The organization has lauded EA's life simulator as the "most animal-friendly game" of the year, otherwise known as PETA's Proggy Award. The animal-rights group praises The Sims 3 for its option to let players "choose a vegetarian lifestyle," making Sims, "like their real-life counterparts, live longer, age more slowly, and feast on cruelty-free delights-from tofu dogs to ratatouille."

"EA's compassionate update to its perennial favorite shows commitment not only to animals but also to the game's players," writes PETA, claiming that the previous iteration was only vegetarian friendly by way of mods.

I'm curious what PETA would consider 2009's least animal-friendly game. My best guess is Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus for the Wii, but that seems almost too obvious.

The Sims 3: Most Animal-Friendly Game of 2009 [PETA via Gamasutra]

If the names Yoshida and Aoki aren't what you'd consider household names, the former is an Olympic judo gold medalist, the latter the current DREAM lightweight champion. Neither is pictured in the screen shot above, obviously, but their presence at today's press conference (as photographed by Famitsu.com) is sufficient evidence that the two fighters do exist and have committed their likenesses to the mixed martial arts game.

I'm still hoping that we're in for a few Super Smash Bros. style entries, with, say, Isaac Clarke making an appearance in full armor and the faceless bikers from Road Rash entering the ring armed with bike chains. Any other terrible ideas on par with those two suggestions?

EA Sports MMA [Twitter]
ヒョードルVS吉田が実現？『EA SPORTS MMA』に吉田秀彦、青木真也両選手が参戦決定 [Famitsu]

The Warsaw-based developer filed that trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office last week, specifically for "Computer software for use with personal computers, for use with home video game consoles for use with televisions, and for use with arcade-based video game consoles for use with televisions." That long for "video games."

It also filed a Bulletstorm trademark for "Printed materials; user manuals; hint books," so expect a manual to go along with it.

While not yet officially announced, Bulletstorm is likely that new "multi-platform game project" from Epic Games that Electronic Arts has agreed to publish, back when things were a little rosier for EA, amid a flurry of EA Partners branded publishing announcements.

Epic Games announced its majority stake investment in People Can Fly back in 2007, following the Polish developer's work on Gears of War for the PC. Mark Rein, vice president of Epic, said at the time the company was "totally blown away" by People Can Fly's prototypes. And Mark Rein is certainly not known for hyperbole!

Bulletstorm [USPTO - Image Credit]

These images appeared on the Command & Conquer 4 website as a bonus to newsletter subscribers, teasing a new medium for the beloved real-time strategy franchise. Joystiq seems to think the images could be indicative of a comic book, and EA has been loving on the video game comic book business lately, but I agree with Joy that it could be too obvious. Perhaps an animated cartoon of some sort, with these images serving as storyboards? A really difficult coloring book? Decorator napkins?

See, this is where you guys should take over the speculation. It's not my strong suit.

Newsletter Subscribers Exclusive Sneak Peek [Command & Conquer via Blue's News]

The offer: Buy any three titles from this list and you get 800 Microsoft points back. Now, some of these are full $19.99 titles. But if you get a new hard drive or Christmas cash and want to lay out the price of a new game to get three, you can consider the points back to be like a gift card. And many stores run that kind of special.

If you want to know the bare minimum you can spend to still qualify, that would be buying up both Mass Effect downloads, plus the Dragon Age: Origins DLC (or Madden AFL Legacy Pack), for 1360 points. You then get 800 back, effectively making the cost 560 points, or the entire package for $7. Naturally, given the units in which Microsoft points are sold, your actual cash outlay may vary here.

The special runs from Dec. 25 to Jan. 31.

Xbox Live Holiday Discounts [Electronic Arts news]

The Sims 3: World Adventures opens up three new remote locations your Sim can visit: China, France and Egypt. The purpose of visiting the exotic locations is to give your Sims the chance to complete adventures inside local tombs and temples. The gameplay in these sections is very much like old school point-and-click adventures where your Sim needs to explore nooks and crannies to find keys, treasure and secret locks to hidden doors. Completing these expeditions nets your Sim Visa Points so they can stay longer in foreign countries and eventually purchase vacation homes.

