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All posts by brownie

Nov
20
2009

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by brownie

Visiting Egypt in Sims 3: World Adventures

World Aventures Your Sims have toured the town, made dozens of friends, held down fulfilling careers, and developed all sorts of fun skills. Now it’s time to reward them – with a vacation! The Sims 3: World Adventures is the very first time your Sims have been able to leave town and go on exotic travels. In World Adventures, your Sims can visit three destinations: Egypt, China, and France. In each location, your Sims meet new people, learn new skills, and explore dangerous tombs in search of treasure.

While working on World Adventures, I did not develop a favorite between the three destinations. Each location offers something special — a certain unique local flavor. It’s not just limited to the architecture either, which is definitely different for each location. Local identity is also quite personal. You find it in the little things. Egypt, for example, is the only place where Sims can buy a snake charming basket and then start practicing this special ability. The longer your Sim charms, the better they get at it. Soon, they can snake charm for tips and even coax a cobra out of the basket. (The cobra is pretty cool. If you ever get a mummy’s curse, the cobra is one of the surprising cures for the nasty hex.) Plus, you can take that snake charming basket back home when your visa to Egypt expires and play with it there, much to the amazement of friends and neighbors.

Egypt’s tombs can get pretty intense. The first few tombs you explore while going on adventures for locals ease you into a world of traps and trickery. But it doesn’t take long before you are moving deep into dangerous territory, trying to find the right switch to turn off fire traps or poison darts. Usually, the more dangerous a room is, the greater the chance of finding rare relics and valuable treasures. In our guide, we map out every single tomb in Egypt (as well as China and France) so you get the most of each expedition. Some of these tombs are really tough, but with our full-color maps and legends that point out how to open every door and locate every secret chamber, you will emerge from catacombs and tombs laden with awesome stuff. These treasures will look great in your house back in Sunset Valley or Riverview, but if you successfully undertake adventures in each location, you can build up your visa until you can purchase a vacation home. How cool would it be to have a vacation home in France loaded up with gilded relics from Egypt?

Like China and France, Egypt is also peppered with lots of collectibles, such as scarab beetles and new butterflies. Just like our Sims 3 guide, we show you the locations of all of the new collectibles in every destination in our World Adventures strategy guide. Your house will be decorated with all sorts of new insects, gems, and metals. If you are a hardcore collector, you definitely want to scour the new destinations in World Adventures to find the new collectibles. Next week, I’ll talk more about some of the fun things to do in France, which is home of the new nectar making skill and some very cool tombs, like the giant Tomb of Isael under the Nectary. That place is huge!

Categories: Gaming Tips, Projects
Tags: EA, gaming, Official Strategy Guide, prima games, Sims 3, strategy guide
Related Posts: Dragon Age: Origins – A Lesson in the Fade Rock out with your clock out! Battlefield 1943 Tips how ’bout them sims?

Sep
18
2009

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by brownie

the sims 3: sunset valley or riverview?

Sunset Valley or Riverview: which town should you settle into? Although both Sunset Valley and Riverview hold some of the same features such as a stadium for Sims to begin the athletic career, the two cities you can choose as a hometown for your Sims have very different vibes. Riverview is much more laid back than Sunset Valley, it has the atmosphere of a small town that was once a simple farming community. Progress has certainly moved into Riverview as evidenced by the industrial waterfront, but the citizens have taken great pains to make sure their burg maintains some classic charm. That’s why the downtown area in the heart of Riverview has a walking plaza lined with quaint features like a reading room and antiques museum.

Sunset Valley, on the other hand, is more of a metropolis. It has a central park that is the social focus of the city, but its buildings are not only larger, but much more spread out and connected by wider, busier streets. Whereas the science center in Riverview is nestled on the waterfront right next to the stadium and military base, these three buildings are on completely different sides of Sunset Valley. The military base in Sunset Valley is pushed back into one of the hillsides that help define Sunset valley as a valley. The science facility in Sunset Valley is much larger than its Riverview counterpart. Because it needs more space, it is also set up into the hills above the city.

Four Bridges Park is a major part of downtown Riverview's plaza.

There are some substantial differences between the Sunset Valley and Riverview, too. Riverview does not have an oceanfront like Sunset Valley; instead, Riverview is defined in large part by the freshwater river that snakes through the farmland surrounding the downtown area. Without any way to catch saltwater fish in the wild in Riverview, Sims must instead visit the hatchery to reel in these beauties. Riverview has far fewer lakes and ponds than Sunset Valley, too. But there is no shortage of freshwater fishing thanks to the lengthy rivers in Riverview.

