#most animators would use IK to do that but its not a built-in feature of blockbench

[fivepebble]

tumblr unfortunately limits the amount of videos you can put in one post so here's another one of his updated idle animation, still need to tweak some things and add tail movements but ya

[rosekin]

FIRE EMBLEM REVIEWS

Fire Emblem 1, or “The Marth Game”: My advice to everyone everywhere is to never play an RPG thats released on the NES. 0/10

FE2, Gaiden: I really wish this one wasn’t an NES RPG because it’s honestly really promising. Here’s hoping it gets a remake one day haha 2/10

FE3, Mystery of the Emblem, or “Marth 2″: NES RPG 0/10

FE4, Genealogy of the Holy War: Ah, a SNES RPG! Those are often good. Too bad this one has atrocious map design, boring characters, poorly balanced gameplay, inherent genetic superiority built into its royal units, and incest. c’est la vie, 0/10

FE5, Thracia 776: It’s not a BAD game exactly, but it is a game that was designed with the kind of “difficulty” that exists purely to sell strategy guides. 3/10

FE6, Binding Blade: Entering into the GBA Era, we have a game that is incredibly dull and has a lot of poor design decisions reminiscent of FE4. It gets points for including Roy from Super Smash Bros Melee, however. Bold choice, Intelligent Systems. 2/10

FE7, Blazing Blade: The prequel to Binding Blade, Blazing Blade is better than Binding Blade in every regard except instead of Roy, Binding Blade has 3 main protagonists and the only good one is the one with the least screentime. Lyn is a cool and interesting character, but Eliwood is too milquetoast and Hector is a dick. 6/10

FE8, Sacred Stones: It has good maps, good characters, an actual postgame, and introduces a feature that makes it far more replayable than previous games, Class Trees. No longer does every Mage become a Sage, for they could also become a Mage Knight. For certain base classes, this opens up a range of up to 4 possible options for their final class! Some people might complain that Sacred Stones is too easy, but I’ll take a game easy enough that I can use whatever party I want over something like Genealogy where units who aren’t mounted are absolutely worthless any day. No, the only complaint I have about Sacred Stones is the unfortunate misogyny in the writing surrounding Eirika. I highly recommend that if you play the game, you use the Restoration Queen fan hack(it also adds gay marriage which is cool.) 9/10, 10/10 with Restoration Queen

FE9, Path of Radiance: Ike game, baby. This is the Fire Emblem I’d recommend the most for sure. The first game in the series that’s not largely from the perspective of nobility who are in charge of armies, The central players to this plot is a small mercenary company. It’s a very refreshing change of pace. The only problem I have with it is in regards to the Fantasy Racism aspect. I’m the kind of person who would rather have, like, Racism With Furries in a game like this than Actual Racism being portrayed, and PoR honestly handles it rather well, but it always grinds my gears when they’re like “oh yeah mixed people are the most oppressed because the humans and the furries both shun them” like god thats not how it works. Aside from that, wonderful game. 9.5/10

FE10, Radiant Dawn: Ike 2, this time with co-protagonist Micaiah, the first female lord to not be a naive, softhearted damsel, who hails from the “evil” country from the last game. It’s hard to talk about without spoilers, but Radiant Dawn is very pro-proletariat. Also the “Ike gay” subtext becomes closer to being just regular text, and new character Heather is definitively a lesbian. This is, very unfortunately, the best Fire Emblem will ever do for gay rights. 10/10

FE11, Shadow Dragon: A remake of FE1 that doesn’t manage to throw off its shackles of being based off of an NES RPG, which limits its gameplay and story. 3/10

FE12, New Mystery of the Emblem: A remake of FE3 that is arguably worse than its original in some ways, and started the trend of having player avatar characters that ruin the plot by being overly significant. 0/10

FE13, Awakening: Very boring. Makes a lot of gameplay changes that absolutely trivialize the gameplay aspect, as if the bland map design didn’t do that enough already. Had to introduce difficulty modes that made all of the enemies insanely strong with busted skills because that’s the only way this game could be remotely challenging. The characters are bland, the plot is borderline nonsensical, and Robin ruins it all as well.This game also introduces new series mainstays such as homophobia, pedophilia, and rampant oversexualization of women. 0/10

FE14, Fates(Birthright, Conquest, and Revelations): A game so nice you buy it thrice! Fates manages to take a lot of things from Awakenings gameplay and improve them enough that they’d be worth maybe a 3.5/10, if it wasn’t for the fact that Fates continues, and actually increases, the homophobia, pedophilia, and rampant oversexualization of women, as well as adding our fourth horseman of the anime apocalypse, our long lost friend Incest who hasn’t been seen since Genealogy. It’s okay, though, because you just grew up thinking you were siblings, you’re not actually related(except for Azura, who is your actual cousin so that excuse wouldn’t even work). On the bright side, Corrin is actually the avatar character who fits reasonably in the plot so far, if only because the plot of Fates is so laughably bad even compared to Awakening. I could rant about so many things about this terrible terrible game, but it’s already taking up too much of my review post as it is. 0/10.

FE15, Shadows of Valentia: Finally, a remake of FE2, I can’t wait to see what they’ve done with it. It’s got really cool kinda choppy animation in the CGI cutscenes I like that. Wow, they managed to capture the innovative gameplay of the original while updating it to be far less frustrating... And they managed to update the already surprisingly interesting plot by... adding unnecessary characters and making it way more classist and sexist. Great. 3.5/10

FE16, Three Houses: The gameplay, quite honestly? Worse than Fates. The story... I like the characters, and it’s not really as problematic as Fates(hardly any incest to speak of, the sexualization of women isn’t quite as bad, the homophobia is less “depicting gay people in gross ways” and more “the only options for dudes are a base gametwink, a free DLC twink, and a paid DLC twink”). Really the biggest stumbling block is they took the pitfall of doing Actual Racism instead of Fantasy Racism, and then they really fucked up by portraying it far worse than Path of Radiance did Furry Racism. In Path of Radiance, the racist people who join you consist of Soren, who has a Distrusting Furries pass on account of being mixed(I already complained about this) and Jill, who is from Daein(the Bad People country) and has had her brain poisoned by propaganda. Ike doesn’t coddle her on this, however, and tells her to shape up or get the boot. In Three Houses, characters are allowed to be racist with no repercussions. Pretty much any and all character growth connected to Stopping Being Racist is carried out through completely optional support conversations. This? Sucks! It sucks! uhhh 3.5/10 as well