In addition to the gameplay, however, World Adventures also augments the Sims experience with a bunch of new skills, traits and Lifetime Rewards to update your ho-hum Riverside or Sunset Valley gameplay in the core game. But is it an adventure worth taking?

Loved
Adventuring: Taking your Sim into a temple or a tomb for some exploration turns out to be a pretty intimate and oftentimes hilarious experience. In tombs, Sims encounter all kinds of danger that they don't normally back at home — like mummies that can infect them with a fatal curse or traps that can burn them alive. This makes you anxious for your Sim in a way that encourages bonding — I totally reloaded a game once when my Tenzing Norgay got charred in an Egyptian pyramid puzzle. Aside from that aspect of gameplay, the Sims themselves entertain you with their own feelings on the adventures. If you've got a Sim with a good set of traits (Adventuring, Bravery, etc.), getting through the winding passages and around dangerous traps is a healthy challenge that sometimes really makes you think like a puzzle game. Sending a Sim in with bad traits, though (Cowardice, Loser, etc.), while frustrating for treasure-hunting definitely yields laughs when your Sim flees from a mummy.

New Skills: World Adventures adds Photography, Martial Arts and Nectar Making to the Sim skill set. I spent most of my time on Photography and Martial Arts — making Tenzing Norgay something of a photojournalist monk in the process. The Photography skill gives Sims access to different types of camera (crappy, decent and awesome) and lets them take pictures from the first person perspective pretty much anywhere in the game. Depending on the subject of the photo (and you can tell what you're capturing via little labels in first-person mode), your Sim can score major money by taking pictures of foreign landmarks. Martial Arts, meanwhile, is exactly what it sounds like. Your Sim can learn Sim Fu and compete against other Sims in karate tournaments or just sit around and meditate until they float in the air. Lastly, Nectar-Making builds off your Sims' gardening skills by letting you combine various fruits to create original nectars that you can sell for mad bank.

Elements of Multiculturalism: The native Sims in China, France and Egypt actually look like Chinese, French and Arab people. This alone is a big step for The Sims in terms of multiculturalism, but there's also a lot of little things about local Sims you start to notice that keep up the foreign facade. For example, every location has a set of songs that people sing to themselves in the markets or at their homes. There are also local books and recipes your Sim can pick up (like Dim Sum and Frogs Legs) to read or make at home. My all time favorite little touch, though, is still the part where children with at least one Asian parent eat with chopsticks. So cute!

Hated
It's A Little Bit Broken: There is a major gameplay bug I encountered that should never have made it to retail. Sometimes when sending your Sim abroad (and usually when they've got a child or a teenager Sim with them), the game makes your family vanish. Like, completely disappear both from the foreign location you were sending them to and from the home location. In my case, I sent Tenzing and his teenage son to China while his wife was laid up at home with twin girls. Mid-load into China, the game suddenly deposited the camera view into China — only there was no family there and no Sim in the control bar to keep track of. I could do thing — not even edit the town. So I quit out and went back to Sunset Valley expecting to find them there, but the same thing happened. The wife and babies were gone and in the family viewer, there was only a placeholder graphic of a dotted outline where the Norgays should have been. I was able to fix the problem after consulting a fan forum, but it wasn't a simple solution (having to move around backup files and save files) and I lost data.

Loss of Continuity: A big selling point of The Sims 3 was the persistent environment. Sims around your Sim grew old and died and the world moved within the same time frame. World Adventures wrecks the continuity by making China, France and Egypt into stagnant environments. It's like time stops when you go abroad and your Sim doesn't age and life back at home freezes until you come back. On the one hand, this is convenient when you want to dodge an age transition without just turning aging off. However, on the other hand, it also creates weird situations.

