Tag: the sims 3

#oneaday Day 76: The Alternative Video Game BAFTAs

So the BAFTA Video Games Awards happened. Last night, in fact. And while the nominations were fairly predictable, there was a relatively pleasing spread of different titles that actually won. In fact, I did a lovely writeup over at GamePro that you should probably go read.

But enough of that. Those awards are all very conventional. So I thought I’d come up with some of my own. Without further ado, I present the Alternative Video Game BAFTAs.

Most Opportunities To Go To The Toilet In A Video Game

Winner: Heavy Rain, where despite the fact there is no logical reason for you to make your characters go to the toilet, you find yourself doing so anyway.

Honourable mention: The Sims 3, which only didn’t win because it didn’t come out in 2010, unless you count the console version, which I don’t, except when putting it in as an Honourable Mention.

Game No-One Had Heard Of When I Played But Now Most People Have Heard Of

Winner: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale, one of the most charming games I played last year, promptly got very excited about and some months later everyone else seemed to discover.

Game That Has Been On My Shelf The Longest, Unopened

Winner: Resident Evil 4 on PlayStation 2, which I’m not sure counts any more because I started playing it last night.

Former Winner: Final Fantasy XII.

The “MMO That Isn’t Boring” Award

Winner: DC Universe Online, which I am aware came out in January of this year, not last year, but these are my awards, so my rules.

Game Most Likely To Make You Feel Uncomfortable If Someone Walks In On You Playing It

Winner: Deathsmiles, for reasons that are well-documented.

Runner-Up: Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale. “That looks shit and cheesy and their voices are really annoying and my God that music!” “No, but it’s really funny! Seriously!” “Shut up. I’m going to go and play Starcraft.”

Honourable Mention: Dead or Alive Xtreme 2, the most summery game in the Universe. I know it didn’t come out last year, but I still play it in the summertime because it’s like being on holiday with improbably-proportioned women who like jetskiing. I have an Achievement and everything.

Sadomasochism Award

Winner: Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance, a game which enjoys kicking you in the balls so much that it’s enough to put most people off within a matter of minutes. I, on the other hand, have sunk over 20 hours into it and have just started playing it again.

The “I Love You But You Make Me Angry” Award

Winner: Mass Effect 2, for being a magnificent game that I finished before all the DLC came out and considered going back to just to play the extra stuff but then decided to wait for the “definitive” PS3 version, which then has some extra DLC announced for it, too. STOP IT. STOP MAKING THAT GAME. YOU FINISHED IT. MAKE THE SEQUEL. AND DON’T FUCK IT UP OR RUSH IT OR POST REVIEWS FOR IT ON METACRITIC.

The Game I Keep Forgetting Exists But Is Actually Really Good

Winner: Frozen Synapse, a wonderfully inventive take on the competitive shooter that is turn-based and play-by-email. And awesome.

The Game I Got Best At While I Was Really Totally Off My Face On Expensive Cider

Winner: Joe Danger, a game which my friend Sam and I started playing early in the evening, got drunk and accidentally played for over 3 hours. Highlight of the night was when I discovered how to get massive scores while Sam was in the toilet, meaning that when he came back my average score was roughly 1,000 times more than when he left.

Best Game

Winner: Deadly Premonition. No further explanation required.

Best Video Game Podcast

Winner: The Squadron of Shame SquadCast. Of course.

The Alternative BAFTA Fellowship

Winner: @SpaceDrakeCF from Carpe Fulgur for the magnificent localisation job on Recettear. We’re talking a translation of Phoenix Wright quality here. Not only that, but he was consistently entertaining to follow during GDC and provided some excellent “liveblogs” of the sessions he attended.

#oneaday, Day 274: Seven Deadly Sims

[Click the comic to see a bigger version if you can’t read the text.]

The Sims shouldn’t be good. It really shouldn’t. It represents all the things that people say they’d never want to do in a game. People always say that they don’t want their characters modeled in such detail that they need to eat, sleep, poo and the like. But it was this level of detail that brought the original The Sims game to life.

Over time, the series has developed in many wild and crazy ways. To the casual observer, each game may appear to be fundamentally the same. But in fact, each new game (and, for that matter, each new expansion pack) has changed the way the game is played to a considerable degree. So much so that The Sims 3 now has the potential to go in any one of a wild number of disparate directions according to what the player feels like doing at any time. What other games do you know where you can do this:

Evil Jeff Grubb takes a sponge bath in the kitchen.

AND this:

Non-Evil Mike Rougeau puts out a fire. Professionally.

AND this…

Amarysse attempts to find her way around a flaming death trap in an ancient Chinese tomb.

AND this…

Amarysse spars with a fellow martial artist.

AND this…

Amarysse prepares to use her magic axe to smash the crap out of a boulder.

AND… you get the idea.

The Sims 3, with its current two expansion packs World Adventures and Ambitions, represents an enormously diverse experience that is by no means just about telling little people when to go to the toilet. No, what we have is probably pretty close to what Will Wright originally intended when he envisioned the series. A life simulator. A game where the player is pretty much free to do as they please.

If they want to stay at home and concentrate on building a family, they can do that. If they want to go out and explore perilous dungeons around the world, they can do that. If they want to try and prove they’re the best at a tricky profession, they can do that too. Or if they want to try and juggle all those things? Well, they can do that too. Amarysse, depicted above, is a successful athlete, lesbian, adoptive mother to a young child, treasure hunter and local hero in parts of China. And she’s only about halfway through her life. By the time she eventually shuffles off this mortal coil and it’s time for her adoptive son to take up the mantle of her family and prove himself, she’ll have a whole ton of experiences to look back on.

As you may have gathered, I have very much rediscovered The Sims recently. And if you’ve never given it a try, I can highly recommend it, even if you’ve never been a fan of the series before. You will be able to find something in that game for you to enjoy. Even if it’s something along the lines of this.