The Barrington-Smythe Legacy

I'm so loving this game The Sims 2; in fact I'm enjoying it more than TS3 at the moment.

Anyway, to continue with my Let's Play The Sims 2 series, here is the next instalment of The Barrington-Smythe Legacy:

Hope you enjoy watching just as much as I enjoyed playing!  And I'm still making pyjamas......

Cheers and a Happy New Year!

~Minicart

Let's Play The Sims 2!

Well, I finally got a couple of Let's Play's uploaded to You Tube, the latest being The Barrington-Smythe Legacy Part 11, played with The Sims 2.

I have been quite ill over the Christmas holiday with a nasty infection so couldn't do much.  However, I'm feeling a lot better now.

So, here is the latest in The Barrington-Smythe Legacy:

Feel free to comment, like, favourite, subscribe or whatever!  Meanwhile, I must get on and make some more pyjamas.....

Cheers!

~Minicart

The Sims 3 Roaring Heights Review

Ever since I played The Sims 2, I have been wanting to create videos.  I had no idea what to do, where to start or what equipment I needed.

I would watch other people's videos, together with tutorials but never really found the time or the confidence to give it a go myself, until now.

Last week I decided to purchase screen recording software and a cheap microphone and just give it a shot to see what I could come up with.  I started a Let's Play over at YouTube created with The Sims 2 entitled The Barrington-Smythe Legacy and I'm really enjoying myself.  I didn't realise however, the amount of work needed to put into a Let's Play.  I just thought I would only need to play the game for 15 or 20 minutes and upload it - boy, was I wrong!

My screen recording software, although recognising my microphone, mutes it and so I have to play the game first and then record the audio afterwards.  This means editing the movie then playing it back to record the audio, popping the audio into the movie, all the while trying to make everything fit by cutting and editing.  Then it's a case of saving the movie (rendering) which can take up to 30 minutes, watching it again to make sure everything is okay on the final file and then uploading to YouTube, which takes another couple of hours.

Even though it takes a while to do, I'm having so much fun doing it and today I recorded my very first review for a new world from The Sims 3 Store which was released yesterday, Roaring Heights.

Although the picture is a little 'choppy' and 'laggy' at times, I am still a beginner and I'm quite pleased with how it turned out.  They say practice makes perfect so as time goes on, I can only hope that I'll get better!

One thing that certainly helped me with the 'panning' in-game was Chrillsims3 video tutorial on how to use the camera within The Sims 3 game.

Here is Chrills video:

And here is my first review:

All I can say is that if I can do it, anyone can!

I hope you like it and I would appreciate any constructive criticism/advice that you want to give to me!

Cheers!

~Minicart

Game Update for TS3 Island Paradise

I decided to take a break from creating and have a play with what we were given with the new game update.  If I remember correctly, we were told in the recent live broadcast that with this update we could build out to sea.  So anyway, I'm not a builder but I wanted to see what I could do in Barnacle Bay.  I chose Barnacle Bay for the simple reason that Simmers in North America will get this town free if they pre-order Island Paradise, so I thought that would be a good place to test this out.


Building Into the Sea

First of all, please excuse the quality of some of these images as they came out quite dark and I had to lighten them up in Photoshop.  Tip: Click on the images to make them bigger!

Here's an image of one of the beaches at Barnacle Bay that I decided to build on:

As you can see from this image, you can place a lot that goes from the beach and out to sea:

Here are the images once I had placed the foundation:

As I am not a builder (yep, I know I said it before but I really must stress that fact), I used some of the blueprints just to show what a house looks like on the lot:

I wanted to pop a swimming pool and a hot tub on the 'deck' foundation but it wouldn't let me....


Swimming Pool Blueprints


Whilst in the blueprint section of build mode, I noticed that under the miscellaneous tab, there are 24 blueprints for swimming pools that I don't remember seeing before:

I think that these are really cool features that we've been given with the update as this will allow you to start building your Sim's dream home in readiness for the release of Island Paradise.


