There's always something supernatural in every Sims game. From werewolf babies in the Sims 2 Pets expansion all the way back to alien abductions in The Sims (which did not result in pregnancy), producers have slipped something strange in to make gameplay that much more interesting.

Sims 3 Associate Producer Grant Rodiek is no exception. One of his many pet-projects in the game is the "playable ghosts" Opportunity. Opportunities in Sims 3 are like mini quests – they appear every so often in one of the Sims' sub-menus as optional tasks your Sim can complete to earn special bonuses or rewards.

Rodiek wouldn't go into too much detail on how the Ghost Opportunity worked, but he said completing it was a walk in the park compared to how hard becoming a werewolf was in The Sims 2.

As a consolation, he took a sim to the town graveyard to show me another facet of the ghostly occult in Sims 3. You can send a sim into the stone mausoleum the way you would send them off to work in The Sims 2. Text options will pop up, letting you choose what your sim should do down there in the dark catacombs. Good things might happen, bad things might happen; or, he hinted, your Sim might not make it back.

New screens below:

Ghostwire is a 'casual collection' game that uses your phone's camera to create a kind of Augmented Reality effect. You roam around the real world and use your phone to 'see' ghosts that you can then collect in a sort of Ghostbusters-meets-Pokémon affair. Some ghosts will set riddles, others will provide clues and have elaborate back stories that must be unraveled.

Swedish developer A Different Game receives €40,000 in prize money. The runners up were Rhythm/Action game Jadestone and conspiracy ARG Eclipse.

Scary ghost game wins Nokia innovation award [The Guardian]

Yesterday we wrote about the haunted Ms. Pac-Man that a Bostonian was giving away because it made his little girl cry and his wife run screaming from the house.

We, and many of you, made jokes and laughed, saying how much we wish we could have gotten a free "haunted" Ms. Pac-Man cabinet. Well, apparently, the person who did land it isn't so happy today. Was it a scam? No, says the new owner, but it was freakin' haunted!!!

Free arcade game Ms Pacman. We got this game yesterday from CL. The owner warned us this was haunted and based on what we experienced last night we don't want this in our house anymore.

Game is in our backyard and under blue tarp. THE FIRST person who picks it up gets it. The person who takes it must understand this is not a joke but that this is serious.

WE WILL NOT ANSWER YOU E-MAILS OR QUESTIONS. WE DON"T WANT TO GIVE OUR ADDRESS OUT TO THOUISANDS OF STRANGERS. WE WILL PICK ONE PERSON, WE WILL CONTACT THAT PERSON ONLY. WE WILL REMOVE THE AD FROM CRASGS LIST WHEN THIS MACHINE IS GONE.

I of course emailed the guy immediately asking for both the cabinet and an interview. We have no way of knowing if this really is the guy who got the cabinet, but it still equally amuses and frightens me... mostly amuses though.

And for the love of God, if you are the one who ends up getting this haunted cabinet... take video and send it our way. It's been a day or two since I saw drunken gnomes and a I need a good supernatural laugh.

READ ENTIRE AD: free aracde game [Craigslist, thanks for all of the tips]

While I honestly believe that dressing up your dog in a costume is just two steps away from tying them up in a burlap sack and tossing them in a river on the dog cruelty scale, I have to admit that this gathering of pugs dressed up as Pac-Man characters is kind of entertaining. If I had a dog and wished to dress him up in a costume for Halloween, these would be the designs they found on my drawing table next to my dead body, my brain having exploded to save me from the embarrassment of actually dressing up my pet. Everyone knows I am a cat person anyway, and cats are just begging to be fitted with samurai armor. Thanks, Long Le, for the vid!

I link Threadless a lot but come on, the wee, struggling graphic designers that submit their stuff there deserve those prizes. And we need better game shirts, always.
Eliza Gauger

GHOST RIDER [Threadless, via Lifemeter]

Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy and the hopefully greenlighted Amazing Screw-On Head cartoon on SciFi, is in discussions with director fantastique Guillermo Del Toro (Devil's Backbone, Chronos, Pan's Labyrinth) about making a Hellboy game.

Says Del Toro:

You can go from one environment, like the Gobi desert, to a haunted town in medieval Japan. And then you can go and play in the ruins of a castle that is full of Nazi doomsday machines. And then you can go and wander through the empty streets of a haunted Eastern European village. And each of those levels has a common threat enemy, and a great vibe to the gameplay.

Yup, sounds like Hellboy alright! I'm very pleased. Eliza Gauger

Guillermo Del Toro Working on Hellboy Game [GayGamer]