I’ve been playing The Sims 3 every day since its release. I love it!

I know I’m usually the one going “narrative, blah blah, games need plot, blah, characterisation, blah blah blah…” Screw it. These are not hard and fast rules. I like virtual dollhouses open-ended simulations too.

In a nutshell, The Sims 3 is The Sims 2 only more awesome. Here are just some of the annoyances that they’ve fixed:

• Lives were too short: When I wanted to focus on career or relationships, my sim would insist on aging and dying. It takes time to build up all those logic and charsima points while trying not to set fire to your dinner! Now you have the option to give your sim a double-length lifespan or switch off aging entirely.



• Customisation: You can now put a custom skin on everything. Should you, for some obscure reason, wish to have suite of cow-print kitchen appliances, there’s no need to trawl websites looking. You can go straight into the Design function, chose from a huge range of textures and pick the colours you want. Or you could download them from my Sims 3 studio ;)
• Other sims are no longer a mystery: In 2, you could talk about certain subjects but you’d have to squint at the speech bubbles to see reactions and track inter-sim relationships, likes and dislikes by yourself. Yeah, right. I’d just guess and occasionally kill a friendship outright by flirting with the wrong person. Now you can discover traits, partners and jobs of the other Sims and look them up later when you’re planning parties. No more time wasted ringing people who are at work.



• Mood triggers and timers: Previously, you could sneeze at the wrong time and completely miss what your sim was complaining about. Now there’s a tracker that shows all the things affecting your sims mood and a rough guide as to long until she hits her tolerance threshold. Yep, she’ll still wet herself but you can’t say she didn’t warn you.
• Lifetime rewards are useful: Rather than buying effort-inducing gadgets like the money tree, your reward points are now spent on traits that make the game easier. I wanted a totally career-focused Sim that didn’t care about cooking, but a lot of my free time was still spend preparing food. With the Hardly Hungry trait, she now eats once every three days. Way more time to spend in the gym to become a a super-fit super-spy!

I should be balanced here; it’s not all brilliant. The community areas are smaller. Some of them don’t have interiors at all. I went on a date to a fancy restaurant with a prospective partner. All the camera got to see was the outside of the restaurant while the meal progress bar ticked away. Even so, it’s nice to be able to wander around the town watching other Sims living their little SimLives.

Content creation is limited to reskinning, so you can’t build your own custom items. It also seems to me that there are fewer interesting models of each appliance/furniture available out of the box. Everythings so far is very… conservatively designed. As in, they mostly look like furniture you’d find in Argos. Hopefully some more outlandish stuff will turn up in the online store over the next few months.

On balance though, it’s the Sims 2 upgraded, with lots of usability tweaks. Exactly what the franchise needed.

Screenshots

As my Twitter followers will know, just after Christmas I got a load of back pay through from a promotion at work. Like any other video-game-mad ex-band-member would do, I bought myself the Ion Drum Rocker. (I played the bass guitar in a band at school because our flat didn’t have the space or isolation for a drum-kit. We mostly played Metallica covers.)

Let’s get the most important points out first:

1. Yes, drum sticks are included
2. Yes, the Drum Rocker is awesome!
3. Yes, it works with Guitar Hero: World Tour

The Rocker comes in a box roughly the size and shape of the Rock Band Instrument Pack. When you open it, you get…

…a bunch of little boxes. And some poles with bits on them. And Empty Box “A”.

Open all the boxes….

Lots of thingies. Have no fear, the included instructions are fairly idiot-proof and have lots of pictures. For the record, Empty Box “A” contained air.

You may be tempted to disbelieve reports that the kit will take about an hour to assemble even for experienced… er… assemblers. It’s true. The gear isn’t complex but there are lots of parts and lots of connections to hook up. The thing cost 230 quid, so now is not the time to skip steps.

The finished product is big.

That TV in the background? That’s a 46-incher. It’s about 2 feet behind the Drum Rocker, so you can try to gauge the size yourself. Or, y’know, I could just go measure it.
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Right, I’m back. In a playable configuration (as pictured) it’s 177cm wide (46 inches), 67cm deep (26 inches) and 110cm high(43 inches). If you don’t want to take it apart between sessions, you can fold in the arms holding the red and green drums. That’ll bring it down to 76 cm wide (30 inches), which isn’t exactly small but is less dominating. If that’s not enough, keep hold of your allen keys and get used to doing lots of unscrewing and reassembly coz there’s no easy way to fold bits up for storage. You do need everything screwed tightly coz it’s fricking annoying when the drum pad drops a millimetre every time you hit it.

Performance-wise, the Drum Rocker is fantastic! Sure, those missed notes on the original Rock Band kit miiiight have been my fault… With the Drum Rocker, you get much better feedback. If you miss the drum pad and hit the edge, you know what happened. There’s no ambiguity to that click of drumstick on frame. I haven’t noticed the kit itself dropping any of my good hits and the rebound off the drum pads feels much nicer than the original kit. The physical sound is less annoying than the original plastic kit but still enough that you need to turn the volume way up to hear the drum sounds properly.