Moving to a New Town


Just after I had updated my game, I had to enter it to take some photo's of my teen Sim in her new Cow pyjamas for TSR.  Once the lot had loaded, I had a pop-up which gave me the option of moving my family to a new town.  I didn't want to do this as this was just my 'model' family for clothing so whilst in Barnacle Bay, I decided to choose a random home to see if I got the same message.  Well, I didn't, probably because I hadn't played her before so I decided to look at the options on her phone.

As you can see from the image below, under the 'Real Estate and Travel Services' you get the option to 'Purchase an Additional Home':

So I clicked on that which gave me this:

As you can see from the above image, you can actually move to a new town from your phone but this requires a 20,000 Simoleon deposit which is refunded to you once you get there.  So I gave my Sim 50,000 and upon clicking the New Town option, I was presented with this screen:

From here, you can choose which town you would like your Sim to move to.

At this point I was wondering if your Sim would be able to keep in touch with friends and family 'back home', just like we can when travelling to Uni or on a World Adventure but, alas no:

As the next screen suggests, it's a good idea to save your game just in case you want to go back to where you left off if you don't want to carry on playing with your Sim in a new town:

I didn't find anything else, however this is a great update in readiness for Island Paradise, especially if you love to build stuff, either for yourself or to share within the community.

I hope the above was helpful if you haven't had a chance to look yourself or are still awaiting the update.

Cheers!

~Minicart

News for The Sims 4

I just finished watching the Live Broadcast over on YouTube.  Island Paradise looks absolutely amaaaazzzzing and I cannot wait until it's released here in the UK on Friday 28th June (yep, we have to wait a little longer than our cousins across the pond).

As there will be quite a few posts and videos about the upcoming EP, I wanted to get straight into talking about the news we had for The Sims 4.

Today we met Albert Truong (above left), concept artist for TS4 who is really wacky and crazy and I love him.  Up until now, we have only seen the 'eyes' image together with the TS4 text:

Albert was extremely excited to show us his concept art for a Sims 4 character of which he was very proud:

Now, you do have to remember that this is 'concept' art which, according to the Wikipedia, is "a form of illustration where the main goal is to convey a visual representation of a design, idea, and/or mood...."  However, this art looks to me very much like the character portrayed in the supposed leaked Sims 4 video of Build #22H a few months ago which most believe is fake.  Let's take another look:





And here are the images together for comparison:

We're not going to hear any more news for The Sims 4 until July 9th at the next live broadcast.  The big good news is that at Gamescom on August 20th, the Sims team will be revealing an official trailer and more stuff.  Really excited for that one!

Let me know what you guys think; does the image from the supposed leaked trailer look like the concept art to you?

Cheers and Happy Simmin'!

~Minicart

Lack of Blogging and The Sims 4

There's been a serious lack of blogging on this site and I really must learn to do better.  I couldn't believe that it's been 8 months since I made a post.....

Alot has happened over the past few months within the Sims community with the announcement of the upcoming Island Paradise EP and also the Time Travel EP to be released later this year.  The biggest announcement is of course, The Sims 4, due to be released some time in 2014.

There was much speculation of this new Sims game mostly due to the fact that the domain TheSims4.com was purchased by EA some time ago and supposed concept images being posted on the website of an ex EA employee.

The announcement of The Sims 4 may have come too soon for some as I'm sure there are those who have lost interest in The Sims 3 and will be patiently awaiting the release of The Sims 4 before purchasing any other The Sims games.  However, if you are a die-hard Sims fan like myself, you will be wanting anything and everything that EA release regarding The Sims franchise.

I'm a little sad that we never got a Vacation EP for The Sims 3.  Although Island Paradise looks a little vacationy (vacationy?), it isn't a sub-hood like World Adventures or the vacation EP's we had for 1 and 2. I personally would have liked to have been able to take my Sims on a vaction to Island Paradise from Sunset Valley, much like we can go from the neighbourhood to one of the World Adventure worlds or to University.