Take for example my French mistress's "abortion." I had invited her from France to stay with Tenzing and then Tried for Baby. She got pregnant and when the morning sickness started, she ended her vacation and went home early. I followed her to France the very next day, expecting to visit my pregnant mistress. However, when I got there, she was no longer pregnant and there wasn't a baby anywhere. I contacted the developer to make sure I hadn't encountered a bug and they told me that because infants and toddlers simply can't exist in the foreign environments (for all kinds of development issues), the child should have been "aged up" automatically to childhood when the mistress went back to France. What I should have seen was a child Sim in the mistress's household with her last name that the game would still recognize as Tenzing's kid and "the fiction" would be that a significant amount of time has passed between the time my mistress left Sunset Valley and the time Tenzing arrived in France. This kind of continuity is not only confusing, but also kind of against the persistent environment The Sims 3 is popular for.

The Sims 3: World Adventures is an experience that deserves the title "expansion." It adds a lot to the core experience of the game, it offers an alternative style of gameplay and it's pulled off in a way that blends pretty well with the game (with the exception of the hiccups mentioned above).

If you're a Sims fan, though, you've probably already guessed this having played the game for the last month solid. But if you're not really a Sims fan, or you were one of the skeptics who were holding back because the rampant expansions of the Sims 2 tired you out, don't hold back. There's a whole wide world out there for your Sim to explore (three of them, in fact) and you won't want to miss it.

The Sims 3: World Adventures was developed and published by EA for the PC. The game released November 17 for $40 USD. A copy of the game was given to Kotaku by the publisher for reviewing purposes. Created Tenzing Norgay as a young adult and raised his Visa level to at least eight days' worth of travel in each country. Maxed out the Photography and Martial Arts skills.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

GameInformer has the first comprehensive look at Clarke in his newer, sleeker, more jetpack-accessorized space suit, and at least one unfamiliar necromorph. Fight against the Silverlight and Photosynth-powered screenshot viewer a bit and you'll also get a peek at some of the environment from the sequel and what appears to be a flood of teenaged necromorphs bearing down on poor Mr. Clarke.

What do you think of Isaac's new duds?

Dead Space 2 In 3D [Game Informer]

Have you ever been embarrassed for someone else? The moment the music starts up in this holiday-themed Dante's Inferno trailer my cheeks started getting warm. By the time the first line came out, they were deep crimson. "On the worst day of Christmas Lucifer gave to me..." Ug. Someone had to sing that. Not only did someone have to sing that, they probably had to do multiple takes, while other people were watching. Is there a circle of hell for marketing that makes you vaguely uncomfortable?

For a game set in Hell that seems designed to court controversy, the inclusion of "unblessed infants" as something to slay sounds a lot more reasonable when described in such a sterile fashion. "These 'unbaptized' demons resemble babies only in size," says the ESRB's warning about potentially offensive content, "as they tend to hack, slash, scream, and impale/get impaled as often as taller demons."

See? Nothing to be concerned about, especially when factoring in the rest of the violent fare and... tongue-evisceration? Yep. Tongue-evisceration.

"Blood often splatters out of monsters' bodies when attacked; weakened monsters can be finished off with a set of commands leading to tongue-evisceration, but more often, some version of dismemberment," notes the rating. These things are so informative.

The "Mature" rating touches on the game's sexual content—like Cleopatra's bared, bruise-colored breasts—and the "shade minions," which have "tentacles protrud[ing] from their stomachs, their lower regions." By that, I assume they mean their feet.

But news to me at least was the shaft-swinging accuracy in Dante's Inferno. Apparently, one "bluish devil/demon in boss-battle mode" has it's business out and "there are equivalent physics applied to female/male body parts." How far we've come from physics-free phallus!

Dante's Inferno [ESRB]

Salem and Rios don't go anywhere without their masks, so they need top-quality designs in order to make sure the other mercenaries don't giggle at them behind their backs. That's where you come in. Using the simple armor and mask creator found at Army of Two dot com, you can have your designs ready for launch day. Upload graphics, rotate images, and make Rios look like a pig. It's your call.

Just be sure to share your creations with the class when you're done.

While the 13.8MB patch should fix the ATI issues, Electronic Arts wants you to accept an EULA before you download it. And then, users with quad core CPUs will need to implement a workaround (described here, see "Known Issues & Current Workaround), otherwise they "will possibly have significant streaming issues." This is funny because the game's specs recommend a 2.8GHz Quad Core CPU.

EA says it's aware of the issue and working on a fix for the next patch update. And "while this will decrease the amount of streaming glitches, it is not a fool-proof fix."

So wait a minute, is the damn thing patched or not?

BETA Patch Report/Support Thread [EA Forums via VE3D]

EA Sports' blog promises the same package is on the way "very soon" for PlayStation 3. A ton of these look like they have color variants or something, but here's a list, taken from the EA Sports blog with duplicates removed. I'm just disappointed we don't have the Chickie Yonakor waffle-soles with floppy three-stripe socks.

TS Supernatural Commander AllStar East Blue SLD/Running White FTW/Red SLD DLC
TS Supernatural Commander
TS Supernatural Creator AllStar West Red SLD/Running White FTW/Metallic Gold SLD
TS Supernatural Creator
TS Cut Creator Low Gil
TS Bounce Commander CMDR 3 Duncan
TS Bounce Commander CMDR 3 KG
TS Bounce Commander CMDR 3 Howard
Jordan Melo M6
Jordan CP3.III
Jordan XII (re-purpose from NBA Street)
Jordan 2010
Nike Air Max LeBron VII
Nike Zoom Kobe V
Nike Zoom Hustle
Converse Wade 5 Mid
Converse EB2 Mid
Converse Weapon Evo Ox
Converse Weapon Evo Ox C
Converse Weapon Evo Mid
Reebok Answer XIII
Reebok Hexride
Nike KD2
Nike Hypermax
Nike Hyperize
Nike SHOX Vision
Nike Blue Chip II
Nike Air MAX Rise
Nike Zoom Skyposite
Nike Zoom Hustle
Nike Cradle Rock Low
Nike MAX Turnaround
Nike Sentido
Nike Zoom Flip'n
Nike Huarache Legion

Holiday DLC Shoe Pack [EA Sports]

EA's Jeff Brown confirmed to the Atlanta Business Chronicle that the publisher is considering the Peach State for a multimillion-dollar investment, but didn't go into details why. It's likely that the labor and operating expenses in the South would be less than in California, but the proximity to a well trained workforce in a large city like Atlanta doesn't hurt, either. Savannah also is home to the respected Savannah College of Art and Design.

Also helping is the legislation Georgia passed last year that upped tax credits for game makers to 30 percent. EA's Brown cited that figure as a definite encouragement to the publisher.

Atlanta is already home to about 70 game makers. And Fahey.

Electronic Arts Eyes Atlanta [Atlanta Business Chronicle]

[image]

As you can see, the Mountain Man skin for Eddie Riggs isn't quite as impressive as one would have hoped, but it certainly does add a beard, wherteas the other two costumes mainly consist of white and black face paint. Friends don't let friends be ripoffs of The Crow, so beard it is.

Battlefield: Bad Company 2's multiplayer has a tank gimmick, as you may have guessed. I'm not completely sure if it's in every single mode of multiplayer, but it was the centerpiece of EA's game demo. The tank is supposed to change the nature of multiplayer by providing a mobile control point that acts as a magnet for all the action in the game. It also acts as a magnet for tank driving fanatics like myself.

What Is It?
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a first person war themed shooter set in various locations in and around Russia North and South America*. The multiplayer uses both custom versions of campaign mode maps and original maps — all of which are tailor made for the tank gameplay. We were told that up to four squads could face off at once in any map, for a total of 16 players in a multiplayer match. Matches are ranked and there's a hardcore mode that removes the kill cam, applies friendly fire, ditches your targeting reticule so that you actually have to use the gun's scope and abandons a lot of heads-up display elements. Additionally, there's an unrevealed squad-based multiplayer mode EA plans to announce later.

What We Saw
Due to some technical difficulties and my unfortunate need to leave a little early, I was only able to play three matches of the one vehicle gameplay with only two to three squads on the same jungle map (called Laguna Presa). I tried out all four classes (engineer, assault, scout and medic), but I wound up sticking to engineer because of my tank obsession as the engineer is the only class that can repair tanks and that comes with rocket-propelled grenades for the blowing up of tanks. That and I wasn't able to successfully attack anybody with my defibrillator while playing as the medic. Bummer.