The bass pedal is still a bit soft. I never liked feeling that I have to consciously hold my foot above the original kit pedal and this kit doesn’t address that at all. I have no experience with other electronic drum kits but I know that you can rest your foot on a standard mechanical pedal between songs with no problems.

The cymbals feel very strange. If you’ve ever hit a real crash, you’ll notice it straight away. These don’t move at all. You hit them, they go *clonk* and jar your hand like you’ve hit something solid. Oh, and if you turn your volume way up you can just about hear
the cymbal noise above the clonk. That being said, they are responsive and you learn not to hit them so hard. Better than not having cymbals at all.

The Verdict: If you have the space and you really enjoy the drums, this kit is well worth it. You do still need to turn volume up but the drumstick noise is noticably quieter. The Drum Rocker is a great stepping stone to real drumming, if you’re considering that. Plus, it looks way cooler at parties :)

I don’t usually go in for casual games on the PC but Kudos 2 by Positech Games caught my eye recently. It’s a 2-D life simulation/strategy game, kind of like The Sims. Where it differs is that it loses the house-building stuff-collecting aspect and focuses on you character’s day-to-day life; on your job and relationships. It’s turn-based, so you spend less time trying to coordinate your actions and more time planning out the implications of every decision. Every day you get to do just one thing after work, which has all sorts of implications on your character, good and bad. Even walking to and from work makes some impact. Style-wise, Kudos 2 is all done in cel-shading-like artwork by Jamie McKelvie.

I have to say, I was surprised by how easy it was to get sucked into this game. Every decision has an effect on your stats – walk to work and you get a little healthier but you’re far more tired at the end of the day. Take the bus and it costs you money. On the other hand, you have the energy to have fun with your friends after work and build up your relationships. The year is seasonal too, so getting rained on will probably make you grumpy as hell when you’re already tired. All the implications make logical sense and you see the outcomes straight away. If you you like playing games by running the numbers, this game is perfect.

That’s not to say that it’s just for maths fans. I know I play a lot of RPGs but I couldn’t care less about numbers. I’m in it to build characters – Kudos 2 lets you do that too. There’s a good range of options for everything – after work you can hang out with a huge range of people, each with their own likes and dislikes. You can go bowling (increase your fitness and fun) or go to the opera (take in some culture) or just out for fried chicken (build up that flab!) and grow or lose your friendships along the way. If you don’t like feeling sociable, you can take evening classes to further your career or just read a good book.

The main annoyance I had with the game was the interface. I like to explore things and this game constantly pops up windows that you then need to close individually, which quickly gets tiresome. Even more so when you know that one of your friends likes the cinema but you can’t remember which one of the 10+ it was.
Most option selections are annoying as well – you can only see one at a time and have to scroll through the whole list one-by-one to find the one you want. They do compensate with some good mouse shortcuts like right-clicking anywhere inside to close a window and making use of the scroll-wheel. I still think a quick list view would work wonders.

In short, Kudos 2 is a good game by by Cliff “Cliffski” Harris. Cliff used to work on The Movies before starting up his own small indie games company. He even writes versions of his games for Macs (eventually). Get the free demo of Kudos 2 from Positech.

I play the Ace Attorney games obsessively. I played Phoenix Wright: Trials and Tribulations and Apollo Justice back-to-back over a couple of month during commutes to work.

I do love this series but there are so many things wrong with it that I find it hard to recommend them to people I don’t know well.

Game Mechanics

The gameplay for Trials and Tribulations is almost exactly the same as Justice For All. This wouldn’t be so bad but for one thing; each chapter has at least one point where there are no hints as to the item you have to present to get the story going. Once you know the story, the item is obvious but that’s the whole problem. You don’t know the story. The only way to figure it out is to present everything at every statement until you finally hit upon the right combo. Sometimes you’ve made the right guess as to the story but picked an item that needs to be shown at a later stage. PENALTY!

Even worse, these two PW games introduced psyche-locks – during the investigation, you have to persuade characters to spill their innermost secrets by presenting them with the right piece of evidence or character profile. I found these incredibly tedious (though I like the animation and sound that went with it). The psyche-lock segments made the investigation chapters feel just like the courtroom with the added bonus of multiplying the number of times you could get stuck. Not a good thing as I enjoyed the change of pace between research and courtroom.

In contrast, Apollo Justice did away with the psyche-locks, if not the actual mystery-inventory-item flaws. Instead, you get to do a bit of forensic investigation in the form of fingerprint analysis and the like. We previously saw this in the final DS-only chapter of the first game and it was bloody good. It’s a pity these moments were underused, and just criminal that the only time you got to try them out was when you knew you were going to find something. Still, it was an enjoyable, if fleeting improvement.