[botslayer]

Top Ten games of the 2010′s

This trend seems to be doing the rounds at the moment and seeing as I’ve been gaming for about as long as I can remember, It just feels right. So, let’s get into it. But first, worth saying: These aren't really in any specific order, it's just the games I've personally had the most fun with overall, but it's pretty hard to decide what the hard numbers on things you enjoy for different reasons are if that makes any sense. 10. The 2010's weren't exactly the best time for anyone, I think. For me they were a slog of finding myself and learning things I wish I didn't. Amid all those things I wanted some levity. The world needs something and stupid. We got a lot of it ion 2013 but I feel like we could have used it scattered around a bit more. In that spirit, allow me to show you one hell of a pick me up:

Saints Row 4

Saints Row 4 does not give a fuck. It is aggressively demonstrating that the entire time you play. It doesn't care in the slightest what you think or why, It just wants to show you cool, if juvenile, and interesting, if weird shit. It's the finer points of Ratchet and Clank's arsenal, SR3's humor, And superpowers that genuinely put Prototype and Infamous in a blender and tell you to go ape shit with them. The soundtrack isn't top shelf, it's the roof of the building the shelf is in. Saints Row Two had a better story overall but SR Four's was just plain fun and a solid enough story to still be invested.

The DLC was just as irreverent and madcap, Featuring everything from an evil Santa Clause to evil Gimps on Game of thrones chairs made of dildos Or Tropey-ass costumes and weapon reskins that I'd be genuinely surprised the game dev didn't get sued over. It has earned its place in my top 10 and I will die by that decision.

9.

2016 saw the advent of a new genre. They blended TF2 and MOBAs, and we got hero shooters in their first AAA forms, Overwatch and Battleborn. But neither of these games is on this list, much as I liked them. Partly because the whole time, I kept thinking of one simple question: "Why do I keep thinking of...?"

Anarchy Reigns

Anarchy Reigns is my favorite Platinum game. Full Stop. The Story mode is interesting and has genuinely good character moments, the characters themselves are completely mental, ranging from a mercenary with a bionic cat leg that secretly has a gun built into it to a giant cyborg bull-man with a jet-powered hammer. The soundtrack is mostly angry hip-hop, making every song a banger and fittingly speedy for things like random bombing runs from jet fighters that come from absolutely nowhere.

There are giant monsters, cars with mounted flame throwers, giant robots, and the online is still pretty sweet because even when abandoned, loading it up with bots still rules. I regularly have more fun with this than I ever did with Overwatch, and I don't care how insane that sounds.

8.

Some games want to make you feel something and fail. Some games make you feel some things accidentally, for example, a desperate need to laugh. This game made me feel like a human blender. Like a Chthonic god of mangled flesh and raw destructive power. Nyarlathotep ain't got nothing on me. I speak, of course, of...

[Prototype] 2

There's no end to the absolute destruction you feel like you're causing in this game. It feels more fluid than the first, the main character is a pinch more relatable, and all the body horror, superpowers, zombie hordes, and big old monsters make for some of the most memorable and fun moments and fights in gaming. The DLC is also pretty solid, adding new fun side challenges, and new powers and weapons that elevate you from "Flesh god" to "Screw physics, I made them" Omnipotent. Best god/monster simulation of all time.

7.

Sometimes some games are at an honest tie in your mind. Be it that you like them for essentially the same reasons, or for completely different reasons, but the overall total joy or entertainment they bring is roughly equivalent. Here, we have a case of the former:

Furi/Cuphead

Both games have a tight focus on giving players a unique, boss-centric challenge, both have interesting, somewhat minimal narratives, and both are absolute eye candy.

Furi has a more "Samurai Jack" Quality to me. A complete badass on a relatively simple quest with a somewhat minimalistic art style learning some things as he goes.

Cuphead on the other hand, nails that rubber hose animation style, and the fun levity of such animations while still making the player's ability to interact with the world damn impactful and fun.

They share a spot in my soul, games I love everything about but will never be able to finish. Hats off to both dev teams.

6.

Now here we have another tie. Mostly because the games are so close together, they need to be evaluated more or less as one product IMO, not enough changed for me to consider them separate games, fortunately, that is the furthest thing from an insult it can be in this situation. I present to you, my next pick(s).

Costume Quest 1/2

Now, This might seem pretty random considering my other picks, but honestly, I love Halloween, I love creative madness, I love subversion, I love good characters, and I love cool action, these games have all these things by the bucketload.

The first game is a wild ride through Halloween in multiple very lively locations and the second, slightly confusing as it is, is pretty awesome for the things it introduces, including time travel. Other elements, like the battle stamps, the truly epic forms of everything in the fights, The ability to customize your costumes, etc. they blur together in a pretty big way, but again, there's not a thing wrong with that when both games rock like crystal candy. 

5.

Now, if you hadn't noticed, all of the games on this list have had some hard action at their core, and while I don't HATE calmer games, a lot of the time, so many are kinda dull to me in that with the exception of easter eggs of some sort, most farming sims, for example, just have you doing normal farm stuff with very few twists, may as well start a real farm in that case. My most chill entry is a game that tosses that to one side, asks you to grab a suck cannon, and start harvesting gelatinous monster poop.

Slime Rancher

While you don't spend a lot of time actually interacting with other characters, they just talk at you, the story of the game is pretty effective, the player character of Beatrix has left Earth for a simpler life of Slime Ranching, which entails the raising of alien crops, delightfully derpy and colorful chickens, and going all around in an attempt to farm new breeds of slime for their genetic material to sell off or trade-in for the creation of gadgets while being surrounded by a cast of interesting characters. It's all very wholesome family fun.

The game looks great, has great ideas, and is genuinely the best farming game I have ever played. @ me all you want.

4.

