Customizing Clothing and Killing Sims

So I've been playing The Sims 3 for about a week now, and I love the customization features; it's almost like Second Life in that respect (except that you can't re-edit them constantly).

That you can't edit their basic physical attributes (their face, anyway) after creation does make sense. In-universe, you are one person per sim; each persona is a separate sim. In Second Life, your one avatar is many different personas, depending on your mood or the sim you're visiting. So the fixed facial features makes sense for The Sims.

Speaking of customization, I love the hair coloring! If you choose the advanced editing, you can edit hair color in four different areas: base, roots, highlights, and tips! So both natural and decidedly unnatural hair colors are easy to create on the fly! And you can assign different hairstyles for different categories. It's great that I don't have to change hairstyles manually every time my sim changes into her swimsuit (and back). Really, who wears the same hairstyle to swim and to go to the theater?

Okay, what woman?

I also love the editing features for clothes and objects. All the patterns divided into categories, and every single color editable through swatches, hex or RGB code, or a color picker? It's brilliant! And I can use any pattern for any item, regardless of what the original creators [i]thought[/i] it should be used for! But I wish they had made more styles; there really aren't that many available. (What is it, four or five beds?) It looks like they put all their effort into patterns. I'm really glad there are so many patterns; don't get me wrong. But I'd feel better if I didn't suspect part of it was so you'd buy items through the Sims store…

I also like "Lifetime Wishes" much better than the old "Wants and Fears". Being able to choose and save the four you want to promise–and still work on the ones in the current queue, at least until they disappear–is great!

When it comes to controlling a sim, I love the new moodlets! Everything that happens to affect your sim's mood results in a "moodlet". These little icons reflect how your sim is feeling. If somthing good happens (you fulfill a wish), it's positive (Fulfilled), and gives a buff to your mood; if it's bad (a dirty room), it's negative and you suffer a penalty. Each has a duration and a value. The better the event, the higher the mood boost and the longer it lasts. The same goes for bad stuff: if it's just a bit bad, it's a small penalty with a short duration. But if you don't eat, it's a -40 to your mood!

Speaking of being hungry… There are also neutral moodlets, like "Hungry", which clue you in that your sim will need something soon. (Very handy, if you ask me, since that means you If you give your sim what it needs before the time on the moodlet expires, you're fine. But if you don't, the resulting moodlet is usually pretty bad! Fortunately, the lead time is pretty long! Sims seem to eat and use the bathroom way less than in the previous games.

But killing sims seems harder. I think I'm going to have to talk to an undesirable townie, lure him or her to my home in Mosquito Cove, and wall them in. After a few days, that should do it. I'll just ignore that corner of my property until whoever it is dies. Maybe then I can start a little private graveyard!

A Return to PvP

So last night I did PvP with my Guild Wars guild for the first time in months.

We chose alliance battles because it's easier to put together four person groups, and AB is way more rewarding than Team Arenas or Random Arenas. (Plus, I hate them.) They're also much more newbie-friendly, and we're trying to recruit some new blood from our alliance.

Another bonus? Kurzick and Luxon faction are actually worth something! When you redeem it, it counts towards your Alliegance Rank title track (Kurzick or Luxon, depending upon your allegiance). You can cash it in for valuable crafting materials (amber chunks for Kurzick and jadeite shards for Luxon). If you're title-crazy, you can donate it to your guild and get double credit towards your title! Plus, it can be used to get PvE skills, which also counts double.

I had so much fun! Why have I been away? I love my guildees!

Confessions of a Guild Wars addict!

Wow. Can't believe I've never talked about Guild Wars. I mean, I'm an addict. Really.

I've been playing Guild Wars since less than two months after its release on April 28, 2005. For the first seven months, my husband and I played on our own or with a small group of RL friends. Then, in January 2006, I found Christian Gamers Alliance, which has a very active GW chapter! Woohoo! We joined and found out that GW is even more fun with an active guild...cause my husband talked me into liking PvP!

Okay, "talked into" is a bit of a stretch. What really happened is that he told me, "Here, they need a mesmer. Do what Fiona Dredd tells you." He then logged me in to TeamSpeak and left me there!

After I got over the shock, I started having fun. Sure, I had NO IDEA what I was doing, but it was still fun. And now we do PvP every Tuesday and Friday night. (Oh yeah, Friday night playing a video game. I really am a geek.) In fact, I'm now rank 3 (/rank)...and I only earned about twenty or thirty of that rank during double fame. GO SoE!

Oh yeah, "SoE" would be "Spirit of Elijah," my guild. Well, technically I'm in two guilds; my husband and I have two accounts, and we each have characters on each account. One account is in each guild. So to be exact, I'm an officer in both SoE AND SOE...Spirit of Elisha, that is. Twice the fun! Except that we're actually one guild. (Yeah, it confuses us, too.)

And now my social life depends heavily on TeamSpeak, alliance chat, guild chat, and team chat. Is that good or bad?

