Note: This is part III of my write-up of EA Sims Bloggers Day. You can read Part I, Part II and Part III here.

MySims. You play as a wide-eyed chibi, thrust into a run down town and given a goal: attract citizens. You do this by building furniture, houses, and unlocking super-computers and pin-ball machines. Once you’ve got what people want, you’ve convined them to return home.

When we saw this game demoed, it was hard not to notice the gap between this and MySims Kingdom. In MySims Kingdom, the producers talked about how they’d elimiated the annoying loading screens. Moving from that into MySims PC, you see the loading screens first hand. Everytime you switch between building mode and town mode, in fact. Where the PC port does come into its own though, is the online arena.

Each player gets given a little social zone to invite their friends to. You can build there, so you can each get your own ‘hangout’, there are the usual chat-programs and minigames - tag being the version we saw - and the whole thing is like a slicker, cuter, smaller, faster-loading Second Life.
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Note: This is part III of my write-up of EA Sims Bloggers Day. You can read Part I and Part II here.

We all love animals, right? Sure we do. Witness the success of all the various animal games out there. Neopets. Catz and Dogz. Nintendogs. Tamagotchis. Pokemon. If it’s cute and furry, then we want it. End of story.

So, the Sim franchise is the best selling franchise that EA have. It’s not that surprising. In the Sim world, you’re God. You can build - and you can destroy. That’s something that appears in every Sim game, from Sim City (unleash Godzilla, anyone?) to The Sims (I know you set one of your Sims on fire. Don’t lie to me.)

So what happens when you mix the Sims and animals together? You get SimAnimals, an upcoming EA game for the wii and DS that enables you to explore “the backyard and beyond”. Basically, you get given a plot of land and you’re supposed to get animals to move in and make friends with you. You manage to befriend the wildlife by treating them nicely - giving them food, shelter, water and all the rest of it, until they trust you. You can then use this trust to make them become friends with each other, leading to the unlikely scenerio of wolf cubs buddying up with squirrels. Eventually you get given more plots of land, each yours to look after.
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Note: This is part II of my write-up of EA Sims Bloggers Day. You can read Part I here.

If you’ve played the original MySims, you will know the characters already. Family-friendly, cute voiced, and stylised - the MySims took the super popular Sims franchise and gave it a Nintendo spin.

MySims Kingdom takes the core gameplay from MySims - that of building things - and uses it within an RPG-styled storyline. Unlike the original game, you follow a series of quests, meeting up with many recognisable faces and unlocking various new lands as you go. These lands are themed - one is a wild west frontier, another is a mystical fantasy land. Tim LeTourneau, the Executive Producer, compared the design to that of Disneyland.
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Multiplayer games are awesome and I love them dearly. Obviously, if you’ve read any of my Wrath of the Lich King previews, I’m quite fond of MMORPGs. I tend to sporadically pick up new ones like I’m at a cocktail party and they’re a plate of hors d’oeuvres. One thing that repels me from MMORPGs, however, is forced grouping. The thought of being forced to be in a party with people in order to get anywhere makes me scream.

Do I like to be in groups? Yes, when the mood strikes me or I find a leveling partner I like. Do I want to be in a group the entire time I’m playing? About as much as I want to write a twenty page paper on the chemical symbol for lead.

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I’ve been in a startlingly good mood recently, allowing me ample relaxation and peace of mind. The perfect mindset for gaming! Don’t get me wrong, here. Anger is always good motivation when pretending to shoot people, and a wistful, nostalgic mood might make a fantasy game all the more enrapturing, but I’ve never enjoyed a game more than when I’ve felt calm, cool, and collected.

In the spirit of happy gaming, I figured, what better way to revel than to write about a bunch of stuff that makes me gush with video game love? Scenes, moments, characters, and even some games themselves. There are some that make me remember why I turn to my console when I’m feeling a little blue. They just make me believe in gaming again.

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CS hacks are annoying. Team-killers and other players blasting shitty techno through their mics on CoD4 aren’t even mildly amusing anymore. I log onto WoW to grind some rep and think, why am I spending so much time working toward a piece of virtual gear only to grow dissatisfied with it and yearn for another piece of virtual gear, all of which is worthless, if not scorned, in the eyes of others? It feels monotonous. It feels useless. It feels boring.

What is a girl to do when her favorite source of entertainment, the pastime about which she is most passionate, just doesn’t cut it?

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