The 80's are almost fetishized nowadays. Given all the property reboots, games that go for the vibe and aesthetic of the time, etc. It almost seems as though the eighties vibe train ain't gonna stop rolling any time soon. But we owe it to ourselves to remember the first big swipe of madcap neon-colored actiony B-movie bullshit and how mind-meltingly epic it was. Ladies, Gents, and whatever else, I present:

Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

Blood Dragon's story is relatively simple, you play Sargent Rex "Power" Colt (A name said in full so many times I thought his last name was "Powercolt" for the longest time), a former "Omega force" cyborg. Rex and his friend "Spider" were sent into a secret island base to investigate the supposed defection and treachery of their old commander, Ike Sloan. It turns out he has gone rogue and taken an army of "Mark 5" Omegaforce cyber-soldiers with him. What follows is a long story of betrayal, science fiction of the highest nonsensical level, comedy, and brilliantly cathartic action.

The collectibles range from data on animals, to research notes from a scientist, to literal VHS cassette tapes that have full descriptions of movies that I would legitimately watch if I could. "You may now kill the brides" is not a real film and I am angry for every day that that is true. Anyway, play Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, I dunno if it's on PS4 but it's one game I'd buy a new/old console for.

3.

A lot of superhero games NEED to railroad you. Your goals MUST be to save the lives of the people and help the weak and all that. But one dev asked the simple question: "What if it didn't?" "What if the player chose how to use their power? What if the player could be as evil or as good as they damn well pleased?" One game gave you the powers of thunder and lightning and asked what you'd do with it. It's sequel asked you the same, but against more... interesting forces.

InFamous 2

InFamous 2 is a game about making choices, just like the first one, also just like the first one, it can have an effect on gameplay. That effect went from "What does this particular power do in this allignment?" To "Which new set of NEW powers would you like?" The forces of the last game went from “Three flavors of gun-toting whackos” To “Possibly an allegory for the Klan, Swamp monsters, and Ice-powered super soldiers.”

This was, and still is, the best game in the whole series, The powers felt distinct from anything else and still do, the story is solid as a rock, and the enemy types were still varied enough to be interesting, I miss the Reapers from the first game, but that's about it. Everything else was a massive step up. If you have something that can run it, play it.

2.

Action is something I think we can all appreciate on some level. We can understand when it does or does not work, we can understand when we do or do not like how it feels when we are the ones partaking in it. EX: Any schlep can tell you when the weapons in your game lack impact, or when your character moves too slow for the game to be fun. The following game is something I can't say anything of the sort about. And it's kind of like Wolfenstein, when you have enemies this bad, who the hell cares how many you kill?

Doom 2016

Y'all are lying if you say you didn't expect this one. It's DOOM 2016. This game is made of hate and fuck. AND I LOVE IT. You move so fast, you may as well be half cheetah and half sports car. You slaughter the dregs of hell by the dozens and even the biggest, baddest things this game throws at you can be beaten with the starting pistol if you have the stones for it. It looks amazing graphically, the demons all look appropriately threatening, and even the Multiplayer is a great deal of fun in my book.

Something worth noting: The story presented by default is pretty barebones, but that's where supplementary material fills in the gaps, the difference between supplementary material in most games and supplementary material here is the material is till IN THE GAME. You're free to ignore most of the plot as it happens around you, and even interesting tidbits of the lore like how certain demons function. Not only are these things missable collectibles, prompting continued play to find them, they are also pretty interesting reads. So yeah, just about everything you could want in a sequel/remake, builds the on lore and gameplay very organically. 

1.

And here we are, the last game I'd put in this category. An entire decade, and here, we end on the last game that left such an impact I'd put it in my top ten. But first, let's talk about expectations and delivery: When you say a game is coming out, there are certain expectations you have for gameplay, EX: I say "Ratchet and Clank" and you expect a TPS with platforming elements and crazy guns. I say "Gears of War" and people expect something to do with lumbering about in big armor, dismembering things with a chainsaw gun and otherwise shooting them to paste. We might also expect changes to things, better graphics, innovations in grenade variety, something as that franchise goes on.

After the last game in this series was released, there were tons of people who felt let down and disappointed by it. Then they released the still somewhat disappointing special edition of it. They were both still fun, but neither really felt like the full next step in the series. After a failed reboot, they returned to the original story and the lot of us rejoiced. And when it finally came out? It was a step up in most, if not, all regards, to its predecessors. You know what this last one is. Please, give a warm round of applause to:

Devil May Cry 5

A game that was not only a return to form, but a major escalation in gameplay for one character, and a new style of gameplay all together by way of yet another new character. It didn’t exactly hurt that the story kicked ten kinds of ass and that the game looked spectacular in both the design of everything and the actual graphical fidelity.DMC 5 is, like DOOM, Like InFamous 2, Like [PROTOTYPE] 2, everything you want in a good sequel. It built very well on already solid foundations and it was generally just a fun, slightly goofy, massively stylish, and ultra badass ride. I recommend this, and all these games, to anyone.Good night everyone, have a great 2020. And the rest of the decade, for that matter. 

[sims2shrine]

“This soulless game isn’t really ‘The Sims’ for me”

I am starting off this blog with a review for The Sims 3 from Amazon.com user Valentinegirl. Why The Sims 3 on a blog dedicated to The Sims 2, you ask? Because this review details just about everything about The Sims 2 that makes it so special and endearing. Whenever I come back to playing The Sims 2 after a long break, I like to re-read this review because it always excites and inspires me to play this game that I am so passionate about. Note that the opinions expressed in this review do not necessarily correlate with my own -- I do enjoy all of PC versions for the most part. I just believe that The Sims 2 is far superior to the others, hence why this blog was born.