The locations of collectibles like butterflies, beetles, and gems are also completely different. If you’ve already exhausted the discovery of rare collectibles in Sunset Valley – how many rainbow gems do you have? – then move into Riverview and start the grand hunt all over again. Just make sure you give your Sims a day or two for collectibles to appear in Riverview before searching them out. After a few days (which you can easily fill by starting a career, meeting Riverview citizens, and developing a skill or two), then start scouring the town to find the goodies. Prima is publishing the location of all of the collectibles in the upcoming The Sims 3: Neighborhood Resource & Map Pack.

However, let me give you a little Brownie Bite before that’s released. In the shadow of the Jones mansion above the waterfront, you will not only find aquas, emeralds, yellows, tanzanite, and diamonds, but also the super-rare pinks. The minimum value of the smallest pink gem is 1,200 Simoleons. That’s quite a payday. You’ll find cool tips like that and more in The Sims 3: Neighborhood Resource & Map Pack, which I just finished writing earlier this week and is coming soon.

Categories: Gaming Tips, Projects
Tags: hints, prima games, Sims 3, strategy, strategy guide
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Sep
18
2009

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by brownie

Greetings, fellow Scribblenauts!

So, have you made it past the first screen in Scribblenauts yet? I don’t mean the first level. I mean the very first screen you see when you start the game — the playground. The playground is where you can just experiment with creating different objects to your heart’s content; the only limit is your imagination. I remember when I first received a version of Scribblenauts to write the Prima guide for it, I must have spent an easy three hours on the playground, just trying out all sorts of objects. Cannon. Helicopter. Dinosaur. Race car. Trophy. Keyboard Cat. (Yes, I had read all the juicy rumors that the game was a haven for Internet memes like Keyboard Cat, All Your Base, and — my favorite — lolcats.)

The opening screen is genius because it lets you immediately get to the core of what the game is all about: discovery. The developer was not kidding around when they said you could create just about anything in Scribblenauts. You really can go wild and try out thousands upon thousands (upon thousands) of words to see what objects Maxwell can use. There is no reason to just rely on the same objects all of the time with so many possibilities out there. And so, let me give you a little nudge in one department for object creation: flying objects.

After playing the puzzle and action levels for a few hours, I found myself using some of the same flying objects over and over. Pegasus. Wings. Jet Pack. These were reliable objects that always got the job done when I needed to get Maxwell from A to B, particularly when A and B were divided by lava or a bottomless pit. I knew I needed to expand my horizons. Here are some of the alternate words I started using for flying.

Pterodactyl: Like the Pegasus, this friendly flying creature is no threat to Maxwell and it does not need a rest period. Added benefit – it, too, can attack hostile creature or break objects, like ice.

Magic carpet: This flying rug works for a limited period but does not short out if it encounters a little water.

Helibackpack: This alternative to the jet pack can be shorted out if it gets wet, so avoid rain drops while flying.

Sphinx: The sphinx is a friendly creature that, like the pterodactyl, will attack Maxwell’s enemies or break through ice. The sphinx can also dig.

Magic broomstick: This special broomstick (make sure you write “magic” in front of it) lets Maxwell fly around the level without needing a refresh period.

Winged shoes: The winged shoes turn Maxwell into Mercury, the Roman god that could fly through the benefit of winged feet.

Hopefully, these extra words will get you to think about even more flying objects you can use to help Maxwell collect all of the Starites. Do you have some suggestions of your own? We’d love to hear them.

Categories: Gaming Tips
Tags: Scribblenauts
Related Posts: prima games podcast, the eighteenth

Jun
05
2009

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by brownie

how ’bout them sims?

Across the country this, gajillions of gamers are moving into Sunset Valley. Really, I love the idea that many of them are using our guide as a way to make the move not just a bit easier, but also discover many of the secrets that wait around every corner. If you haven’t picked up the guide yet, let me tantalize you with a few choice features. Imagine your friends trying to figure out how to get a promotion at City Hall while you have rocketed to the top of the profession and are pulling in buckets of cash. While other players are wandering from lake to lake, hoping to uncover the best fishing spots, you are poised at Stoney Falls with rod in hand to land a great catch. You have uncovered the best spots to capture valuable Rainbow butterflies while other gamers are combing through wooded areas, looking for flashes of fluttering colors.

In other words, we truly give you the keys to the city.

