Redwood City, U.S.A. — Werewolves, vampires, witches, and fairies … oh my! The Maxis Label of Electronic Arts announced on September 4, 2012, that The Sims 3 Supernatural Expansion Pack* is now available at retailers nationwide and for digital download on PC and Mac.

In The Sims 3 Supernatural, players will experience the madness of the werewolves’ full moon, the menace of vampires, the magic of witches, and the mischief of fairies as they explore the new world of Moonlight Falls. Intoxicating magic and spellbinding surprises await players as they fully embody a supernatural life, playing as new types of Sims with mysterious powers and enchanting traits.

“This expansion pack adds a new, magical dimension to The Sims experience, opening up a world of storytelling possibilities,” said Kari St. John, Senior Producer for The Sims Studio. “We’re excited to put creative tools in the hands of our players, giving them the ability to tell contemporary stories inspired by this supernatural theme.”

A cast of supernatural characters introduce fun new gameplay options to the world of The Sims 3. Players can live out supernatural lives as werewolves, fairies, witches and vampires, all of which are completely customizable in the Create A Sim tool.

Witches can challenge one another in spellcasting duels or show off their high-flying tricks in the magic broom arena. Werewolves can hunt for collectibles and change at will between their human and wolf forms. Fairies can play pranks and cast beneficial auras, while vampires stalk the night and use their seductive powers to convince other Sims to join their undead ranks.

Aside from a cast of new supernatural Sims, The Sims 3 Supernatural offers many additional gameplay features available to all Sims in the game, supernatural or not. Any player can choose to build their Sim’s skill in alchemy, mixing a variety of potent elixirs that range from love potions to vampiric sunscreen and even zombification brews.

Sims will explore the mysterious world of Moonlight Falls as they uncover hidden secrets and collect rare ingredients, allowing them to ultimately create more powerful elixirs. Sims who truly hone this craft can reach the status of master alchemist, and those looking to earn a few extra simoleons can visit the local alchemy shop to sell their concoctions.

In addition to werewolves, fairies, witches and vampires, players can expect to see many more ghosts amidst the supernaturals in their town. For the first time in The Sims 3, players can customize ghost Sims by selecting their cause of death, with options including ‘death by drowning’, ‘death by fire’ and ‘death by meteor.’ The Sims 3 Supernatural also adds a completely new death type, ‘death by jelly beans,’ for those Sims prone to over-indulgence.

Set in a foggy and secluded valley, the new world of Moonlight Falls adds a mysterious backdrop to The Sims 3 Supernatural and introduces new venues for Sims to explore. Supernatural Sims have their own lurk-worthy hangouts, including Varg’s Tavern, where werewolves congregate by the light of the full moon. Sims can also visit the traveler’s caravan to have their fortunes told, or choose the fortune-telling career path as either a legitimate medium or a bogus psychic.

Players can control the lunar cycle in their game for the first time in The Sims 3 Supernatural. With the rise of the full moon, players will notice strange happenings and changes in magical potency as both supernatural and ordinary Sims are affected. Players can customize the duration of the lunar cycle or choose to play with a continuous full moon for an especially peculiar and enchanted game experience.

With The Sims 3 Supernatural, players will discover a rich new world filled with supernatural Sims, curses and charms, unpredictable transformations, high-flying hijinks and other spooky surprises. Embrace the supernatural with the latest expansion pack from The Sims 3 and play with life in magical, mysterious and mischievous new ways.

The Sims 3 Supernatural is rated “T” for Teen and currently available online and across retailers in North America.

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The fourth edition of gamescom, the world’s biggest trade fair and event highlight for interactive entertainment, ended on Sunday 19th with a great result. More than 275,000 visitors, including around 24,500 trade visitors (+14%) from 83 countries (2011: 71), experienced the eagerly awaited new products and developments from of than 600 exhibitors (+8 percent) from 40 countries (+1).

On an exhibition area covering 140,000 square metres (+15%), the exhibitors presented more than 330 global, European and German premieres (+10%). The trade fair was also extended in terms of content.

In addition to PC and console games, online and browser games, the latest themes from the industry were above all mobile and social games. Gerald Böse, Chief Executive Officer of Koelnmesse GmbH: “gamescom has once again demonstrated its international reputation in terms of business and entertainment.” More than 5,300 journalists from 54 countries reported from Cologne for five days.