“Like many of the other reviewers here, I have been a HUGE fan of The Sims franchises, losing many pleasant hours to The Sims 1 and its wonderful sequel The Sims 2. Even before The Sims came out I was a Maxis fan, playing games like Sim City and Sim Tower with pleasure. I can't say that The Sims 3 has ‘disappointed’ me because the more I heard about the new game over its development period the more I thought to myself ‘why are they including this feature or dropping that feature? It sounds like they are tampering with the heart of the things I enjoy about The Sims’. But I bought the game anyway in good faith. Needless to say I am now back to playing The Sims 2. The Sims 3 has no interest for me at all in comparison. Despite all the ‘improvements’ - and I admit there are some surface ones - the heart and soul of what The Sims means to me is absent from this game. Unlike other reviewers here, my negative review of this game is not due to any technical difficulties. Perhaps I haven't played long enough to experience any, and at any rate - every hard-core Sims fan has learned to live with the bugs shipped with the game and love it anyway. The modding community has always done a sterling job of cleaning up our games and making them more playable and enjoyable. So my negative rating is not due to bugs or crashes - it is purely based on my perception of the game's enjoyment factor, especially when compared to The Sims 2. To be fair, I will sum up what to me are improvements to the game compared to The Sims 2: - the ‘open neighbourhood’ - the ability to go from one place to the other without a loading screen is a fine idea and works well in principal. But I found that it really didn't impact my playing habits as much as you might think at first. While playing a large, busy family there would be very little time to go rushing off to the park or elsewhere and I found I was ‘household’ focussed in my game playing just as much as in The Sims 2. I actually prefer in some ways the way community lots worked in The Sims 2. If you could organise your sims enough to go off to a community lot, time would actually stand still in the meantime, taking the pressure off your enjoyment of this change in pace for your sims. - No doubt about it, the ‘Create a Style’ colour wheel/pattern maker is the one thing that is far superior to recolouring in The Sims 2. It's great fun and so easy to go through and match up clothing, furniture, wallpaper, etc in an obsessive fashion that suits my type of playing down to the ground. But even here is a caveat - there is no Body Shop type program to truly customise textures. You can recolour only which is hardly satisfying in a creative way compared to being able to extract a texture and import it into Photoshop, thereby putting your own personal stamp on the texture. For example, in The Sims 2 you could export a dress texture and by pasting on a texture of your own you could make the outfit appear to be a cardigan and skirt instead. I am sure custom content creators in time will come up with ways of importing new meshes/textures into The Sims 3, but it is obvious that EA is trying to limit this type of thing to the ‘regular’ user right from the beginning by eliminating a ‘Bodyshop’ program from their development tools. - The ease of angle rotation is an unmixed blessing in this game - something that I wish had happened in The Sims 2 - The outdoor scenery in The Sims 3 is gorgeous from the beach, the shimmering water, to the parks, rolling hills etc. But the limitations put on being able to make this neighbourhood your own again shows up the inflexibility built into this game. Whereas in The Sims 2 you could completely customise your neighbourhood, building it up from a terrain created in Sim City, to decorating it and laying out your lots etc, in this game, EA gives you this beautiful scenery and then severely limits your ability to customise it. You cannot create your own terrain, the community lot buildings are the same everywhere and are not even properly functional, and there are a limited number of lots for your houses. It feels like a ‘dumbed down’ version of a neighbourhood to me that even the ‘open plan’ of the game cannot make up for. - There are a lot more surface details to gameplay in The Sims 3 by the way of person and object interactions and the little missions/opportunities that pop up. I do appreciate the amount of thought that has gone into a lot of these things, like adding depth to the career paths and making such things as painting a picture personal to every different type of sim. But again, when playing a busy family (six kids!) I found that I would just click the opportunities away as an annoyance without even reading them. There was no way my busy mother or father could go running off to the town park for a chess tournament when they were caring for screaming toddlers at home! - The lighting of the new game is a nice update and beautiful. It is also flexible if you have the time or inclination to mess around with the many options provided So even the improvements included in The Sims 3 are mostly mixed blessings for me! Here are the things that have decided me against the game: - The sims themselves. Try as I might, I cannot bond with these weird looking people and that bond between the player and their ‘Simmies’ is the major factor that holds many Sims fans in thrall. For a start, these creations just don't look like sims to me. It is laughable that the creators of this game are claiming that the sculpting tools given to create a sim are more flexible and customisable than in The Sims 2! In fact the sliders are very limited in their scope and have less points of difference than those provided in ‘Bodyshop’. That round-faced, chinless look that we all noticed and wondered at in preview pictures of this game is there for the very specific reason that you can't provide your sim with a proper chin and all of them look blobby and quite fat in the face. The noses look like they are just stuck on anyhow and look very unfortunate in profile. And the empty-looking eyes roll in a very disconcerting and unappealing alien manner. The sims toddlers and children - one of my prime delights in The Sims 2 - all look very ugly and all look exactly the same. One couple I played had six children, just to check out the genetics and all of them looked like peas in a pod until they got to their adult years, and even then the differences were minimal. It was very unsatisfying spending so much time and energy raising these unappealing little clones! - Obviously, I have had trouble creating sims I like to look at. That wouldn't matter as much if I could love the way these sims act and interact. If you think back to The Sims 1 and The Sims 2 what charmed fans of these games was how cute, quirky, funny, unexpected and unique all these characters seemed to the player. I don't accept the criticism the developers of this new game kept stating that ‘all previous sims games had sims who were all the same and all they wanted to do all the time was go to the toilet!’ Well really - do they think The Sims 1 and 2 would have been such world-wide successes if this were actually true?? Of course not! Our sims charmed us, made us laugh, surprised us and often took their own little lives in their own hands and pulled the game in a direction all their own. The two things promised by The Sims 3 creators about how the new sims would behave were 1) There would be a lot more time to attend to the sims' lives and less need to run around after them caring for their basic ‘needs’ - such as sending them to the toilet or to bed; and 2) the new ‘traits’ system would ensure truly unique behaviour from the sims and open up entirely new vistas of personalities and interactions for sims fans to enjoy. I'm sorry to say, but I have to rebut both of these stated improvements. 1)I think every Sims 3 player, no matter how dedicated a fan they are will admit that you spend more time waiting for your sims to fulfil needs than ever before. You spend ages just watching them sleep every night. They seem to have bladder and hunger needs that are never satiated, and you spend more boring time staring at their work building while they are off at work. So between taking them to work, watching them sleep, fulfilling their needs and trying to skill up, there is actually zero time left in a sims' busy day to take them to the park, the beach or visit a neighbour! How is this the ‘new balance’ of life over needs that the developers were so proudly proclaiming?? 