It was a true pleasure to write this guide. And that’s not just me spouting platitudes — something my friends wish I did more of naturally. One of the best parts of writing guides is the ability to play games early. There are times I really do sit there and think, I can’t believe I get to play this game before everybody else! That was how I felt when poking around Simhenge high in the hills above Sunset Valley, stumbling upon a rare rock for the first time. It was genuine excitement because I knew that my little celebrating was hardly going to be unique. There would soon be many, many players having similar moments of fun discovery across. Maybe it wouldn’t be when they found gold in them thar hills. Maybe it would be the first time they styled a couch in the object catalog so it looked like something they remembered from grandma’s house. Or the first time they noticed a beetle skittered in the bushes behind the warehouse and realized that was something they could collect and decorate their house with. There are going to be a lot of cool “first times” when people play this game — and I’m not just talking about the first session of WooHoo.

Happy Simming, gamers. I look forward to seeing where else this new chapter in the series goes. And I hope I’m there with you along for the ride.

Categories: Projects
Tags: EA, Official Strategy Guide, prima games, sims, Sims 3, strategy guide
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Mar
08
2009

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by brownie

The Sims 3 – Create-a-Style

Before creating your alternate life in The Sims 3, you must give your alter ego someplace to call home. You don’t need to erect a palace on Day One in the neighborhood — in fact, you can’t since your pocketbook is limited when you first move in. So, until your career is underway and you have a substantial bank account, you must make a modest home with your limited Simoleons.

When I first started on The Sims 3, I quickly threw together a small home with the essentials (place to eat, place to sleep, place to go numero uno) and then attended to all the demands of my new life. My austere surroundings were good enough to get me through a few days, but then I made the tragic mistake of really digging around the catalog of household objects. Seriously, you could tell me you ran over my cat and if I had my coffee and a couple of my favorite catalogs in front of me, I would just nod you away. It’s not that I’m some crazed consumer; I just like to plan my post-lottery life. After I made Bono proud with all of my charitable contributions, of course.

The Sims series has long let me and like-minded people indulge dream house fun for the cost of, well, a copy of The Sims. The Sims 3 keeps those dreams alive, but not just by offering several room choices with loads of furniture options, gadgetry, art, and furniture. The Sims 3 really lets you go wild with its Create-a-Style toolkit for easily customizing objects to your personal taste.

This threatens my deadline.

No longer can I just build a personal study with a desk, chair, computer, and a bookcase. Now I have control over every detail of these objects. I have this thing about matching. By “thing,” I mean freakish obsession that makes decorating with me about as fun as walking into a glass door — over and over. I decided to do my Sim’s study over in wood, starting with a bookcase. There are lots of wood textures to choose from. After spending several minutes browsing in the Create-a-Style tools, I settled on a rich cherry. Now it was time to match the desk, chair, and even the easel I has artfully placed in the corner, tilted in front of a huge window. Instead of having to click on each object and then root around in all of the textures and find the one I previously picked, I just clicked on the bookcase to bring up its texture pre-set and dragged it over the other objects. Immediately, the chair matched the bookcase. Then the desk. I was seconds away from making the computer on the desk wooden, but I managed a little self-control. I may be crazy, but I’m not silly.

The easy-to-use presets are the key to decorating your whole house within seconds. You can spend so much time picking just the right decor for a specific item, like a couch, and then instantly transfer those textures to other objects. For example, I used the Create-a-Style tools to turn the green cushions on a couch purple with little flowers. I liked it so much, that I wanted it to match the wallpaper. All I needed to do was grab the texture pre-set of the couch and drag it on to the walls. Hello, grandma’s house where everything has matching flowers!

These presets are just as useful when you are designing clothes, too. You know those families you see on vacations that all dress alike in case somebody wanders off? I made that family. Their matching running suits are so cute. I just wish there was a fanny pack to put on the mom. I would make it match the purple couch in their house.

Categories: Projects
Tags: EA, Prima, prima games, Sims 3
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Feb
27
2009

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by brownie

The Sims 3: Making Me

Being able to reconstruct yourself in a videogame is not exactly a new thing. For some time now, gamers have twiddled with knobs and dials to change hair color and pick a favorite shirt color for an in-game character. Previous The Sims games have let you recreate yourself with a greater degree of accuracy, too. However, after experimenting with the Create-a-Sim area of The Sims 3, I assure you this is the most advanced cloning lab you can buy without raising some serious ethics concerns with the FDA.