How Far Along Is It?
Pre-alpha. The game isn't due out 'til March 2, 2010 for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC.

What Needs Improvement?
Laguna Presa Map: There were two things about the map that didn't work for me. One, there were at least two places where you could drive the tank up onto a hill and rain down tank fire upon approaching enemies. It seemed a little unfair — but that may have been because we didn't have four squads in play for the necessary chaos to balance that out. Second, there were no physical boundaries on the map. So you could just be running toward what looks like likely cover and be told by the game that you're leaving the battlefield and you've got 10 seconds to turn around. It was pretty jarring.

What Should Stay The Same?
The TANK! It's nice to have a mobile magnet like the tank — it means spawn points suddenly become less important for would-be campers. It also gives players a way to switch up the gameplay if they're able to get to the tank before the other squad does. I was only able to get into the tank once, but for the time I had it, I loved it. It was easy to drive, it automatically fired at anybody within range and if I was really worried, I could change positions within the tank and fire out the sides while somebody else drove. Except I never let anybody else drive because I kept running them over. Then I got exploded and spent the next two matches trying to blow up the tank which kept getting occupied by other squads.

Final Thoughts
If not for the tank, I probably would have been very bored because not much else about the multiplayer stood out as special or different. It's also too hard to pull off the defibrillator attack — in theory, I should've been able to put that puppy in a puddle to shock an enemy within range. Sure, I might've died too, but at least I would've taken him out with me.

ETA: Here's the official reply from EA publicist, Jino Talens:

Squad Deathmatch is a brand new mode to BFBC2, so we're still testing and building it out to the way we want it in the final game. The PS3 beta out now is a general term used in the industry when a game is released early to the public for testing purposes, but the game overall is still in early Alpha.

*Additionally, Talens says, "The game is not set in various locations in and around Russia. It's in North and South America. We did say you are fighting against the Russians though."

Burnout Paradise was originally envisioned as a series of islands all connected to Paradise City through bridges (or potentially boats!), but something changed after the game was released that shifted Criterion's focus on DLC. Criterion figured Stunt Run and Ranked Racing would be the online modes everyone would be playing, but instead, players flocked to the Free Burn Challenges, so the developers shifted gears accordingly, scrapping the idea of multiple islands filled with different game types, including one marked up like an F1 course. Drat.

The other scrapped plans are even more interesting. They envisioned boats racing from island to island, planes and helicopters flying overhead, and cars versus motorcycles ala Road Rash. They considered a network of underground racing areas, and time portals that would temporarily warp you to the Old West. But by far the most out-of-this-world idea was Burnout on the moon.

Again, completely true. Someone on the team said that 'players want the moon on a stick when it comes to DLC' We thought that was funny and thought we'd do it. The actual surface of the real Moon was modeled and it was drive-able. Lunar Challenges would have been totally unexpected - as would have been zero gravity Takedowns and Challenges.

The idea was that we would have built a rocket pad on Big Surf. If you reached a certain Rank, or completed a number of specific challenges, you could drive there, press a button and the rocket would launch. Destination - Moon! (Now that would have beaten downloadable car liveries any day!)

Agreed! Check out the link below for more on Criterion's overly ambitious DLC plans, and imagine what might have been.

"Take A Look At What You Could Have Won..." [Criterion Games via inc gamers]

Having been the #1 publisher in the world's second-biggest market for years, EA were displaced in 2008 by Nintendo, but have regained top spot this year off the strong performance of titles such as EA Sports Active, Dragon Age, Need For Speed: Shift and The Sims 3.

Oh, and FIFA 10, which EA's Jens Uwe Intat says controls "75 per cent of the football market". Which in Europe, equals mega-bucks.

EA reclaims top spot in ‘disappointing' Euro market [MCV]

Maybe it's just me hankering for simpler times, but this game looks like much more fun than the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 versions of Amry of Two: The 40th Day do. I like a nice, simple two-player experience that my less game-savvy friends can get in on. Maybe I'm just getting old.