2) As for the ‘traits’ system - that has to be the biggest disappointment of all. Sure, picking different traits for your sims will give them some very superficial differences, such as different interaction possibilities with other sims, or different animations. but at a deeper level, each and every sim seems the same over and over again. I think the main reason I say this is if you watch a household full of sims who all supposedly have a unique set of traits, you don't see them acting differently unless you tell them to. In fact they barely interact with one another at all if you don't tell them to. They ignore one another and spend their time being boring - fulfilling the endless needs or perhaps using a skill object. They don't care to interact with one another at all! It is quite possible to have two sims living in the same house forever and they remain total strangers to one another. You have to force them to interact which I find really annoying - I had hoped that they might work out their own relationships as they did in The Sims 2. Another annoying thing is the lack of familial affection between sims. Unlike The Sims 2, you never see a parent hug, kiss or play with a child unless you tell them to. You just don't feel that these sims love/care about one another at all, and I remember that feeling that ‘love is real’ between sims being the primary and most striking point that charmed me when The Sims 2 came out. I am sorry to say, if I compare the depth of personality of a houseful of Sims 2 and 3 sims, the Sims 2 sims would win hands down. In Sims 2, they would take one another in like or dislike, be attracted to some and repulsed by others. The parents would hug their kids when they got home from work, and kiss them goodnight. Husbands and wives would find a quiet corner and canoodle in a very romantic way. In Sims 3 they all coldly ignore one another and act in boring and one-dimensional ways, totally uninfluenced by their so-called ‘unique traits’. This lack of true feeling for my sims and between the sims themselves is my primary reason for calling this latest instalment ‘soulless’. How can you feel attached to these ugly, alien-like people who all look and act the same? - I do not care for one of the key selling points of The Sims 3 - the so-called ‘story progression’. Which sim fan really wants to leave their playable family for a little while only to come back and find they've moved out of the neighbourhood, or had a family while you're not looking with kids you didn't get to name? Where is the appeal in that? Most sims fans love to micro-manage their sim's lives - who they love, marry, have kids with, what they name their kids, where they choose to live, etc. Even more frustrating, the ability to turn story progression off is broken!! Good one, EA!! Another one of my criticisms is that EA has written out some of the most enjoyable and endearing elements of The Sims 2. Eliminating these things really proves to me how little the developers of the game understood the things that true Sims fans love about their games. Here are some as an example: - Story mode is gone. Yes I know there is a camera and yes I know they have all this fancy equipment that enables you to easily upload stories and movies onto the web to share. But I bet 90% of Sims players are not all that interested in sharing stories on the world wide web. The Sims has always been a highly personal game - a fantasy world unique to each sims player, and making up and sharing sims stories is not the driving reason to play the game for most. It is to get lost in your own little self-created kingdom and fall in love with the little pixels that people it. In Sims 1 & 2, using the camera as I played and building up an album for each little family became a mainstay of my playing style over the years. Most of the time I would not even add text to the pictures. They would be safely stored in each family's little album and every once in a while I would choose to browse through this visual record of my sims' little lives and enjoy again the sentimental, surprising, funny little incidents that marked the passage of that family's life. I would record the unexpected or charming little things that made my sims seem unique, like when my prim little sim teenager fell in love with the neighbourhood ‘bad boy’ all on her own and against any of my expectations. Or when my shy, nerdy sim who lived with a party animal room-mate spent all her time in her room reading on the bed or, of all things - washing the windows! whenever her room-mate threw one of her wild parties! Not having this record at hand of the family's little story in Sims 3 is definitely a contributing factor to the feeling of the game having little forward progression - every day seems like the one before. - Eliminating memories from the Sims is another way EA has wiped out the sense you might have of the family's story and history. I know memories caused all sorts of trouble in The Sims 2 if you moved sims indiscriminately from one neighbourhood to the next, but I think for many of us, having that sim's little milestones recorded in their memories really gave the sim a feel of individuality and personal growth. After not playing a particular family for a long time the first thing I would do would be to flip through the family's album and check their memories. This would put me back in touch with where the family was in their own particular life story. - Another charming Sims 2 feature that was wiped out was the attraction system. I know the original Sims 2 game did not ship with this, but it was added early on in one of the expansion packs and I am sure every Sims 2 fan absolutely loved it. It was another way to differentiate sims from one another. You could create down to the finest detail two sims who you thought would be ‘perfect’ for each other, only to find they couldn't stand each other! Then two of the unlikeliest sims would get together all of their own accord, making you feel that these little people had minds and hearts of their own. I loved this feature so much that my playing style was to resolutely let each sim choose his or her own mate with no help from me. There are other reasons for me not to like this highly polished, highly superficial instalment of The Sims franchise. But in the end, it came down to these basic feelings about the game - I don't care how gorgeous it is to look at if the gameplay is shallow and boring - I feel like EA is really dumbing down long-time sims fans by trying to eliminate custom content, charging like a wounded bull for their sub-standard stuff and doing their best to stifle the creativity of the custom content community - The sims are cookie-cutter clones of one another, and have no charm either of physical appearance or personality. The life and soul has been sucked out of these pixel-people - There is no sense of story, no unexpected interactions, no story mode or memories to record the sims lives. They no longer care about one another at all - parents, children, lovers, room-mates, friends - it doesn't matter what relationship the sims have to one another, there is no desire for these people to interact or develop their relationships unless you force it. I am mad at EA for ‘missing the boat’ on this franchise upgrade. In fact, it no longer feels like The Sims at all to me. All the charm and spontaneity has gone out of the game. I suppose it's not surprising I feel this way - Will Wright and his unique Maxis team of developers are long gone and EA has taken over. EA have no idea, and do not care what made The Sims beloved of fans the world over and instead are forcing something on them that has only a surface relationship to previous games. Much in the same way they ‘improved’ Sim City out of all recognition of the original game (’Sim City Societies’), they have done this to The Sims and that, I think is unforgivable. Fortunately, The Sims 2 will always be here and I am gladly getting back to my cute, funny, irreverent, surprising little sims with the huge added bonus of all the expansion packs and custom content I have built up over the years. I doubt if I will ever come back to The Sims 3 even if they bring out boatloads of expansion packs. If the game has no soul, it cannot be loved.

This review was written on July 27th, 2009. Source: Amazon.com. Link to original review: https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/RCEHMW5QIIA7B/ref=cm_cr_getr_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B00166N6SA

[etechwire-blog]

Super Smash Bros Ultimate release date, trailer and news

New Post has been published on https://www.etechwire.com/super-smash-bros-ultimate-release-date-trailer-and-news/

Super Smash Bros Ultimate release date, trailer and news

Fighting games haven’t really ever gone out of fashion – just look at how well Street Fighter 5, Tekken 7, Injustice 2 and Marvel Vs Capcom Infinite have performed recently for proof of that. However, for all their success not one of them has felt quite as timeless as Super Smash Bros.

A fighting game with Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach? If you’re not a fan of the series (yet) then it’s a pretty barmy idea at first glance, but spend a few rounds brawling your way through a four-player showdown and you’ll be forever convinced of its unique brilliance. 

You can imagine, then, just how much the Super Smash Bros community wants a new entry in the series, particularly now that the Nintendo Switch is consistently proving itself to be a system worth investing in. 

Super Smash Bros has featured on most of Nintendo’s major systems (including Nintendo 64, Gamecube, Wii, Wii U and 3DS) so it’s nice to see that it’s been confirmed for the Switch, especially with such potent eSports potential.

Cut to the chase

What is it? The highly anticipated fifth entry in the Nintendo fighting game series 

When can I play it? December 7, 2018

What can I play it on? Nintendo Switch

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – release date

Following the E3 2018 Nintendo Direct , we know Super Smash Bros will come out on December 7, 2018.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – trailers

At E3 2018, a majority of the Nintendo Direct live stream was dedicated to Super Smash Bros Ultimate. At just over 25 minutes, this is a long reveal and you can watch it below:

Here’s the initial teaser from the March 2018 Nintendo Direct and it’s a good one. You can watch it below:

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – news and rumors

Revealed at E3

Good news for those excited about Super Smash Bros: the game was the star of Nintendo’s E3 show. During the livestream, Nintendo’s Masahiro Sakurai revealed almost everything we’ve been wanting to know about the next instalment of the Super Smash Bros series that will arrive on December 7, 2018.

Everyone is here

Every character that has ever appeared in Super Smash Bros is coming back to the Switch version. Nintendo has confirmed that there will be a total of 65 characters including the return of Ice Climbers as a duo and Pichu from Super Smash Bros Melee. We’ll see returning crossover characters like Sonic and Solid Snake.

Thus far the only new characters are the Inkling from the Splatoon series and Ridley from the Metroid series.

Available as both a boy or girl character (with dozens of clothing and style choices), the Inkling’s attacks all revolve around the different weapons available in Splatoon and inked opponents take more damage from attacks. Users will also have to press the B button while their shield is up to reload their inking ammo.

Ridley, meanwhile, was only appeared briefly in Nintendo’s E3 2018 Direct, and it seems as though he will be a very aerial-focused character with dive bomb moves.

All the classic characters have also received overhauls, here’ are just a few of the new moves of the veteran smashers:

Mario: Throwable Odyssey hat, added wedding and builder outfits

Ike: Path of Radiance and Radiant Dawn versions added with different voices

Pikachu: New female character with heFox’s design now based on Zox Zero.

Fox: Landmaster final smash has been replaced with a straight to the point attack

Falco: New final smash calls in a spaceship attack

Marth: dancing blade is faster

Pac-Man: Faster overall thanks to a speed boost

Villager: Users can now choose from eight different characters

Compatible with the GameCube controller

In case you were curious, you will indeed be able to play the game with a GameCube controller, but Nintendo did not show off an controller adapter that will plug into the Switch or Switch Dock just yet

Regarding the Smash Info. Ice climbers are in it. There is a 2 player story mode and many third parties are in the switch version. This info isn’t from Connor. He gave me lots of false info about 2 months ago and I didn’t post any of it. He did talk about the first 2 topics…March 31, 2018

Masahiro Sakurai is on board

The series creator of Super Smash Bros, Masahiro Sakurai, has confirmed that he is working on the newly announced Nintendo Switch title.

Sakurai said in a tweet (via Siliconera) that he’s been “quietly working on it day after day” asking for fans to “please wait until we can reveal its content, or until the time of its release!!”

Sakurai’s involvement is unsurprising but promising given that he’s been involved with every other Super Smash Bros release. 

A confirmation

Nintendo confirmed that Super Smash Bros would be coming to the Nintendo Switch in 2018 during its March 8 Nintendo Direct. It didn’t, however, give any more information than this.

A port or something more?

There are two schools of thought when it comes to what the next Super Smash Bros might be. One argument says the next entry will likely be a ‘deluxe’ re-release of Super Smash Bros 4 (the one that appeared simultaneously on Wii U and 3DS in 2014).

This is based on Nintendo’s decision to re-release Mario Kart 8 (which originally arrived on Wii U in 2014) as Mario Kart 8 Deluxe on Switch. The same thing happened with Pokkén Tournament, which debuted on Wii U in 2016 before dropping on Switch this year with a similar complete edition earlier this year.

Taking this approach would be an easier and faster way for Nintendo and developer Bandai Namco Games to release a Super Smash Bros Switch as the base game is already there. Adding new content would make the game seem fresh and exciting, and it’d also justify slapping on another big price tag. 

Bundling in new characters and stages (much in the same way Nintendo included fresh racers for Mario Kart 8 Deluxe) would be a great way to sell a remastered version, as would including new skins for the current 58 characters on the roster. Gearing these skins around recent Switch/3DS releases (such as Link’s new look for Breath Of The Wild and Mario’s revealing attire for Odyssey) would also make a lot of sense.

The other argument is that Super Smash Bros Switch would be a brand new entry, built from the ground up for Switch. The new console is the most powerful bit of hardware Nintendo has ever released, so offering a bespoke entry just for Switch would make the next Super Smash Bros entry extra special and a much more attractive sell to new and existing players.

The recent teaser trailer certainly suggests we’re looking at a brand new entry rather than any kind of port, especially given new characters (the inklings from Splatoon and Link) appear.

At this point, though, we can’t be 100% sure whether this is a re-skin or a brand new entry but we can’t wait to find out.

Super Smash Bros Ultimate – which characters will appear? 

As we mentioned, the previous entry in the series had 58 characters (including on-disc ones and DLC) so we’d expect to see a similarly big number this time around. 

There are plenty of characters that have become staples in the series (such as Mario, Peach, Captain Falco and Kirby) and others (such as Sonic The Hedgehog, Ryu and Pac-Man) that have come and gone over the years.