I was able to pick out my hairstyle and eye color as well as select a few choice outfits, like some pre-faded jeans that would have set me back some serious coin in the real world. That was good. But what I like about the Create-a-Sim toolkit is the meter you don’t actually see on the screen: honesty. There’s making the idealized version of yourself that has the frame of somebody that gets up at 7AM every morning to run three miles, and then there’s crafting the real you that batters your alarm clock with a wild fist and rolls over for another hour of sleep because you stayed up way too late the night before watching episodes of BSG you’ve already seen. With the number of tweaks and adjustments possible in The Sims 3, something in me felt inclined to put away vanity and really try to make a Sim in my own image.

That meant that while I got to keep the jeans, I had to admit the size I would buy them in. That meant pulling my ears a little outward to where they really are when I step out of the shower, before I hide them behind my hair. That meant the start of some grooves on my face that I’ve been told are the onset of looking distinguished, but to me look like somebody who spent way too much of her life feigning mock surprise at friends who were just behaving in ways I wish I had. (Instinctively furrowing my brow while reading books doesn’t help much either.)

After tugging and tucking, I dug into the traits selection. You can select five traits that flesh out your Sim’s personality. At first, I loaded myself up with honestly, industriousness, a sense of humor, kitchen skills and luck. Oh, I was a real extrovert that was the life of the party and the kind of employee that rockets up the career ladder on the wings of spunk and vivaciousness. But then I took the same kind of honesty I applied to my Sim’s physical appearance and used it to work on her personality. I kept the sense of humor and luck because those are real. But in remaining slots, my clicks turned into confessions. I am at times lazy. The stack of dishes in my sink sometimes reveals my week’s eating habits much like strata in rocks tells a geologist about the fossil record and volcanic activity. Those kitchen skills? Gone. Mama Browne makes mac-and-cheese from scratch. I struggle with the boxed kind.

When it was all over and I saved my Sim, the one chiseled out of pixels with honesty instead of idealism, I felt proud. What kind of growth comes with just making perfect little princesses?

I don’t think anybody’s had as much fun making me since my parents.

Categories: Projects
Tags: EA, prima games, Prima Guide, Sims 3, strategy guide
Related Posts: Visiting Egypt in Sims 3: World Adventures Dragon Age: Origins – A Lesson in the Fade Rock out with your clock out! Battlefield 1943 Tips

Feb
10
2009

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by brownie

don’t f.e.a.r. the assassins

fear2book1 It is T-minus one day until Alma wreaks her revenge in F.E.A.R. 2: Project Origin. You did pre-order your copy, right? After all, not only does pre-ordering get you a bonus science journal filled with Genevieve Aristide’s dirty secrets (and she definitely has a few), but it means you’ll have the game first. Believe me, this is one game you need to play through before it gets spoiled by your blabbermouth friends. The finale must be played to be believed.

Alma isn’t the only danger in F.E.A.R. 2. Cloned super-soldiers rampage through industrial complexes. Assassins slither through the shadows with cloaking devices. Giant robots stomp through ruined city streets; without a giant robot of your own, there’s practically no stopping them. Our guide shows you how to mow them all down with the advanced weaponry that only the geniuses at Armacham could think up.

Obviously, I think you should pick up the guide with your copy of F.E.A.R. 2 so you don’t miss a single thing in the game, such as intelligence reports that help fill in all the gaps between known information about Armacham’s depravity and where exactly to find reflex boosters that increase the amount of slow-motion time you use to get the drop on the super-soldiers.

In fact, let me entice you with a secret straight from the guide. The Assassins are tough customers because of their cloaking devices. But like a marginal poker player, they have “tells.” Look for wavering outlines against solid backgrounds, like a tile wall. If you see a glimmer of blue, kick in the slo-mo. Another sure fire way to spot Assassins? Look for two red circles bobbing like leaves on a rippling pond. The goggles worn by Assassins have red lenses. More often than not, I’d spot those even before seeing the shimmering outline of the cloaking device — especially if we were in an area without much red, such as the subway.

So, once I knew an Assassin was on the creep, I’d immediately kick in the slow-motion. Assassins slink around the shadows slowly, but when they spot prey, they strike fast. If you see those red eyes, chances are good the Assassin is about to pounce. Assassins don’t have much armor, so a single blast from a close-range weapon like the combat shotgun (one of my favorite death-dealers) is enough to send it flopping like a fish. So, remember this sequence: red discs, slow-motion, shotgun.

Have fun with the game tomorrow. Be sure to have enough batteries on hand for your night light, too. You may need one after this crazy scene where Alma…

Categories: Gaming Tips, Projects
Tags: Alma, F.E.A.R. 2, Official Strategy Guide, prima games, Prima Guide, Project Origin, strategy, tips