It's right at 6:44 in that video. The rest of it is pretty hilarious, too, though.

Fans of Williams were probably already well aware of his Weapons of Self-Destruction tour. Sadly, I was in the dark about it until I came to my mother's house for the holidays and discovered her TiVo.

There's also a bunch of The Big Bang Theory and Men of a Certain Age on here too. Perhaps the holiday vacation won't be as boring without my Sims 3 as I thought.

In it, Short recounts her first brush with Fable II's romantic interaction system. She was told non-playable characters would have gifts for her, so she mistook the ring icon above a villager's head as being the thing that would be gifted to her if she raised their relationship stats. It's an easy mistake to make, I guess — and you do get that gift in a manner of speaking. But Short took issue with the whole system, because it made a cock-tease out of an otherwise honest woman.

[W]hen he'd fallen in love with me and wanted to get married, I was startled and not at all pleased. I realized what the ring on his meter indicated then, when it was too late and I'd led him on. I had no intention to get married, but when he started to follow me around (a mistake thanks to more confused socialization on my part), I let him.

Then she led him out into the wild where he was killed by bandits. Bummer.

But it got me thinking about dating in video games and how the courtship ritual is either over-simplified or confusingly elaborate. Take the entire Sims series, for example — in the early days, you couldn't even Ask Out On Date, just Flirt. Now, in the Sims 3, you can sleep with somebody you're not even in love with, but damned if you can get them to marry you without sinking a ton of time into the Flirty interactions. And then there's weirdness like Final Fantasy VII's Gold Saucer date. Which you can wind up having with Barret, despite not being able to pursue any other romantic interaction with him.

Strangely enough, the only "normal" dating scenario presented to me in video games comes from Grand Theft Auto and Bully. That's even funnier to me than Short's misunderstanding.

Column: 'Homer In Silicon': Communicating Character [GameSetWatch]

However, I do have high standards. The Sims: Superstar was a revelation in college that nearly cost me my grade point average. Ever since, I've been consuming Sims expansions at a steady rate – always looking for that same sense of wonder and entertainment that makes me forget to eat.

Here's how World Adventures measures up.

What Is It?
The Sims 3: World Adventures is an expansion that gives your Sim the ability to visit three exotic locations on a travel visa: China, France and Egypt. Rather than just being a new place to shop and seduce the locals, each country features "tombs" – that is, dungeon-like locations your sim can explore, plunder and suffer odd and painful misfortunes within. The better you do at this, the higher your can raise your visa level – which lets you stay in the foreign locations longer, and also nets you the right to buy vacation homes.

What We Saw
I got to play through a dungeon in Egypt and was treated to a look at one of China's Zen gardens/karate dojos.

How Far Along Is It?
The expansion is out November 17.

What Needs Improvement?
Point-And-Click Adventure Much? I supposed when you break it down, the Sims games all play out like point and click adventures – except, it never feels that way normally because there's no "right" thing to click. World Adventures changes gameplay fundamentally by requiring gamers to jump through the typical point-and-click adventure hoops to disarm traps or find hidden doors. Some hardcore Sims fans may not like it.

But I Want To Move To France! I'm a little bummed you can't relocate to the exotic locations. You can, of course, bring pieces of it home with you. Artifacts you find in tombs can either be traded for special items or hung up in your boring old sim house. Also, there are special artifacts that you find in pieces and assemble over time back at your permanent pad. And, you could always marry a native and bring him or her home so you'll always have a bit of the country with you. Still not as good as actually moving to France, though.

Advocating Child Labor: Children (but not toddlers or infants) can go into tombs and do adventuring of their own. But, for obvious reasons (*cough* ESRB rating *cough*), they can't suffer the same dangers as the adults. This seems to me like the perfect set-up for some child exploitation. Yes, send the small child into the tomb for the expensive treasure – the mummy won't attack him.

What Should Stay The Same?

Now You Can Go Inside Stores: Finally! I hated sending my Sims off to shop and having to stare at the outsides of buildings for forever like I was playing a real-time strategy game and waiting for the battle to end. Naturally, the game also lets you build your own stores and fill it with whatever kind of junk you want to sell.

Now You Can Be a Real Hobo! The game introduces tents that you can pitch in tombs – or in public parks – and actually gain Energy from sleeping in. Oh, the possibilities.

Your Own Private IslandDungeon: Via a code entered in buy mode, World Adventures opens up the editing tools to include pretty much everything the developer can build in a tomb or a ruin site. You can build an entire deathtrap from the ground up just the same as you would a house (only, you know, filled with mummies and fire traps and stuff) and then upload it to the Sims 3 community site to inflict on others.