Visitors to gamescom were able to experience some fantastic gaming worlds in the last five days. One noticeable trend at gamescom 2012 is that games are increasingly picking up on everyday themes, such as the complete networking of people by means of Internet-capable smartphones. In addition to PC and console games, online and browser games, other hot themes from the industry are above all mobile and social games. Browser games are taking great strides with regard to graphics and they are no longer inferior to many AAA titles.

In addition to games developed specifically for mobile applications, classic games are also conquering the smartphone and tablet PC market. For the whole of 2012 the German Federal Association for Interactive Entertainment Software is forecasting a six-percent boost in the sales of games. Dr. Maximilian Schenk, Managing Director of BIU: “The concept of gamescom has borne fruit: as a leading international trade fair, it presents all types and aspects of games for all platforms.

We would like to thank most sincerely the gamer community, the visitors, exhibitors and partners, the City of Cologne, the State of North Rhine Westphalia, our partner country South Korea and especially Koelnmesse. We can all be very proud of gamescom 2012 – and we intend to continue in the same vein in 2013.”

For Katharina C. Hamma, Managing Director of Koelnmesse GmbH, the focus is on the successful further development of the trade fair concept: “We have expanded gamescom as an international business and innovation platform and at the same time we have considerably enhanced the quality of the experience for our consumers and the community. The innovative ticketing concept for individual days of the trade fair and the entry management system worked without a hitch and contributed significantly to the improved quality of the event.”

Following the experiences of the previous year, advance ticket sales were reorganised, ahead of the trade fair, date-specific ticketing was effectively extended and offered in advance sales. The exhibition area was enlarged by 15 percent to 140,000 square metres and, in addition, one exhibition hall was converted into the entrance for consumers and community.

Around 24,500 trade visitors from 83 countries, from European and international industry, met up to do business in the halls of the exclusive gamescom business area. Our partner country South Korea presented itself as a starting point for new international business. More than 20 companies made up the shared South Korean stand.

Together with the other shared country stands representing China, France, the UK, Iran, Canada, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Scandinavia, Spain, Taiwan and, for the first time, Hungary and Austria, gamescom significantly extended its international reach. The adjacent gamescom entertainment area once again turned the Cologne Exhibition Centre into the world’s biggest interactive playground.

A large number of exhibitors considerably expanded their exhibition stand areas. gamescom fans also got their full money’s worth away from the monitors and game stations. Innovations such as the “gamescom trailer cinema powered by LG” or the “cosplay village” were just two of the highlights of the comprehensive supporting programme. The latter was once again headed by the gamescom congress and the gamescom campus On particular success was the large number of games companies and educational institutions which presented the games industry as an employer to young people.

Once again this year the “Game Developers Conference Europe” (GDCE) and the gamescom festival in the heart of the City of Cologne offered the perfect framework for gamescom 2012.

As Europe’s leading conference for games development, the GDC Europe once again lured around 2,000 developers and industry representatives from Europe and around the world to Cologne. This year’s gamescom festival once again carried the world of games and excellent musical entertainment into the heart of the City of Cologne. More than 120,000 visitors partied, played and danced between Neumarkt, Rudolfplatz and Friesenplatz.

This year the range of entertainment offered by the gamescom festival was, just like gamescom itself, bigger and more even more varied. 13 bands on the main stage on the Hohenzollernring – with headliners The Donuts, Kettcar, Bosse, Thees Uhlmann & Band – provided a real festival atmosphere. On these squares and the section of the ring, the festival visitors submerged themselves in the virtual games worlds of Sony, Ubisoft, Activision and Electronic Arts, which presented numerous games stations over the entire festival area.

The next gamescom will take place from 21 to 25 August 2013.

Image Courtesy of   Barone Firenze / Shutterstock.com

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Earlier this week it was revealed in the German magazine GameStar that a new game in the popular “SimCity” series was in the works.  Although no worldwide announcement has followed, a host of details are already available.

The game will be called SimCity, with no number or subtitle following it.  The graphics have been reworked, leading to more intricate and beautiful details, such as signs plastered up around town and on buildings along with people walking around and going through their lives, occasionally visiting eateries and other stores.

These details also add an extra element to the gameplay: it is now possible to see how a factory is running based on its animation.  At this point, however, there are no screenshots that actually depict how the finished game will look, as currently the only thing available is concept art.

