MattKendrick.com

A few months ago, The Sims 3
hit store shelves. For our anniversary, my wife bought the collectors edition. Sweet present, don’t ya agree? I dove right in and played for hours. However, this version and previous versions have left me with the same question. “Why couldn’t life be more like the Sims?” Take a look at how easy Sims have it.

1. Learning is easy. Click and know!

I need to learn how to cook and repair stuff today. I’ll just start out in the morning. Alright let me grab my books. I’ll read at warp speed. Three hours later, I’m now a master chef and repair person! I can cook without setting the kitchen on fire or fix stuff without electrocuting myself!

2. Don’t like your environment? Complain!

I’m not happy with my pad! I’m just gonna scream, shout and point to whatever I don’t like. Like magic it will either go away or get replaced with something nicer. That neon sign on the wall is too tacky. No biggie! Wahhhhh! OOOOH LAAA!

3. Jobs are easy to obtain. Everyone is hiring in the Sim world.

Bummer, I’ve gotta get a job? Let’s just pick up the paper. Oh there’s so many exciting jobs. I want to be a writer when I grow up. I’ll just start delivering papers now. No interview needed, just start on Monday!

4. Spin yourself around to dress yourself.

Oh time to change clothes. No biggie, I’ll just jump and spin around. Presto I’m decked out for whatever occasion. Gotta put on my work clothes. I’ll stop and spin again to get ready for work. Time for bed, let me just spin into something more comfortable!

5. Can’t make it to the bathroom. Just go wherever you are!

Oh man someone’s in the bathroom. I’ve gotta go real bad. Oh well, I just went on my nice hardwood floors. Now I’ll cry and clean it up later.

6. Whatever I need or whenever I need it, will appear in thin air!

Man, it sure would be fun to have a rocket to blast into outer space. Let me pull one out of my ass. Oh there it is. Ut oh! I peed on the floor again. Poof! Oh there’s my mop! “Singing in the rain… Singing in the rain…”

Isn’t life with the Sims easy? I would think so. Maybe it’s a little too easy. Granted I’m sure it would get old after a while. But at the end of the day. It’s a video game. Like other video games, it’s a fantasy world. If it were that easy, it would be kinda boring. Life on the Sims kinda reminds me of the Enzyte, natural male enhancement guy. “Look at Bob, he’s happy….” If you haven’t played it, be sure to check it out
.

Wake up Simmers! Sims 3 first expansion pack has been announced. The expansion will add some new things to the Sims 3 game play. Pack your Sim’s bags. Because the Sims can now travel to real world inspired destinations. France, China and Egypt to name a few. Sims will now be able to meet and greet international Sims. A new ability will allow Sims to kidnap them as well. Each destination has its own adventures. Rumors of puzzles, new game innovations and gameplay mechanics.

The expansion looks pretty interesting. I’m sure my wife will be excited about our Sims traveling to France. The expansion is due in November 16th 2009. Just in time for the holidays. The mobile version of the expansion is due sometime next year. You can read the full interview between IGN and Maxis on IGN’s website.

I thought this was a really interesting/funny trailer for the Sims 3. Talks about the horror of kids seeing their parents getting it on. Been playing the Sims 3 for a few weeks now. I’m pretty impressed. My characters are based off my wife, my friends and myself. So far Heather’s character has just about maxed out her journalism career. My character is a CEO of a large company. Our house doesn’t quite reflect the lifestyle yet. I’m still working on that. Hopefully I will have some pictures to show soon. Till then enjoy the funny trailer.

Ah snap I didn’t backup!

This past weekend my wife and I picked up the Sims 3 as an anniversary present. Soon as we got home Saturday night, I went ahead and installed it. Most of the day Sunday, we played the game. Our friends Catie and David came over for some pizza and wanted to see our progress on the game. So I clicked the game icon and nothing happened. Then my machine decided to lock up. So I figured I would reboot. After reset, it didn’t boot into Windows. The first thing that came to my mind was I didn’t backup my saved game data. So I began poking around the file system looking for the same game data.

What do I need to backup?

You’ll want to backup your characters, neighborhood and lots. In previous versions of the game, it stored the data with the program files itself. With the Sims 3, it stores everything in the current user’s profile (Documents and Settings). I like this, it makes it really easy to find the data. Also if you share your PC with other family members you can keep your saved game separate with your own profile/login.

How do I back it up?

So how do you back it up? Simple, just open up My Documents, then open the “Electronic Arts” folder, then right click the “Sims 3″ folder and click copy. Browse to where you want to backup your Sims 3 data and right click and choose paste. This will backup all player data for your system account.

Where should I backup to?

You could use any usb drive. I recomend the San Disk Cruzer
series. We bought the “Collectors Edition” of the game. It came complete with the game, a 2GB usb drive, tips and tricks guide, theme music, and some other goodies. We thought the 2GB usb drive would be perfect for saved game backups. Backing up to CD-Rs or DVDs work too. Just not as fast as using a USB drive.

Can I automate it?

If your really concerned, you can look into syncing your saved game data to a external drive. I recommend a free application from Microsoft called “SyncToy.” With SyncToy, you can make the backup process as simple as one click. You can even automate the whole process with Schedule Tasks. You can read more about it from the link below.

Remember you should backup pretty often. If you’re addicted like us, you’ve already invested hours into the game. No use to lose your saved game data over a system failure.Well I hope we’ve saved the day for ya. Check out some of the cool Sims 3 stuff below. Remember backup and backup often!

Tools

SyncToy 2.0

Need a game guide?

The Sims 3, the third generation of Sims games is due out June 2nd. Isn’t is a little early for a another Sims game? I haven’t  finished playing The Sims 1 or much less The Sims 2? What’s so special about The Sims 3? Well according to a Wikipedia article (link below) about the new game, there’s a lot.

For starters, players will be able to seamlessly travel from one property to another. The developers calm you will be able to do so without waiting for areas to load. No more jumping in a cab just to cross the street. Other sims in the neighborhood can now autonomously live. With the ‘story progression’ mode on, other sims till continue to grow, get jobs, get married, etc., as if you were controlling them. Sims behavior now reacts to different events. This is handled differently from their normal moods from previous versions. But thats just scratching the surface. Check out the article link at the bottom for more details.

Our friend Shawna Carlson has already pre-ordered. She should be getting her copy the day it comes out. She’s been excited about this for a while. There are two versions of the game for release. The collector’s edition includes a usb drive in the shape of a plum bob (the orb over the sims head that reflects mood), a vintage car download, sims theme music and Prima’s Strategy Guide. The regular edition just has the game. I’m sure we’ll see a wave of expansion packs for this game as well. I haven’t deiced if I’m jumping on this bandwagon or not. Heather mentioned about maybe getting it for me for our anniversary.

Sims have come a long way from pulling rockets out of their butts. I’ll never forget how many times they’ve lost control over their bladder or burn down their house making dinner. Till next time, keep your mood orb up and the sad crying clowns away.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sims_3

http://thesims3.ea.com/