Since the announcement of The Sims 4, I reinstalled The Sims 2 and started playing again (hence the lack of posts :-)).  I must admit that I feel the gameplay of The Sims 2 is so much better than 3.  Don't get me wrong - there are a lot of things in The Sims 3 that I love, such as the fishing skill, cooking and gardening and all the related books that go with it.  Learning all those recipes and what you need  to catch certain fish is great gameplay in my opinion and should be taken across to The Sims 4.  However, there are many more things that were in The Sims 2 that I missed in 3 such as open restaurants, babies with limbs, slower eating, dating and outing scenario's, creating a group on your phone to invite out (as opposed to being automatically grouped up in The Sims 3 which I really dislike), and many other things such as the Wobbly Wabbit Head Charisma bunny for toddlers. 

The open world and graphics of The Sims 3 is a lot better than what we had in 2; loading screens were a bit of a bind.  However, since re-installing the game on a faster computer than I had before, the loading screens only take a few seconds.  It is much better though to be able to just leave your house and go to the park in an open world, without having to watch a boring loading screen.

Here is a list of all the things I miss from The Sims 2 together with stuff from 3 that I would love to see in 4, plus a couple of ideas, (which I originally posted over on the official site):

• Wobbly Wabbit Head Charisma bunny for toddlers;
• DIY channel on TV for handiness skill;
• Babies and cars like in TS2;
• Cleaning skill back;
• Fears and memory system back;
• Comfort and environment needs back;
• Group system/scenario back - fed up of my sims being grouped up or put in a date when I don't want them to;
• Date system/scenario back;
• Pottery wheel/sewing machine for creativity;
• LOVE the science stuff in TS3 UL;
• Keep the gardening/cooking/fishing like we have in TS3 - put greenhouses in the base game;
• Bring back gardeners;
• Bring back the tools that we were given at around level 4 of each career in TS2 - i.e. cleaning gun for Law Enforcement, Indoor Golf for Business, Running Track thing for Military, Operation Dummy for Medical, Podium for Political, Chocolate maker for Culinary, Cow Plant for Science, etc;
• Bring back gold/platinum aspiration levels so that as in TS2 certain items can be 'purchased' with lifetime points such as the baby milk and the money maker machine.  These could only be used when the sim was 'gold' or higher.  Once a lifetime wish is accomplished then the sim should be platinum and stay platinum as in TS2;
• Open restaurants;
• Slower eating/chatting at the table etc as in TS2;
• A weight thingy like we had in TS2 - if a sim eats too much they put on weight and have to exercise, again like we had in TS2;
• Need to purchase food from the store or have it delivered as opposed to it magically appearing in the fridge;
• Need to purchase clothing instead of having everything available in CAS;

Bernards Botanical Dining from The Sims 2:

 

In addition, I loved the music from The Sims 1 and 2 and I remember that we had The Sims 1 music in 2 on the stereo entitled 'Shopping'.  I also love the idea of having famous people singing their hits in Simlish as we have in The Sims 3.  I'm assuming that with the Sims 4 we will get new music but I would love to see the music from all the other games incorporated into 4.

I'm sure there are a lot of other things that Simmers remember and would like to see in The Sims 4 and also have their own new ideas for the game.

On the other side of the spectrum, I have noticed there are a few people who state that they will continue with The Sims 3 as they 'don't want to start a new game all over again' and stating that 'this is just a money-making racket for EA to re-do all the old expansion packs'.  I have to disagree with this and James from The Sim Supply explained why brilliantly in a video he posted on YouTube:







I, for one, am really looking forward to The Sims 4. Getting more information and seeing some screenshots (and a trailer) is something I and many others are really excited for.  Remember guys, Tuesday June 18th is coming up for apparently more information on The Sims 4 so I'm really looking forward to that.

Well, that's about it for now; will try and keep up to date with posts in future (I think I may have said that before)......

Cheers and Happy Simmin'!

~ Minicart