Clever creative type roBurky has just put up the significant first chunk of an in-game diary/experiment/story he’s been working on: Alice and Kev. He’s made a father and daughter in the Sims 3 mismatched, homeless and destitute, then tried to manage their sad lives as best he can.

He’s updating it pretty rapidly, so subscribe to mainline it through your RSS vein.

Naturally it’s funny. But the grim honesty with which the Sims 3 ends up modelling the self-perpetuating consequences of being dispossessed in a dysfunctional family is actually quite affecting. That’s not something you often get in a game diary, and Robin’s quiet observational tone brings it out well.

Also pants.

A few things to say about this:

• As delightful as the game’s squishy look is, I’d still love it if the artwork was mediocre. But without the magnificent, booming, haunting, spacious music, this would have been a very different game, and a much less exciting one.
   
• Free, downloadable, and with full versions of tracks you hear only parts of in-game – this is the way to do it. A commercial disc priced to squeeze a tiny trickle of money out of your most devoted customers, lacking the tracks people are likely to buy it for because of licensing restrictions – this is not. Soundtracks are promos. The people who already have the game can just rip the music from its files, even if you’ve tried to stop them.
   
• There are lots of highlights, but my favourite track in the game is still the music to the Red Carpet level (pictured). I had the chance to ask Kyle about the music a few weeks back, and I said this one sounded like a bad dance track slowed down, which somehow made it majestic. He explained that it is a bad dance track slowed down, written as a joke on the awfulness of nineties music, and the full version on this soundtrack includes sections played at normal speed. Witness the shift from glorious to obnoxious and back again:
  [audio:KyleGabler-RedCarpet.mp3]

  According to the liner notes, the vocalist is “an astrophysicist named Jessica. I gave a her a chainsaw for her wedding and we never spoke again. The end.” I thought she was a keyboard sample.

My guide to surviving a zombie apocalypse over at the PC Gamer blog.

Chris spotted one of the two remaining unannounced Pyro unlocks in the new Meet The Sniper video. Which is awesome, by the way. For the Demoman’s reaction, the slowly filling jars (also featured on the title card, I notice), and “Yes, yes he did.”

You see the gun fire once, but the muzzle flash is unspecific. There’s a better pic of it over at Chris’s. The shape resembles a flare pistol, but then there are plenty of more exotic devices that you’d probably make like a flare pistol if you had to model them in-game.

Update! clever people were right, it’s a Flare Gun! Full unlockable details and the shocking truth about the big Pyro change blogged over at PC Gamer, plus a few tidbits from Robin Walker on how it’ll all work. I rudely interrupted his game of Defense of the Ancients before breakfast this morning, intending just to say “This sounds ace!” but ended up asking a lot of annoying questions.

No-one seems to have noticed except Eurogamer, who failed to link it, but Sporepedia is already publicly accessible. This is the online field guide to all the creatures people have created with Spore, and the source from which the game will eventually populate the planets you play in with AI-controlled versions of the races people have made.

Right now it’s mostly Maxis folks and a few journos creating, and I think we can conclusively say Maxis are better at it. If you stumble on a Horncrested Bristlefrog up there, though, that’s my first proper stab.

The incredible thing about Sporepedia is that those thumbnail images you see are the creature files. Drag that image right from your browser to the game window, and it loads that creature in all its scampering glory. The creature’s DNA is actually coded into the metadata of a 25 kilobyte PNG image.

It takes a long, long time to get the test-the-limits urge out of your system – which is probably why they’re releasing the editor so far ahead of the game. Because you don’t really appreciate how exciting a prospect Spore is until you get past the “Can I break it?” phase (yes, oh God yes) and create something you truly love. The more personal a protagonist is to you the greater your invest in its plight, and it doesn’t get much more personal than a species you’ve hand-built from clay and vertebrae.

Next: Best creations, My creations.

Looks like Valve had a chance to get started on my list while I was away. Nice work so far, guys, but in future I’d appreciate it if you’d run any name-changes by me first.

I promise not to become someone who links everything they ever do anywhere, as if the mere fact of their involvement is reason enough for you to care. But I happen to have posted two things that fit within James’ remit on the PC Gamer blog recently. Jim mentioned today that he’d tried to look it up online with no luck, to which my mental reaction was “Dear God, he’s right! The world needs to know about Thedret the Exaggerator!”

As far as I know, the steps described in this article should let anyone create their own Exaggerator, but I’ve never tried to repeat the phenomenon. It would seem to undermine it, somehow.

Why I Love: Thedret the Exaggerator

When you complete the Knights of the Nine, your second-in-command Thedret addresses your men on your behalf. As he does so, he raises his arms dramatically and tells them that you survived your heroic clash with an evil god, and Tamriel is safe once more.