The other big change in Apollo Justice was Perception (for want of a better thing to call it). In Bracelet Perception Mode (don’t ask) you can scrutinise the witness’s body language and looks for a “tell” to indicate that they’re lying. This was almost fun but for the fact that you could only look at a tiny part of the witness at a time. Allowing me to zoom out for less detail would have been less frustrating as each character had roughly five testimony statements, three different “phases” to a statement where they could lie and four different body parts that could have a tell.

Characters

(Teeny spoiler here revealing characters that appear in Trials and Tribulations)
The greatest thing about the Phoenix Wright series is the characters that you meet. They’re all quirky and distinctive. So why does Phoenix not grow at all during the first three games? Even by the end of game three, he’s still a self-doubting rookie who needs a sidekick to kick him into action. This was made all the more obvious in the chapter where you get to play Edgeworth, self-confident and in control. Frankly, Edgeworth was just awesome in that chapter and I really hope that Gyakuten Kenji keeps him that way.
(End of spoiler)

I had hoped that new protagonist Apollo Justice would be less timid but noooooooo. Three games of building up Phoenix’s confidence and now you get dropped right back where you started with a rookie attorney who needs to be taught about the Court Record and presenting evidence all over again. Aaaaargh!

In Summary

Not that different from the original game, really. Great storytelling, crappy gameplay. Not a dealbreaker for me but would be for most people I know.

Screenshots

Age Rating:

3+ (PEGI)

What is it?

Some sort of hideously complicated farming/village sim.

Is it fun?

No!

Is it worth the money? (£24.99)

No!

Why not?

I’ll freely admit, I Do Not Get Harvest Moon. Even so, in the spirit of representing an Average Gamer, I’m writing this as someone entirely new to the franchise…

What the hell is Harvest Moon DS supposed to be? I’ve played Animal Crossing a lot so I get the concept of a relaxing game where you wander around collecting things. Harvest Moon seems to be like that, only a thousand times more complicated and without the helpful villagers to let you know what the hell is going on.

For starters, I get my new game, wander about and eventually discover that I should be tilling my field. There’s loads of debris in the form of rocks and logs. Not a problem. I soon discover how to pick them up and proceed throw them over the edge where they disappear.

WRONG!

They didn’t disappear at all. I was fly-tipping! The other townsfolk don’t like that at all. Why do I care? Well, I’m not entirely sure even after reading through sites like Fogu. Apparently the witch likes my littering. Do I want her favour? I have no freaking idea.

Another example; you can give random presents to women. Sometimes they’ll love them. Other times they’ll be hurt and offended and make snide remarks. I think affects my prospects of marrying them, which may or may not be a good thing. I hate it because there’s simply no way in-game to tell what they like and dislike. Even worse, I can’t work it out through trial and error. I have immense trouble recalling what I gave to who because everyone just blurs together into a haze of quirky villager. Write it down? Please. I already have a job.

The game is riddled with pitfalls like this. Considering the gameplay is about farming, maintaining your town and getting married, it seems a pretty big liability. Perhaps the best way to illustrate this complexity is with this choice quote from Fogu [via Yahoo! Answers]:

“Before you can get married you must upgrade your house. Your spouse is not going to want to live in the tiny house you start out with! To upgrade you will first need to unlock Channel 2 on the Sprite Station. To open the channel you must buy something from Karen’s telephone store for 10 days.

When you unlock the Tv Shopping Channel 2, watch it every day. Eventually you will see the Table for sale. The little round table will only cost you 500 G. Call the Tv Shopping operators using your telephone and order the Table.

Only after you have received the Table can you then hire Gotz to increase the size of your house for the first time! You must own the Kitchen before he will upgrade your house a second time if you own the Japanese version. The English version does not require the kitchen. “

In other words…

This game is freaking complicated (or in-depth, if you prefer). I hated it. YMMV.

Screenshots

Age Rating: Teen (ESRB). PEGI rating not yet available.

What is it?

A thoroughly frustrating yet totally addictive hospital surgery sim.

Is it fun?

Undoubtedly.

It is worth the money? £24.99

Oh, yes. UK release date is 28th April 2006.

Why?

Coz it’s addictive and you get to walk around going “I saved people’s lives today. Bow down before me, menial desk drone!”

Some of the missions are a real challenge and the simple gameplay and easy learning curve makes it really hard to put down. Oh and there’s a magic cure-all serum that mirculously brings your patients back from the brink of death!
Continue Reading

Age Rating: Unrated. Probably a 7+.

What is it?

Single-player 2D pool with time limits and crazy things you should avoid or hit to make things interesting.

Is it fun?

Yes. Strangely addictive.

Is it worth the money? Free!

Yes, but only coz it’s free. Continue Reading

Age Rating: 3+ (There’s an awful lot of reading for a 3-year-old though)

What is it?

An adorable fake puppy that never smells like yucky dog or poos on your nice carpet.

Is it fun?

Yes! So cuuuuuuuute!

Is it worth the money? £27.99

Yes, if you like cutesy sims. Otherwise, no. Continue Reading