Sims 3 due out in June

Despite the fact that EA recently announced laying off about 1,100 employees, they also had some good news to report: The Sims 3 will be in stores by June 2. Sims 3 is another upgrade of the Will Wright franchise that has become one of the best-selling video games of all time with about 100 million units sold.

New features of Sims 3 are a seamless neighborhood where a player can visit neighbor’s homes and explore surroundings. In short, it’s like stepping out on the street in your own neighborhood, where you can run into anyone and talk about anything.

Another update is the new customizable Sim character creator. It allows the player to choose even more detailed facial features, including skin tone, hair color and style, eye shape and color, as well as clothing and accessories. Also included is a personality traits system that allows more realistic Sims with traits of brave, artistic, loner, perfectionist, klepto, romantic, clumsy, paranoid, and more. A player can also mix several of these traits together to create a Sim that is very unique. Customization is also a key factor in designing a Sims dream house. A player can change floors to dƒÂ©cor, shirts to sofas, wallpaper to window shades.

In addition to the many customizable options, one of the biggest changes that Sims 3 plans to make is a new gameplay that EA describes as rewarding and quick to play.  I don’t really have more details on that, really, but you can read more details about all the new features on the Sims 3 Website.

I’m sure that there are some who are reading this who are die-hard Sims addicts who are going to be waiting on pins and needles until Sims 3 is finally on their PC. Just to let you know, versions of Sims 3 are also going to be available for the Mac, iPhone, and iPod Touch later in the summer.

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SimCity Released for iPhone

Today EA announced the release of the classic game SimCity for the iPhone and iPod touch.

SimCity, a game of city construction and management, is one of the first significant games made by Will Wright, creator of the imaginative, and highly hyped, Spore. As the name suggests, SimCity was also among the first in the line of “Sim” games, made widely famous by Wright’s game The Sims.

The iPhone and iPod touch version hasn’t been stripped down for this touch-based version, and brings all the features that players would expect in a SimCity game. From the looks of it, SimCity for the iPhone bears many similarities to SimCity 3000, the third game in the series.

There seems to be a trend lately of developers re-releasing old games on portable hardware, and SimCity seems like the perfect choice for this sort of thing. SimCity is an old favourite of mine, even though whenever I play it I always end up with massive debt and a stagnant slum, so the chance to play it on the go is pretty neat. Especially nice are the touch controls, which in my opinion are well-suited for the type of game SimCity is.

SimCity costs $10 and is available at the iPhone app store.

Interview with Best Buy Blueshirt and Geek Squad Agent

I was glad to get the opportunity to interview the professionals at Best Buy about gifts for the holiday season. I suppose I could write about the experience, but personally, I think you should just watch the video of it below. In case you don’t have the 20 minutes to spare, here are the highlights.

First of all, the biggest gadgets this year are the video game systems, GPS units, digital cameras, digital frames, web-cams, and photo-printers.

When I asked about video game systems, I was not surprised when they told me that the Nintendo Wii is hard to keep in stock. PS3 is also popular since many people want Blu-ray for their home theaters.

Speaking of Blu-ray, I asked if the resolution of the format wars this year affected sales of the X-box 360. Oddly enough, it does not, because X-box 360 has the ability to download HD-quality movies. I feel sort of silly for not knowing that.

Video games that Best Buy has to stock daily are the WiiFit, Fallout 3, Left 4 Dead, Resistance, Madden, NBA 2K, Guitar Hero, and Rock Band 2.

I asked the Best Buy guys what GPS devices that they would recommend, and they didn’t really give me any particular brand. They discussed that Garmin and TomTom are the big brands, and you can hear about the technical differences as to why some GPS devices are more expensive than others.

I also talked to them about digital cameras, and what makes Sony different from others. They talked about why Casio is getting popular, especially amongst YouTubers. Since I’ve tried out the Nikon, I had to bring up the COOLPIX and its ability to take a shot and email it.