At more or less any time, you can ask any of your knights to accompany you on your adventures. You can only have one at a time, but it can be anyone, including Thedret. And so, as much to test the extent of my authority as anything, I asked Thedret to follow me mid-speech. He did, leaving everyone else stuck in our courtyard waiting blankly for the conclusion of his impassioned diction as he and I trundled off over the cliff.

I stopped to pick a few Green Stain Cups and Aloe Vera leaves, and when I turned back, I found Thedret looming over me with his arms aloft in that same absurd “I caught one this big” pose.

His expression was blank, and when spoken to, he asked “Yes, sir knight?” as if I were the one behaving strangely. And ever since, whenever Thedret isn’t running or fighting, his arms fly up in this oratorial stance and he glares at me, daring me to ask why. WHY, THEDRET, WHY?

Now, of course, I take Thedret everywhere. If he dies, I reload a previous savegame. His only interesting feature might be a bug, but the fact that it persists makes him the only truly unique thing I have in the game.

I love my Thedret because no-one else has one. It took Valve six years to make Alyx a likeable aide, but this one unintended edge case has made Oblivion’s Thedret far more important to me.

Over at the PC Gamer blog today, the full story of my doomed attempt to play the one game I know for sure I’ll hate: Football Manager. It doesn’t go well.

Finally, there’s something a bit like that. I’d thought it would make a good Amazon feature – anything comes out by anyone I’ve rated highly or bought something by, mail me and you’ll probably get yourselves a sale. But it’s a Last.fm mashup that’s finally answered the call. This is great for me, Tom Francis, but possibly awkward for you, non-Last.fm user, because you can’t quickly make a Last.fm account and add a load of bands to it. The site insists that you use its Scrobbler in the background while you listen to your music normally, so it can spy on what you really listen to rather than taking your word for who your favourite bands are.

It’s called Soundamus, and it just generates an RSS feed of all new releases by all the artists you’ve listened to according to your Last.fm account. It’s actually slightly awkward for me too, because however much I love Buck Rogers, I don’t really care that Feeder have a new album. But on the other hand, this system is far more comprehensive than any that relied on me to remember who I like. The reason this is a problem that needs fixing in the first place is that I’m incapable of remembering that more than the last fifty bands I listened to even exist.

Here’s my Feeder-heavy feed, if you’re curious.

“On consideration we concluded that the effect was generic to the particular combination of the letters OGC – and it is not inappropriate to an organisation thatâ€s looking to have a firm grip on Government spend.”

Or, a penis.

Dear people trying to make a point about things changing slowly: I don’t doubt the humans you’re talking to are morons. I don’t doubt you could boil them. But don’t bring frogs into it, you need a lid to cook those motherfuckers.

PS: It is true that Cane Toads ate Australia. They’re sorry about that, but it’s kind of our fault for flying them out there and Australia’s fault for being so delicious.

Every year I fall for one April Fool, usually on April the 2nd because the internet has undermined the transience and therefore the entire freaking point of the day. This year it was this awesome hoax by Braid artist and A Lesson Is Learned But The Damage Is Irreversible hero David Hellman.

Curse you, David Hellman! Your pictures were so alluring that I skipped the highly suspicious intro paragraph and totally sent the link to Tim before I realised it was a big pile of fat blue lies!

Check also out what happened in Guild Wars, if you missed it in my Flickr box down there on the right.

I celebrated April Fool’s day over at the PC Gamer blog by recounting five of my favourite games industry pranks of the last decade.

What the hell is going on with that photo? Did somebody hit her with a copy of Dead Rising so hard that it stuck five inches into the flesh of her shoulder? Is some previously unnoticed fold of unctuous fat obscuring the tops of the rest of those game boxes? (Via Craig)

Soulstorm’s developers, Iron Lore, have shut down since they made this game. Which seems ridiculous, given the spectacular number of copies it’s going to sell.

It’s also sad, because while this wasn’t as brave or interesting as Dark Crusade, Iron Lore were talented guys who had a rare gift: they could see what made another game great, and mimic it.

Even if that wasn’t their intention, they were one of the only developers who gave the impression that they truly knew the nuts and bolts of what made games fun. I had plenty of complaints about Soulstorm, but for weeks I couldn’t stop playing it.

Now I’ve moved on to their previous game, Titan Quest, and it’s far better than I’d been led to believe. It’s convinced me that we really have lost a great team in Iron Lore, and if you’re interested in an insider’s perspective on why, and how, a THQ guy has posted his thoughts over at Quarter to Three.

I guess I knew devs teams were this big these days, but still: wow. Next time I pan a major game, I’m going to imagine that many people simultaneously bursting into tears. I’ll still to do it, I’m just going to feel bad.

Update: it’s probably going to be the week of the 10th, or the week after that. Valve Time, naturally.

http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/50709