After the recent trailer we know at the very least that the Inklings from Splatoon 2 and Link from The Legend of Zelda Breath of the Wild will appear. We’d also love to see Rex and Pyra from Xenoblade Chronicles 2. The meme-inducing popularity suggest Breath Of The Wild’s Prince Sidon could get appearance alongside Nipha. We’d love to see the new version of Zelda, too, considering how well-received her makeover was.

We could see some off-the-wall additions as well. Could Skyrim’s arrival on Nintendo Switch mean we’ll see the classic look of the Dovahkiin in the new Smash Bros? Those dragon shouts would certainly come in useful.

Then again, now that we know Crash Bandicoot is coming to the console we’d love to see him appear in game. His wild spin is made for Smash Bros and we can see a TNT-themed special move.

We certainly wouldn’t be surprised to see the Rabbid rabbits after the success of their joint venture with Mario in 2017.

Naturally fans have characters they’d love to see appear in the game. One character who’s been a top request for years now is Dragon Ball Z’s Goku and demands are making the rounds again. This time, however, Funimation is in on the act and the company has even sent a tweet to Nintendo asking when Goku will make his debut.

Another character request is a more recent one but we love it just as much – LaboMan. Inspired by the small cardboard man who appeared in the trailer for the upcoming Nintendo Labo accessory, Javed L Sterritt designed LaboMan and animated him for a Smash Bros appearance. His main move would be to sling the Joy-Con on his back at enemies but he’ll also be able to transform into the Labo piano for a super smash. LaboMan would be a different addition to the roster but an adorable and on-brand one to be sure.

#laboman4smash pic.twitter.com/nErBUaBkEYMarch 19, 2018

Will there be eSports?

eSports is an ever-growing field and Super Smash Bros would certainly be an excellent title for Nintendo to make a splash. The videos of fans screaming at the game’s announcement make it clear there would be an audience for competitive Smash Bros and it’d be a great way to show what Nintendo’s full online service can do when it launches in September.

More significantly, Japan has started to reduce the regulations around paid tournaments  which has stopped eSports flourishing in the country so it’s possible that Nintendo may warm to this kind of play. 

However, Nintendo has historically been rather cautious when it comes to eSports and it’s unlikely the company would wish to alienate the players who have no interest in the genre. However, times are rapidly changing and online streaming is becoming intricately tied with a game’s success – just look at PUBG, Fortnite and Sea of Thieves. Super Smash Bros is looking likely to be the title that will see Nintendo to start taking the genre more seriously, particularly as earlier versions of the game are already being used in eSports in the US.

[allerleidesign-blog]

[:nl]In Azië noemen ze tekenfilms “Animes”, deze animes zijn vooral gebaseerd op de zogeheten Manga’s wat dan weer het woord is voor stripboeken. De meest succesvolle en meest uitgebreide anime series zijn gebaseerd op de Gundams. Gundams zijn enorme vechtrobotten met een meestal menselijke piloot. De reden dat de Gundam series allemaal zo succesvol zijn is doordat deze series een geweldige diepgang hebben, het verhaal word niet beperkt tot wat er gebeurd, maar laat ook de verledens zien van de hoofd en bij personages, wat er voor zorgt dat er altijd wel een personage is met wie je je kan identificeren zodat jij je er zelf bij betrokken gaat voelen. Dit artikel gaat over Unicorn Destroy Mod gemaakt door St.Jimmy’s PC Modding.

Content:

De Unicorn Destroy Mod is gebaseerd op de Gundam Unicorn serie welke met maar een beperkt aantal afleveringen toch beladen is met prijzen, niet alleen voor het verhaal, maar ook wegens de personage ontwikkeling en tekenstijl. Het is dan ook geen verrassing dat deze serie de basis vormt waarop een Case Mod gebouwd kon worden. De Unicorn Destroy Mod is hoewel ik fan ben van veel van de Gundam series niet helemaal mijn smaak qua Case Mods. Dit weerhoudt mij er echter niet van om er toch over te schrijven want de individuele delen van deze Mod zorgen er wel voor dat ik toch aardig warm loop. Vooral de gesloten zijde vind ik erg mooi gemaakt, maar ook de watercoolings loop mag genoemd worden.

De buitenzijde van deze Unicorn heeft nagenoeg geen enkele rechte zijde meer over, elke zijde is aangepakt en in de stijl van een Gundam aangekleed. Dit houdt in dat het geheel is opgebouwd uit schijnbaar losse platen die aan de randen bij elkaar gehouden worden. In de Gundams is het hierdoor dat zij vrij kunnen bewegen zonder toch sommige delen kwetsbaar open te laten. De voor en bovenzijde zijn hier perfecte voorbeelden van, deze zijdes zijn opgebouwd uit meerdere lagen waardoor het lijkt alsof er een case in een case is geplaatst. Hierdoor krijg je een waar 3D gevoel bij deze Mod zelfs al kijk je alleen naar de foto’s.

De verlichting van deze Unicorn Destroy Mod spat letterlijk aan alle kanten uit deze Mod, de rode gloed die hierdoor ontstaat lijkt de witte platen van de buitenzijdes in vuur en vlam te zetten en laat het lijken alsof er van binnen in de Mod iets leeft. Dit effect is zeer mooi nagebootst van de Unicorn Gundam uit de series, waarin dit soort licht meestal gebruikt word om te laten zien dat de Gundam wat meer Power gebruikt. Ik had deze lichtgloed graag gezien met een “Breathing” effect, waardoor het zou lijken alsof de Mod ademt, maar dat kan ik niet terug zien op de foto’s.

De Dichte zijde van deze Mod is wellicht mijn favoriete deel van deze Unicorn Destroy Mod. Op deze zijde zijn de Sponsoren aangegeven en normaal gesproken vind ik het maar niets als er sponsoren in grote vlakken word aangegeven die naar je schreeuwen. In deze Mod zijn de Sponsoren echter weergegeven in vlakken die bijna perfect passen in de gehele stijl van de Mod waardoor zij echt onderdeel worden van het geheel. Het feit dat de hele zijde van binnen word verlicht geeft je een open gevoel terwijl het toch gaat om een dichte zijde. De dichte zijde laat een enorme rode X zien op een groot wit vlak, waarin enkel de fans van de serie het multifunctionele schild van de Gundam Unicorn zullen herkennen. Dit schild is een van de meest herkenbare gevechts onderdelen van deze Gundam en door deze hier weer te geven (op de Linker zijde/ arm van de Gundam) toont dat het hier gaat om het werk van een ware fan.