Katamari Damacy: "Clumps of Soul"

First, let me get it out of my system: I LOVE KATAMARI DAMACY! Okay, now I can talk about the game.

I loved the idea the first time I saw it. "I really wish I could play that!", I thought. "That game is so perfect for me!" I read about it time and again, longing to roll up giant whales into my very own "Clump of Soul" (literal translation). Finally, I noticed some magic words: PlayStation 2. My brother and one of my best friends own the PS2! (And I won't admit how long it took me to make the connection.)

By the weekend, I owned Katamari Damacy. That's right, I bought a game–and a memory card–for a system I don't even own. But it's been worth it!

The game is even more addictive than I expected, with great gameplay. Your "katamari" (weird sticky ball you roll around) is controlled a lot like a tank, using the two joysticks. You start out tiny, "rolling up" pushpins and dice, advancing to bigger and bigger items. As you progress, your goals become more challenging, with shorter deadlines. It's a blast!

The storyline is wonderfully absurd. You are the Prince, son of the King of All Cosmos. Your dad got carried away (due to some interesting mushrooms, I suspect) and broke all the stars. Now it's your job to fix it: your dad sends you to earth to create katamaris, which he will turn into stars (or stardust) to restore the sky.

Eggs hatch, chickens cluck, and people squeal or giggle as you collect them all, determined to make your dad proud. If you don't meet your goal, though, be prepared! Let's just say he's not exactly understanding.

A dedicated gamer can beat it fairly quickly, but there's real replay value. You can repeat levels to get faster times, shooting stars, and bigger stars/more complete constellations. If you make a big enough star, you reach "Eternal", removing the time limit for that stage. Then there's the Royal Presents to go back and collect on each stage except the first. The best (and one of the hardest to get) is a camera which allows you to take photos of your katamaris.

Plus, there's two player mode. The "Space Mushroom" is a sort of arena where you and a friend (playing as a Royal Cousin) compete to make the biggest katamari. If you're big enough, you can even roll up the other player! How fun is that?

My advice: if you have a PS2, start rolling. Too bad the game's not available for other platforms.

Xandria

Confessions of a Female Geek

Hi, my name is Xandria, and I'm a geek. (Hi, Xandria.)

I like science, math, computers, and gadgets. I've spent Friday nights at the observatory, at software launch events, and at gaming marathons. I play D&D, board games, and an MMORPG; I've even played a TCG. I love scifi/fantasy, and am rarely without a book. I can't find my eyeliner or lipstick, but I can keep track of a TiBook, an iPod, a cell phone, a PDA/GPSr, and a GBA (with only a little trouble). I've even done Live Action Role-Playing and attended movies in costume. Like I said, I'm a geek.

Amazingly, I was in denial until two or three years ago. Sure, I was a bit odd, but that hadn't kept me from finding a (really wonderful!) husband; I had friends, too. In truth, though, I'd been a geek since childhood; I had just never realized it.

It started innocently enough. My parents were both big Star Trek fans, so I grew up watching reruns. Then of course there was Star Wars; my sister and I were avid fans. (I was Princess Leia, and I had the Underoos to prove it! And I can't count how many times we saw A New Hope at the drive-in.) Too, my favorite cartoon was Battle of the Planets. Bad sign!

School didn't improve things: my favorite classes were math and science. (They told me girls could be whatever they wanted to be; I believed them.) I became a bookworm, visiting the library almost daily.

High school was worse: I attended a science magnet program in ninth grade. I took BASIC programming and joined marching band (Flag Corps). When I got bored, I read Niven, Asimov, Robert Aspirin, and Harlan Ellison; I carried a book everywhere. I was guaranteed a place with the "outcasts"—who were much more interesting than the popular kids, since they were willing to be themselves!

In college, I found the local Baptist Student Union, where conformity was not demanded! Freed of the last constraints of high school, I followed a path of increased geekiness and vastly improved pool skills... My new boyfriend (now husband) was a true geek, and he leaped at the chance to indoctrinate me, starting with the writings of Terry Pratchett, Douglas Adams, and Frank Herbert. His roommates were worse: their contributions included David Eddings, the PlayStation, Nuclear War, and the Illuminati game! (And Paranoia, and AD&D.)

I switched my degree from science to art. (Gee, four quarters of calculus and a semester of quantum mechanics are lovely as electives...) My husband and I did a short stint with live action RPG; then third edition D&D came out, and I was hooked. I also got sucked into MagiNation...and Munchkin, and all the classic "beer and pretzels" games (without the beer).

I realized he was a geek. We began hanging out at the local gaming shop. (No one complained about having an extra female gamer around...even an almost-thirty married chick.)

Oh, did I mention I'm a Mac addict? And I have a gadget problem? (Just a small one—I can still lift my purse...)
With all of this, it became too obvious to ignore: I was a geek. It was hard, at first. But I have embraced my geekness, and wear the label proudly. The geek shall inherit the earth!

Xandria