Origin just published a free Trial of SimCity that lets you play the Single Player mode of this game for 4 hours!
To redeem this Trial, hover over SimCity’s Box Art and select ”Get it Now”. You’ll need an Origin account in order to play this Trial of the game.
Click on the picture below to check out this offer!
The Sims 4 is launching in just one month, featuring all new Sims with really big personalities driven up a whole new emotional center. A key part of the development process to bring the emotion to life is the game’s audio and this week’s EA Tuesday Exclusive brings you behind the scenes of this important facet of the game.
In the new Create A Sim and Build Modes, each audio track has eight levels of intensity. As your attention changes from less detailed to more detailed (or the other way around), the music changes dynamically to immerse you into the experience for the first time.
Listen to this Sims 4-inspired track from Maxis on SoundCloud to get a feel for the new audio in the game.
Q: What are the main influences for audio in The Sims 4?
A: There are two major influences. The first is making sure that we don’t mess up. Our fans love the music in our games so we want to make sure we deliver a soundtrack that will meet their expectations. The second is a drive for a more physical presence in the game, something that would connect the sound and the world more tightly than before.
Just one small example is making a Sim’s voice who is turned away sound different then the Sim who is facing you – directional filtering, essentially. Every time we made something, be it voice, SFX or music, we were constantly thinking: how does this feel? Where is the emotional tie? What will this mean in the big picture?
The Sims Portugal have posted a new Sims 4 video featuring Pancake Bob, check it out!
It’s been 14 long years since the original The Sims was released. I played that game obsessively for years, buying every single expansion, and camping out inSims community forums to talk with other addicted players. Several years later The Sims 2was released and the story was the same. Then came The Sims 3. When the game wasn’t crashing, it was still enjoyable but didn’t turn me into a recluse the way the first two did. Then came an absurd number of sequels and spin-offs that took the series everywhere from The Urbz to back in time, and nowhere I was much interested in going. So here we are in 2014 and The Sims 4 is set to launch in just under a month. Is it the return to form that this former Sims-addict has been waiting for?
The game begins, as always, with the ability to create your own Sims. The cosmetic customization options have been greatly expanded, with a wide array of body types, skin tones, hair styles, and more to make your Sim look like just about anyone you can think of. Players can now literally click and grab body parts to sculpt them beyond the game’s preset body-types. As a mixed race person with a somewhat atypical body type I’ve often struggled to successfully recreate myself in a game and The Sims 4 is the closest I’ve ever gotten. I will say that with the level of customization available clothes and accessories are still dictated by gender, which I’m sure will be restricting to non-binary players or players who simply want to go against the grain with their designs.
The Sims Facebook Page posted a teaser featuring Pancake Bob with ‘Tune in tomorrow to watch Pancake Bob keep it weird in The Sims 4.’‘.
Not sure if that tomorrow was planned for 5th or 6th of August, but I guess we’ll figure out today!
Source: Kotaku
I tried to be as evil as possible in The Sims 4, and I was not disappointed.
You might have heard that The Sims 4 removed a (according to some players) pretty key series feature: pools. While swimming was, in previous games, a great way to build up athleticism and take a load off, many gamers would use pools as watery testbeds for demented social experiments. That in mind, I decided to play The Sims 4 with a mind toward discovering new, different forms of evil. Mwahahaha, etc.
However, when I first showed up to a recent Sims 4 preview event in San Francisco, I found myself at a loss. Step one? Create a new Sim. Other journalists had come up with some damn cool character ideas (Game of Thrones families!), but I was running on the sleep deficit from hell. What could I possibly do to be interesting? I hate playing “myself” in these things, because the most interesting thing about me is my collection of off-kilter pants.
Getting Simotional support.
Following the review for Magic The Gathering 2015, I’ve seemingly stumbled onto games that face outrage from the community, and The Sims 4 is no exception. Electronic Arts and Maxis Studios have become punching bags since the debacle with SimCity, and it’s easy to jump on that bandwagon and begin pointing fingers and poking holes into The Sims 4. While some of the absences are indeed baffling and fans have the right to be angry, the numerous improvements in The Sims 4 reveal a much deeper redesign than I previously thought, and I would much rather judge a game on all its merits before bludgeoning it with trollish predispositions.
That said, let’s get the controversial parts out of the way first. The majority of the complaints stem from the lack of pools and the absence of toddlers. The former is sadly true, though it’s not a terrible hit for me since I tend to use precious backyard space for gardening anyway, but the former is, if everything goes according to plan, thankfully false. Though I wasn’t able to get a female Sim pregnant in the hands-on session I had at Electronic Arts Redwood Shores, embedded in the Lessons menu were several images and instructions on how to care for a toddler. So while babies don’t officially have a life state, adult Sims will still need care for babies by feeding and holding them before they reach childhood.
The Sims Team added an Easter Egg on The Sims 4 Music Blog. This Easter Egg is a ringtone/SFX for, what I assume, fulfilled aspiration in The Sims 4. You can listen to it down below by clicking the play button!
Since there was no available USgamer Sims expert, I thought I’d volunteer to head down to EA’s Redwood Shores offices and give an “everyman” take on the game. I thought it might be fun to see what happens when someone with only the most cursory understanding of the Sims series is dropped right into the very deep end of the game, with no guidance or instruction.
The depth of my Sims ignorance was immediately hammered home during the pre-playtest brief. My lack of context and reference meant that a lot of its detail was lost on me. However, I did get the gist of it, and the long and the short of it is that smarter Sims are what fans can look forward to in this fourth outing of the series. Smarter Sims that now feel, and express emotions that are influenced by interactions with other Sims, objects, and events. These, apparently, will help you bring your stories to life?
Telegraaf.nl published 4 new screens of The Sims 4! Some of them include a small peek at Oasis Springs! Thanks Simlicious for the find 😉