My interviewees also told me that Home Theater is beginning to take off, and Blu-ray is slowly gaining popularity. The Vudu allows you to get Blu-Ray quality movies. Best Buy also recommended their in-home consultation services for setting up a home theatre.

By the way, since I had someone from Geek Squad on the phone, there was a question I had to ask: If Geek Squad and the Nerd Heard from TV’s Chuck ever got into a fight, who would win? Find out the answer in the video.

[googlevideo]http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6297291551207338808[/googlevideo]

Ziibii iPhone App Keeps You Close No Matter Where You Go

Ziibii fuses a number of social networking sites in one stylish iPhone application. It’s RSS meets communication.

Ziibii combines Facebook, Flickr, Youtube, RSS, Twitter and more into one convenient and pretty application. We almost depend on social networking sites to stay in touch with many of our friends today, and this little app helps you stay close to them no matter where you go. You are teased with status updates, brief news feeds, newly uploaded pictures, and videos that float down a river on your iPhone (Ziibii is a term for “river” Native Americans according to Zumobi, the creators of the app).

Floating headline snippets stream across your iPhone, full of all the information you have subscribed to and customized. You control the pace at which these travel and can pause it whenever you like. Clicking on one of the floating selections will bring you to an extended view where you can choose to see the full version on the web.

The app is fun to use, but improvements can be made. The current release has problems with twitter, and it feels like you do not have enough control over choosing the Flickr photos and Youtube videos you want to access. I would also like to see more social networks supported by the app, including MySpace, Vimeo, Hulu, Vox, and Bebo.

Ziibii is a fun time waster and great for taking a peek at what your friends and family are up to while you’re on the go. The version from the initial release is a little clunky, but a few minor improvements could make this app a must have for any iPhone owner.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZXDbMTHQ1Y[/youtube]

What are your thoughts?

Deal Seekers Will Love Woot.com

Shoppers who love a good deal will find it hard to pass up visiting woot.com on a daily basis.

Woot.com is an Internet retailer that sells one item per day at one low price until the product sells out or the day ends (it rarely ends before the item sells out). Once it hits 11:59pm central time, the previous day’s item is replaced by a new deal, anything from tech gadgets to TVs to hammers. Items are often from recognizable brands and cannot be found at a cheaper price.

Some items are refurbished, but many are brand new and often times released on the website before they are available anywhere else in the marketplace. You cannot purchase items from previous days and you will never find out what products will be released in future days. It’s a day by day thing.

Woot offers witty and informative product reviews and descriptions that are fun to read and sometimes brutally honest, usually poking fun at the item being sold. As soon as a new item is posted on the website, the Woot community will contribute opinions on the product, reviews, and other relevant information.

The company holds a policy to where they are not directly responsible for the products sold. There is no customer support (unless you can get help from the community on the forums), and all returns must be sent directly to the manufacturer of whatever product you purchased. The products being sold are held to high standards and they will not knowingly send you faulty products, but they are not your typical retailer with warranties and a return policy, in fact they discourage returns.

Woot keeps tracks of stats as well, in case you want to know how fast something sold, where it sold best, or what didn’t sell at all. Items sell fastest between 12am and 1am, as soon as a new item is released on the website. You never know how many of an item there will be, so many stay up until midnight to see what new item is on sale just in case the deal is so absolutely amazing that their life would be ruined if they missed it.

The site also offers specials and surprises. A Woot-Off is when a number of products will be on sale for an unannounced period of time. The Bag O’ Crap is sold for $1 and is a random selection usually offering nothing but crap, but once in awhile a person will be awarded with something as grand as a flat-screen TV. “2-for-Tuesdays” is an event every Tuesday where the site sells two or more products at once, and product launches are special events where Woot partners with other companies for a special pre-release of a product.

This is a warning, do not check out Woot.com if you despise glorious deals and interesting products caressed with enjoyable commentary and informative description.

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