De watercoolings loop van deze Unicorn Destroy Mod mag zoals gezegd ook genoemd worden, hoewel op eerste zicht het wellicht niet zo heel speciaal zal lijken. De Grafische kaart en Processor zijn opgenomen in deze loop, en de buizen lijken allemaal naar een reservoir or radiator boven in de case te gaan. Echter worden de buizen boven in enkel door gelust en komen ze weer terug naar beneden alwaar de radiator is geplaatst. De reservoirs zijn op de achterzijde aan de buitenkant van de Case gemonteerd waardoor een heleboel ruimte van binnen overblijft om de hardware te showen.

De beide zijdes van de Unicorn Destroy Mod kunnen open, maar ook hier is weer iets speciaals achter de hand gehouden dat je op eerste zicht niet direct zal zien. Deze zijdes zijn namelijk zo gemaakt dat ze open geschoven kunnen worden naar achteren toe, alsof je een lade open schuift. Dit is een feature die je niet in heel veel Mods tegenkomt en toch wel heel erg praktisch genoemd mag worden. Dat deze zijdes er niet gewoon af gehaald moeten worden geeft aan hoeveel gedachtes en werk er in deze Mod gegaan zijn. St.Jimmy’s PC Modding heeft met deze Unicorn Destroy Mod een ware showcase gemaakt waar niet alleen de Computer Modding fans maar ook de Gundam Fans hun hart over kunnen ophalen.

Foto’s:

Links:

St.Jimmy’s PC Modding Facebook Aquatuning Europe Facebook Enermax Italia Website VGInformatica PC Gaming Torino Website VGInformatica PC Gaming Torino Facebook[:en]In Asia the call Cartoons “Animes”, these animes are mostly based on the so-called Manga’s which is the word used for comics. The most successful and most elaborate anime series are those based on Gundams. Gundams are giant fighting robot suits with usually a human pilot. The reason that the Gundam Series all become so hugely popular is because these series have an enormous depth of the story, the story doesn’t get limited to what happens, but also shows the past of the main and by characters, which ensures that there will always be at least one character to whom you can identify so you will feel more emotionally involved in the story. This article is about the Unicorn Destroy Mod made by St.Jimmy’s PC Modding.

Content:

The Unicorn Destroy Mod is based on the Mobile Suit Gundam Unicorn series which has been showered in prizes despite its only limited amount of episodes, not just for the story, but also because of the character development and art style. It should not be any surprise that this series also acts as a base upon which amazing Mods can be built. The Unicorn Destroy is even though I am a fan of most of the Gundam series not entirely the type of Case Mod that I personally like best. This doesn’t stop me from writing about it anyway because it’s the individual parts of this Mod that still make my engine run hot anyway. Especially the closed side I think is brilliantly made, but the water cooling loop is also worth mentioning.

The outsides of this Unicorn doesn’t have a lot of straight sides left, each side has been worked over and got dressed in the style of a Gundam. This means the whole is built up out of seemingly loose plates which are held together at the rims. In the Gundams, this makes them able to move freely without exposing vital parts to easy attacks. The front and top side are perfect examples of this, these sides have been built up out of multiple layers making it seem as if there was a case placed into another case. This generates a true 3D look and feel which you can even sense when just looking at the photos of this Mod.

The lighting on this Unicorn Destroy literally blows out of every side of this Mod, the red glow that comes with this seems to put the white plates on the outsides a blaze and makes it seem as if there is something alive on the inside of this Mod. This effect has been very nicely re-created from the Gundam Unicorn in the series, in which this type of light is usually depicted to show when the Gundam uses a larger power. I would have loved to see this Light glow in a “breathing” effect, which would make it seem as if the Mod actually was alive, but I wouldn’t be able to see that on the photos.

The closed side of this Mod is probably my favorite part of this Unicorn Destroy Mod. On this side, the sponsors have been shown and normally I do not like it when sponsors get shown on large areas which simply scream out at you. In this Mod the sponsor names have been placed on areas which fit the overall style of the Mod which makes them an integral part of the Mod as a whole. The fact that this entire side is being lighted from the inside out gives you an open feel even if this is supposed to be the closed side. This side shows a giant red X on a large white plain, in which only the fans of the series will recognize the multifunctional shield of the Gundam Unicorn. This shield is without a doubt one of the most recognizable battle armaments of this Gundam and by placing it here (on the left side/ arm of the Gundam) this shows to be the work of a true fan.

The water cooling loop of this Unicorn Destroy Mod is worth mentioning as I’ve said earlier, even if it does not seem very special at first glance. The Graphics card and Processor are both being cooled by this loop, and the tubing all seems to go to a reservoir or radiator in the top of the case. However, in the top, the tubing just gets connected to each other and are looped back down to the bottom at the case where we can find the radiator. The reservoirs have been mounted on the outer backside of the case leaving a lot of space on the inside to show off the hardware.

Both sides of this Unicorn Destroy Mod can be opened, but even here a little something special has been kept on the wraps which you would not be able to notice at first glance. The sides have been made in such a way that they can be slid open towards the back of the case, like sliding open a drawer. This is a feature which you will not find in a lot of Mods and yet can be called quite practical. The fact that these sides do not have to be removed to open the case shows a huge amount of dedication in thought and work that has gone into this Mod. St.Jimmy’s PC Modding has created a true showcase with this Unicorn Destroy Mod about which not just the PC Modding Fans, but also the Gundam Fans might just start drooling.

Photos:

Links:

St.Jimmy’s PC Modding Facebook Aquatuning Europe Facebook Enermax Italia Website VGInformatica PC Gaming Torino Website VGInformatica PC Gaming Torino Facebook[:]

[:nl]Unicorn Destroy Mod by St.Jimmy's PC Modding[:] #aquatuning #casemod #computerdesign #custom #enermax #modding [:nl]In Azië noemen ze tekenfilms "Animes", deze animes zijn vooral gebaseerd op de zogeheten Manga's wat dan weer het woord is voor stripboeken.