Misc News

[Tenshii~Akari]

They'd have do a heck of a lot more to get me to touch another game of theirs anymore.  

(Of course, I'd reconsider the above if all of the "missing" options for infants were suddenly available, though.  :smile bi: )

Thanks for all of the updates, maniac!  :angel:

[AjaAja]

I'm not sure I'd reconsider them even if they had all the things in the game that I want... I doubt I'll ever go near anymore of their products.

They need to get kicked off their golden asses and smell the burning secorum.

[maniac19642003]

Bon Voyage for Mac
Aspyr sent out a press release telling that the Bon Voyage expansion pack for the Mac has been released today.
Check the press release here: Aspyr.com

Sims Online is 5
Today, December 17, The Sims Online celebrates its 5th birthday! Well there's not much to celebrate cause the game kinda failed, but it's still alive. And the game is under big construction right now by people like Luc Barthelet. See more about that here: TSO-E

SecuROM removal tool
A bit late, but I still like to give attention to it; For those afraid of SecuROM, Maxis posted a removal tool on their website. There's a version for every expansion/simgame that came with SecuROM.
Download it here: SecuROM removal tool

[maniac19642003]

Castaway for mobile
The UK Sims site has added an info page for Castaway for the mobile phones. There's a bit of info and 4 screen shots to be found there.
Check it here: Thesims2.co.uk
Thanks to Simtimes.de for this news.

Sims Christmas tunes
The Sims2.com has added a nice Christmas tune as a way of holiday greetings from the Sims team. The Brazilian Sims site has posted another Christmas tune. This tune however has a long bit of silence at the beginning. Fansite Thesims2.co.za has edited this file and posted it without this beginning. This file is also much smaller. Check all links below:
- Seasons greetings
- Brazilian sims site
- Thesims2.co.za music file

[maniac19642003]

Just saw this at snootysims:

The French SimsStories site had a big update on Castaway Stories. 15 New screen shots, a (French) description and a trailer has been posted.
Check it here: French SimsStories site
Thanks to Thesims2.co.za for this news.

[maniac19642003]

Found this info just now as well:


It's far away from an official announcement but The Sims team is currently working on My Sims 2. This is discovered on one of the job pages from EA.
Check it here: Jobs.ea.com.

There are actually a lot of job openings for the Sims Division, but other then the mentioned one, it never states for which game. Sims 3, a new Sims Stories game, a new mobile game, who knows. This one looks quite interesting though: Jobs.ea.com 2

[maniac19642003]

For those wondering "Where are the reports and screen shots from the Free Time fan events?"; Well apparently, they are all on hold until coming Tuesday (January 22nd). On that day there will be a flood of Free Time information from probably dozens of fan sites all at once.
The dutch fan day is ON the 22nd, so the reports from the dutch fan sites will be posted several days later.

[maniac19642003]

Bon Voyage patch
The second Bon Voyage patch has been released. It's strangely enough not to be found on the Sims2.com however. For those that can't wait, get it here: Gamershell.com

New release dates
EA released some info about new Sims games. Sim Animals is given a release date of March 2009. MySims on Wii and DS sold very well; More then 3 million units. And so it's also coming to the PC with a release date of November 2008.
Also, 2 more MySims games for Wii/DS are announced: MySims Kingdoms ( November 2008 ) and MySims Party ( February 2009 ).

[maniac19642003]

Several European Sims sites have posted a new car download. It's a Montgomery Hawker from the Burnout Paradise game.
Check it out here: Car download

[maniac19642003]

Sims merchandise
The Sims2.com added a new section with Sims merchandise. Here you can order items with the Sims logo like T-Shirts and caps.
Check it out here: Sims merchandise

Sims team asks for input
MaxoidDrea posted a message on the Sims BBS from the Sims Team. They ask for stories from Sims players how the game influenced their life. Also she mentions a 'huge announcement from the Sims team'.
Read more here: MaxoidDrea message

[MaryH]

Today there was an article about EA doing a hostile bid on another gaming company-the "Grand Theft Auto" producers, in the NY Times-seems as though that company involved does NOT want to be taken over by EA, citing the fact that EA has "killed the goose that laid the golden egg" far too many times for the bid to be taken seriously. In fact, there was a opinion in that piece that if EA actually succeeds in taking over that company, most of the creative staff will walk out rather than work for EA under any conditions.
Does not look good for the acquisition or EA's reputation. Now we know where all of our hard-spent money is going-to buy other companies so they can destroy them, too.

[maniac19642003]

Snootysims update:

Prima guide
Prima has fixed the FreeTime guide and can now be safely downloaded. They also posted a preview of the guide of several pages.
Check it here and choose 'Try it out': FreeTime guide

First reviews
Gaming sites are slowly adding their FreeTime revies. IGN gave it a good 8.3 and Gamezone a decent 7. Check the links below:
- IGN
- Gamezone

Site update
The first FreeTime updates have been added. The FreeTime cheat is added in the Cheats section and a Genie info page in the Infocenter here: Genie wishes

[maniac19642003]

8th Expansion pack
A few days ago, an online shop posted a Sims title called Apartment Life. Now this title has been renamed to 8th Expansion. So this means that now we have officially an un-official announced 8th expansion pack for The Sims 2.
Thanks to Infinitesims.com for this news.

Sims 3 logos
EA has released the official logos for The Sims 3 game. A Sims 3 logo, the Sims 3 plumbob and the sims 3 with plumbob as background. All in very high quality. Can be very handy for those with a Sims 3 site or if you like to make wallpapers.
Download it here: Sims 3 logos

PrimaGuide preview
The offical Sims 2 site has updated with a preview of both the Bon Voyage and the FreeTime primaguide.
Check it here: Prima previews

[maniac19642003]

Rockpapershotgun posted a very big interview with Rod Humble. He talks about many things, like Sims 3 how time is a bit extended, about that he likes Open for Business so much, peeing jokes in the Sims and much more.
Read the interview here: Rockpapershotgun

The Sims Online has been struggling from the beginning. Luc Barthelet tried to revive it and not long ago, this project was renamed to EA Land.
But now, the end has finally come. As of April 29, no more paying subscriptions can be taken and on August 1st, the project will be completely shut down.
Read more about it here as well as a letter from Luc and the EA Land team: EA Land blog

[maniac19642003]

In the Sims BBS, in a topic where people complain about the lack of news, MaxoidDano responds with the message that they are very busy with Sims 3, but they promise to post something on Monday.
However, that message was posted May 1st and nothing new was posted yesterday.
Read this message here: MaxoidDano message

In another message, MaxoidShannon writes that this week, the Sims Team will post an Apartment Life picture. So this may be the thing MaxoidDano was referring to.
Read this message here: MaxoidShannon message

Lastly, there is currently a survey on TheSims2.com. It contains questions about what your opinion is about the site like give a number to quotes like "Providing information on new games" and "A central point to get all my Sims information". No surprise I gave pretty low numbers to these.
Go fill in this survey here: Sims2.com survey