Well just finished reading the new The Sims Official Magazine. The layout/design of it is gorgeous, I like that they featured community work not just from the official site but also a gorgeous house from modthesims. However only some of their articles are worth reading and with a few I just disagreed.
I like how they made a History of The Sims, but it misses a few key moments. Like what inspired Will Wright to come up with The Sims and The Sims Medieval was such a different and gorgeous game than the rest of the series, why wasn't there at least a popup with more information about that? I didn't think the Jack Thompson bit was needed, while that attorney is laughable, mentioning it right now is just throwing salt on a healed wound, what is the point?
Drama watch is cute, we all have moments of drama in our game this article lists a few. I would like more of these for the 2nd magazine, we share plenty of funny moments on twitter/facebook.
The Psychology of the Sims is the article I have the most trouble with, it starts that we perhaps stay with the game because we have so many choices on how we play the game. And then says "The freedom of creating any type of Sim allows for people to live out their fantasies". This comment can be taking two ways; the mostly commonly viewed is that we use The Sims to have the perfect life (unlike RL which is never perfect). But this is so often not true in my opinion, many Simmers do not make their Sims live the perfect life but create a new/random story for it. This too can be called ‘living out a fantasy’, I prefer to call it ‘thinking up a new story/being creative’. Personally I think up a goal for my Sims and do it, but I am very goal-orientated person/gamer.
The other comment in this article I had trouble with is 'found that people who used particularly tall avatars tended to be more assertive in negotiations’. Right ok, but in The Sims we only have 1 height this comment cannot be related to The Sims game, why put it in an article for The Sims Official Magazine?
I do agree with Madigan that The Sims is a very accessible game, the tutorial is only needed to learn the basic controls, there are no complicated rules or ways to get things, its very straightforward. But overall in my opinion what keeps people playing The Sims is the endless amount of options and the quirky humour.
There is a Winchester article that surprised me, it features a huge house and the history behind it. Then it shows the simmified version that is downloadable from Mod The Sims, a community website. Wonder if this will mean many more features from the community in the future, there are some wonderful worlds I have found in the past that did not come in the exchange.
I am not sure what to think of the landsimming article, it gives some tips on how to make a chinese garden but that is it. This article and the next article (remodel kitchen) could really use highres pictures, with smooth edges! As for the remodel article I think we should get talented decorators to do these challenges and have them submit to TSOM because whoever did the remodel kitchen challenge did not leave me very inspired.
Some small bits
- What is especially cute is a hair tutorial on how to get one of the Sims hair in Real Life! They also included a makeup tutorial for the special egyptian makeup in game. Hope they continue this, also for male hair, men need hair tutorials too… right?
- The Sims Social article is sadly outdated, we were given the penthouse months ago, why not talk about current quests in The Sims Social, they are very fun to play!
- Curtis has a small article too, listing his 5 favourite things from the SuperNatural expansion pack. Hopefully next magazine will feature another person from the community as Curtis is a builder and not a player like me, so he looks differently at the games.
- Brittany Henry, associate producer who has worked on Supernatural and Showtime, has an interview that is always good to read. I love learning about what goes on at the Sims Studio.
Overall I am glad this magazine was free, if I had paid money I would have been disappointed, I can see where they want to go with this magazine they just aren't there yet. Get some reader feedback next time before publishing!