when not sleeping) playing Sims 3 and although at times it chugs a little slow on the laptop it runs fairly well. I learned a few new things.

First of all, my sim-self has a fairly small starter house. Deciding to throw a party with as many people invited as she can possibly add is a bad idea. A very bad idea. The majority of people showed up to the party and then spent a few hours all crammed into my kitchen while my sim-self stood there holding a plate of pancakes, unable to move. People told me I threw a pretty cruddy party and I had to agree, I couldn’t mingle and by the end my sim-self bladder was about to explode. Oh, and thank you whoever it was that broke my sink, because that was just what I needed!

My sim-self also quit her job, after taking on numerous ones in an attempt to find her calling. She tried to be a criminal mastermind for a little while and found the hours too annoying. Plus my first day there the boss asked me to stay late and work for some mafia leaders. I took up gardening which is a pretty neat feature in the game that I enjoy a lot, and promptly quit my job. Why not just create my own farm and sell that at the local grocery store! My meager seeds were not enough though and I headed over to the neighbours house to harvest their plants too. Then I used their garlic, onion, potato, and bell pepper seeds to cultivate my own plants, giving me even more selection. They won’t even notice that they’re gone.

Speaking of which, my sim-self is a kleptomaniac, so if things are missing, well. I can’t help it!

While selling veggies at the local grocery store is fairly good money (I was making 200 a day or so) earning money was still pretty slow. While my sim-self is not THAT hung up on material things, the extra coin is pretty nice, so she took a part time job at the book store a few hours a night. This still gives her lots of time to work on what she wants to do, including a grill-a-thon that the town held in the community park – I was SO CLOSE to winning! Off by one serving of hotdogs and if it wasn’t for the fact that my sim-self had to use the washroom so badly she ignored all other commands, I would have won.

I have noticed one drastic change for me in playing Sims 3 vs. the other sims games. In all of the other games I was a builder. I enjoyed creating and designing the houses far more then I ever enjoyed actually playing a character in game. This time around it’s the opposite, I have spent little to no time building aside from adding a garden and little upgrades here and there – almost all of my time has been spent following my little sim-self along and watching her life. It’s interesting to me, and something that I would not have guessed would change.

The achievement system within the game also appeals to my gamer self, and I find myself aiming for lifetime rewards and goals, something that I previously wouldn’t have cared about.

All in all, it was a great way to spend a few hours, and I’m looking forward to seeing what trouble I can get into today!

A full blog post just isn’t working out for me today, so I’ll keep it short (for once). I didn’t get to play EQ2 at all yesterday due to work, meetings, and other things popping up (brother came down for the day) but I picked up the daily double to do at another time since you can keep them for a number of days. Started a few new games, can’t talk about one yet but I will as soon as I can. Princess (the cat) woke me up at 5:45 instead of 5:30 today, so that’s nice. She’s resorted to chewing apart the same book instead of 20 different ones, another bonus!

Next weekend is the Medieval Festival and work deadlines, so needless to say my posts will be sporadic and disjointed at best over the course of the following seven days. Once that weekend is over things should be able to settle back down to normal, and I won’t appear so harried and frantic. We’ll see!

Happy gaming where ever you play, and have yourselves a fantastic weekend.

Alright, first of all WOW what a week and it’s only Wednesday. I’m feeling 95% better and after having health issues for over a month this is a HUGE deal. It’s fantastic, I’ve been so excited and energetic. Now I just have to keep it up. I’ve been following E3 updates on twitter as well as G4 Tech Tv live, and while personally I’m not a console gamer at all (even though I do own a wii, PS3 and DSi) I am excited about a few things. Kingdom Hearts, Golden sun, a new mario (or two, even though I personally did not like mario galaxy) and who didn’t think the video of The Last Guardian just looked fantastic. Then there’s Natal, and all of the other motion sensor toys coming out, and the new PSP Go. While twitter was filled with some very bitter comments, I tried to keep a positive outlook (as is my way) and remind myself that these are games.

Tipa reminded me that The Dares would be performing in Free Realms across all servers, live from E3 last night, so I quickly made my way into game and ported to her on server 4. It was PACKED. It was the first time I ever experienced lag in Free Realms and we met up with some other bloggers / twitter users which was absolutely fantastic. We danced the night away, and I even picked up one of the concert tshirts for $1 because come on now, you just have to. On the down side while twitter said they played a full set at E3 they only played one song in game, and it was cut short each time, though they did repeat it twice if you stuck around. Still, having friends there made it a massive amount of fun and it was only too easy to see how popular Free Realms had become.