The camera can also now be repositioned, moved around, and zoomed in and out, meaning fixed viewpoints are a thing of the past.  It is possible to zoom in on individual buildings and people, and doing so has a quirky effect: the closer the camera is zoomed in on the city, the louder the noises of the streets and people will become, but the farther out it is, the more quiet everything will seem.

The grid format the series has become associated with is getting redone, and it is now possible to create curved roads, as opposed to only straight ones, which will give the game a more realistic appearance.

Multiplayer has also been added, enabling trade between friends for different materials and resources, as well as leaderboards to show how individual players rank in terms of things like finance.  In addition, prices for resources in single-player may be regulated by the actual online economy of the game (although GameStar was vague here, leaving room for the possibility that the economy will be actually fluctuate based on events that happen in the real world).

Other bits shown reveal that buildings do not stay the same over the course of the game.  As time goes on buildings can unlock new powers, like a fire station being able to put out a fire that much quicker.  Graphs and charts telling the player the status of their city have also been simplified and made more modern in order to help make them more player-friendly.

At this time there is little other information available, but stay tuned for more details in coming months.

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‘NFL Blitz’ was a popular Midway Arcade series, now owned by EA, which was known for taking its own spin on football. The ‘NFL Blitz’ series was never a “true” adaptation of the sport; NFL simulators were meant for EA Sports’ ‘Madden’ and 2K’s ‘NFL Football 2K’ series while Blitz just stuck with the arcade formula and gave something the lighter sports fans could easily enjoy, chaos on the field and “late hits.”

The Blitz games allowed you to enter cheat codes prior to the game starting, which let you change the look of the field, ball, players, and some gameplay codes that can make things a little easier or harder for you. If you want to know more about Blitz’s history, click here.

On January 3, EA Sports released ‘NFL Blitz’ as a PSN and XBOX Live download. Before this, the last Blitz game to be released was ‘Blitz: The League 2’ in 2008. The League games took the most of the arcade elements out of the Blitz series and went for a more realistic style and brought Blitz into a new hyper violent sports game by including real, and sometimes nasty injuries.

It was because of this that the NFL license dropped from the Blitz games and the series took a downward spiral. Though still entertaining, they were no longer the Blitz series that everyone remembered. That is, until EA picked up the rights and returned Blitz to its former glory.

The Gameplay

For those of you new to the Blitz franchise, be ready for illegal moves, unrealistic plays, crazy teams, and the arcade classic invisible walls. In order to understand how and why these work, you have to know the two rules of Blitz:

Rule #1: There are no rules on the field. Any means for you to take out the ball carrier are allowed, including pass interference. If you are in threat of getting tackled, spin yourself to act as a shield or just knock down your opponents like bowling pins (sound effects included). You may also use your turbo meter to assist against your opponents. Though the meter runs out fast and slowly recharges, if you play your cards right, your team might burst into flames (literally) so you don’t have to worry about your turbo running out.

Rule #2: There are no out of bounds or offsides. There are invisible walls that keep you in the playing field and on your side of the field, until the play has started. This keeps the action simple and heated as well as helps give your character, in defensive position, a running start towards the QB as he runs in place on the line of scrimmage until the ball is hiked.

Worried about the two minute clock since you cannot run out of bounds? At the end of every play the clock stops. It’s just part of the rules of Blitz.

With EA’s revival of the Blitz series, they have returned Blitz to its bright colors, arcade controls, as well as the wacky character skins such as, Ninjas, Robots, Hotdogs, and many more including Zombies (Yes, they do the ‘Thriller’). Some of the new features brought into the series are:

• Blitz Gauntlet, which is where you face three sets of three teams in order to battle the bosses to unlock them as playable skins.
• Blitz Battles, where you go head to head with people online or even join up with a friend to battle others in two on two team battle.
• Elite League, where you build your own personalized team using your favorite players as well as banners and logos from your favorite teams to make your own personalized Blitz team.
• Online Coop, where you join up with an online friend to battle other online teams.
• The Blitz Store, where you use Blitz Bucks (earned through online play) to purchase logos and players for your custom team, gallery images, Fantasy Character skins, or cheat codes (All cheat codes can be used without having to purchase them, except for the fantasy characters).

EA’s ‘NFL Blitz’ is a true revival of the Blitz series and a fantastic game with solid gameplay for both sports and arcade fans. The only complaint I had with the game is that they did not allow late hits at the end of the plays. Besides that EA did a great job with reviving the Blitz series and the game itself does not disappoint.

Score: 4/5

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