Yay, Karate! The game adds several new skills and traits to mix up your sims' personality. My favorite is probably the Discipline skill which helps with karate (called Martial Arts). The higher you level this skill, the more badass your sparring animation looks – at the highest level, you even get little speed lines along your arms and legs while punching and kicking. There's also the Adventurous trait which helps with tomb exploration, and the Photographer's Eye which builds out the new picture-taking activity. Oh, and if you do marry a foreigner and bring him or her home to have kids with, your children will have cultural traits from their foreign parent's country (like eating with chopsticks).

Tons Of New Things: World Adventures adds a ton of new furniture, ingredients, collectables, recipes and other things to the usual inventory of stuff you can get in buy mode or find in the world. It gives the diehard Sims fans something more to do now that they've discovered the Ambrosia recipe. In particular, photography will eat up the collection freaks because the game can recognize what you're taking pictures of and classify the photos in sets. For example, there's a nature set that gives you a special bonus for taking a picture of a Death Fish and a Life Fish in the same tank.

A Step Toward Multiculturalism: I think some people might claim the portrayals of France, China and Egypt are shallow and therefore insulting. However, based on what I've seen of the Sims from its earliest origins, World Adventures is a huge step toward a multiculturalism-aware game. That sounded horribly Californian of me, I know. But I've got two little cousins who are half Chinese – they are going to love that their Sims get to eat with chopsticks.

Final Thoughts
I've got to get a new graphics card. How can I properly appreciate my sim turning into a mummy if I can't make out his face in the mirror when he looks at himself?

Based on the images, we can see character customization as well as open-world neighborhood and potential inter-Sim interaction. What we're not seeing is the spiffy stuff mentioned at Apple's 3.0 Update event—namely that The Sims 3 for iPhone will let you play music from your own library and has in-app commerce features, letting you purchase game items from the iTunes App Store while playing.

Additional features in The Sims 3 iPhone listed in a press release sent to TouchArcade also say the 10-hour game will feature four mini games – cooking, fishing, gardening and house repairing.

Official word says you can also make your Sim fall in love, but it's not clear if Whoo-Hooing will be part of the touch control experience.

Sims develop Lifetime Wishes based on what personality traits you grant them. A Sneaky, Evil Sim will be more likely to have a Lifetime Wish of becoming a Master Thief or a CEO of a Mega Corporation, for example. Fulfilling a Lifetime Wish scores the player all kind of perks that you used to be able to buy — such as the Teleportation Pad — plus some handy new ones like the Steel Bladder or a gardening perk that lets you develop a recipe for Ambrosia (which keeps your Sim eternally young).

Me? I'm looking forward to crafting a Sim with the Fertility bonus and that Ambrosia recipe so she can people the town with her undying spawn.

Screen here:

Sims 3 is scheduled to be released on PC/Mac February 20th, 2009.

The biggest change to The Sims 3 is that it takes place in a wide-open, constantly changing neighborhood — a much bigger sandbox, if you will, and a much more complex simulation. The town and park you see on the cover image to the right (click to enlarge) exist in the same seamless space as your Sims' household, and what you do outside your home now matters as much as what you do within.

Other changes come in the Sims' reporting of their moods - the maddening individual meters are gone, replaced by "discrete moods", which is supposed to stop the more obsessive-compulsive players from constantly worrying about pissing and eating and instead let them focus on the more enjoyable stuff.
The Sims 3 Revealed [1UP]

Specificall, the report says that both Army of Two for the PS3 and Xbox 360 and Crisis for the PC will be hitting by March 31, 2007. They also say that there is a Sims 3 in development (my socks were just blown off with that news, who would have thunk it?) and that the uber-popular franchise would also be coming to the PS3 and Wii. PS3 Sims = meh. Wii Sims = Holy Remote-Playing Goodness. Of course the DS version was absolute crap.

Finally, the company announced that they are working on a new Lord of the Rings game (shocker), a new SimCity (shocker) and a new Black (shocker).

So to summarize: Two new IPs and 50,000 sequels. Brian Crecente

Sims 3, Wii/PS3 Sims, next-gen Black, new SimCity & LOTR coming [Gamespot]

Come on, you knew it was coming, it's just a matter of time. They really need have this franchise start to follow the massively multiplayer business model and just send out massive updates you pay for online. Or a subscription.

I know that The Sims 2 had a totally new look, but what are they going to do for The Sims 3? Project it directly into your frontal lobe?

The Sims 3 Revealed [Blues News]