I did spend some time in EQ2 but I didn’t play. I loaded it up on my laptop and hung around in the guild hall chattering to Wpus, Ultann, and Kasul while they went and did all the hard work (mostly crafting and writs) for the evening. On the PC I continued to play Sims 3, I know how embarrassing. Giving up my MMO of choice for an evening to play something as fun silly as Sims. I tried to get to sleep early, the guild is VERY close to level 40 and three more amenity which is just amazing. Ultann has been belting out the writs like they’re being removed from game in the next update (they are not, that was a joke folks).

Thanks to one very kind Kasul I am now holding a copy of Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura which is an RPG that came out in 2001, that follows the Steampunk genre. I had never even heard of it before but when I entered in NeoSteam on GamerDNA this was one of the games they suggested I may enjoy, and it just so happened that Kasul had a copy of it kicking around. Not being an avid gamer myself until these last few years, I’d never even heard of it before. He also sent a copy of Morrowind: The Elder Scrolls III which I’ve never played (despite the game sharing my last name of ‘Morrow’) so I’m looking forward to getting both of those installed on my PC. Sure these game may have seen better years, but I still play EQ happily and that game is 10 years old, so why not.

One last note before I head off to get the morning chores done – have you taken a look at these amazing tinker-themed housing items from EQ2? Holy WOW. I love the selection and any little gnome boy or girl is going to just fall in love with the set. Especially the wall dividers how amazing do those look?! The team has lined up some fantastic goodies for GU52 and I’m really looking forward to it all. I hope everyone has a fantastic Wednesday, in a week and a half the Medieval Festival will be taking place and barring any horrible weather I’ll be there taking pictures again this year – I’m SO excited.

Happy Gaming!

That’s right, I happen to be one of THOSE gamers. I’m not a huge fan of blood and guts, shooting and killing. While there have been some comments in the past that say this is because I’m (gasp) a female gamer, I prefer to think it’s because I’m just not into those sorts of things. I don’t believe that they’re the sort of game that appeals only to men or only to women. I enjoy pvp (though I rarely delve into it these days) and I’d rather do something I personally find more creative and constructive with my time then just grind it away battling creatures. I typically do this via: crafting, decorating, and other creative outlets, especially those involving design. I can’t exactly be too creative when I’m doing nothing but smacking mobs – though that is a wonderful pass time too, it’s just not the end all be all of my gaming persona. Anyhow!

I’ve been a long time sim fan. I played sim city, and all of the regular sims growing up. I loved building homes, creating lives. I loved designing my own clothing, creating textures and building elaborate yards – or even simple ones. When Sims 2 came out it was amazing, but I barely got a chance to play it because my youngest brother ‘borrowed’ the cd and that was the last I ever saw of it. I even spent some time playing The Sims Online when that came out, I used to DJ on a radio station going by the name “April Love” – four hours every day. It was a great experience even if the game wasn’t all it could have been. I played just before I started with EQ, and just after I had gotten more then my fill of MUDS. I used to take requests and played a lot of songs for people while they wandered around the Sim world.

Sims 3 is beautiful. They’ve made some changes and so far I’ve had a very enjoyable experience. I started out with a fully furnished home (my choice) for $15,000 or so. You start out with $16,000 so you don’t get a lot left over. Character creation was great, I loved the fact that I didn’t have to be some super skinny woman if I didn’t want to. Ages start as young as babies and go up to elderly. You pick five traits that can be negative or positive and as far as simple creativity goes, I adore it.

Sure, I’m just playing a virtual life, and I’ve already got a real life (hah) so you may wonder why this would even be appealing, but it’s great to pretend, and fantastic to invent and create.

One addition to Sims 3 is the RMT factor, they have an online store where you can purchase more styles of hair, clothing, furniture and other goodies. I checked out the furniture. It reminds me of SOE’s station cash, where it’s $20 for a full house set, and cheaper for bits and pieces. For pre-ordering the game on direct2drive I snagged $10 (1,000) worth of points to put towards future purchases – if I want. I didn’t see anything that interested me quite yet, but we’ll see. My only issue with this is the same issue I have in EQ2, that there’s less of a push to release really awesome looking content for free because you can just charge for all of the neat looking things. Aside from that one small little blip, I’m having a great time taking a break from Norrath and Telon (and whatever other virtual worlds I happen to wander through this week) to spend some quiet time playing the game. So far I’ve enjoyed the little quests they’ve sent me on. My sim (named Stargrace, go figure) is a young adult, working her way for $28/h as a podium polisher, mon-fri 9-3. The first weekend that came around she took some writing and art classes, and cooked some fantastic hot dogs for some fine gentleman that she may (or may not) have her eyes on. The life of a sim is less complicated then real life and I think that’s part of the charm – plus if I remove all the doors to the house in a moment of pure frustration it’s fun to see what happens next. Not, that I would do that. *grins*