Vickiepedia

In Pleasantview, Brandi Broke’s husband died drowning in a “suspicious pool ladder accident” in the family backyard. Dina Caliente is dating Mortimer Goth for his money. Womaniser Don Lothario is going to marry Cassandra Goth for hers, all the while being in multiple simultaneous romantic relationships. Daniel Pleasant is having an extramarital affair with the maid, Kaylynn Langerak, who is in turn one of Don Lothario’s lovers.

And that’s only part of the default story. I know.

Over in Strangetown, the Beaker couple allegedly performs strange experiments on a Sim handily named Nervous Subject. Pollination Technician 9, the Smith family father, is an extraterrestrial alien with green skin who has fathered more children than he cared to remember. Pascal Curious, a man, is in his third trimester with an alien baby. Olive Specter has an alarming number of dead ex-husbands and tombstones in her backyard, and an even more alarming memory of having sex with the Grim Reaper.

Oh yeah, the Grim Reaper. I know.

There’s also the easily accessible Criminal career; many, many ways to deliberately kill a Sim should we so feel like it; PlantSims, ghosts, vampires, robots, werewolves, witches, zombies… most of which exist by default whether we like or believe in them or not.

And that’s what makes this game extra fun. I know.

Now let me conveniently overlook the fact that Sims are either asexual or heterosexual by default; but they’d better not call gay marriage “marriage” and make it as fulfilling as straight marriages in The Sims 3, because oh no, that would be so wrong and unnatural, you know!

(Note: Entry originally written in March 2009, 3 months before The Sims 3 was released, when someone replied in the official forum saying that teh gheyz that is us should be satisfied with our getting “joined” / civil union option that rewards less aspiration points than male-female marriages in The Sims 2. I’m sure most of us applaud EA for at least giving us that possibility; but it’s simply not good enough!

The Sims 3 has now been out for 3 months. It acknowledges all marriages as “marriages”, and AI-controlled Sims would become partners with another AI-controlled Sim of the same sex if the players let them experience it.

Unrelated, but I’m disappointed that they took out the tickling interaction between adults, though.)

Aidan and Zho first met possibly in Kaineng Center, standing just within earshot of each other. There was no evidence of them interacting then and they went on separate ways later on, one off to befriend the Luxons and the other the Kurzicks.

A few years later, however, on our trips to various lands with tall folks who think we’re tiny, tiny folks who think we’re smelly, and smelly folks who are usually our enemies, Aidan and Zho got closer. (read more…)

This is a mini tribute to my brother’s Guild Wars Survivor (1) Monk, 智源, who recently died in the ending cinematic in the Vizunah Square mission, because someone else on the other team didn’t skip it — which is not that player’s fault, you know, because cutscenes are made to be watched.

Rest in peace, 智源.

ArenaNet, we have asked politely like civilised entities; we have whined relentlessly still rather like civilised entities… Now if you absolutely cannot reset a death count, please AT LEAST FIX THE STUPID BUG BEFORE ANOTHER SURVIVOR UNFAIRLY DIES CAPSLOCK KTHX

If you’re not a gamer, you’d probably still have heard of Silent Hill the movie, and have probably seen the Cybil Bennett police officer character in it. Yeah, the one who spoiler spoiler spoiler spoiler. Cybil in the game is quite different.

Now I can’t tell you what her exact purpose in the game is (there are tons of theories out there if you felt like breaking your brain), but this is what I believe Cybil is not: male protagonist’s love/sex interest, cleavage, blonde bombshell, damsel in distress. She is just a female police officer who happened to be blonde, beautiful and very well-proportioned, like the rest of the young women in the whole of the game universe.

I was quite thrilled when I first read about Konami’s “reimagining” of the original Silent Hill game. Okay, so remakes have never been all that exciting, but this is Silent Hill. Silent Hill is Silent Hill, is Silent Hill, is Silent Hill. Or so I was chanting half in disbelief when I was looking at the screenshots of the now wearing glasses and looking 100 times more distraught Harry Mason (the protagonist).

It really wasn’t until I saw this one screenshot with Cybil… Let’s put the two Cybils side by side. On the left is the Cybil from the 1999 PlayStation days; on the right, Cybil in the upcoming Silent Hill: Shattered Memories.

She may still not be a damsel in distress, but poor, poor Cybil, who did you piss off at BPD, SHPD and/or Konami to deserve this?

I can actually already see why they named the reimagining “Shattered Memories” now.

My brother alerted me to this first, but “The Storm Warriors” (風雲II), the upcoming sequel to a semi-popular Hong Kong movie, is using the first 22 or so seconds of the Guild Wars theme song on their official website. For a movie with a HK$100 million budget, you’d expect them to compose their own music (unless, of course, they bought the copyright to the song / had permission otherwise)!

Here is a sample of the Guild Wars (Guild Wars Prophecies) opening theme song: DirectSong > Guild Wars > 01 – Opening Theme.

Here is the movie’s official site: Traditional Chinese version, Simplified Chinese version or English version.

This is my expression after I heard the song on the movie’s official site: