Alice and Kev are the creation of UK game development student Robin Burkinshaw, who decided to see how the old poverty challenge idea from The Sims 2 played out in the recently released The Sims 3. Robin set the pair up in a lot made up to look like an abandoned park, gave them a couple of park benches to sleep on, and then stripped them of their money to see how they would fare in the simulated world. Thanks to some insightful writing from Robin and The Sims 3's new living community and traits system, the story of Alice and Kev is nothing short of completely enthralling.

Alice is a good-natured, affection-starved girl with a penchant for falling asleep anywhere imaginable, while Kev is a crass, inappropriate miscreant who blames his daughter for all of his failings. Their adventures are often as completely heartbreaking as they are humorous.

I mentioned that Alice is feeling stressed out now that she's a teenager. When she was a child, she used to always get her homework done on time, worked hard every day at school, and got constant A grades. She would often come home from school feeling strained, and the only way she could relax after working that hard was by cuddling her teddy.

She's too old to cuddle teddy now. All she'll do is hold him, but gets no enjoyment from it. She can't even pretend that somebody loves her any more.

See? I am tearing up just re-reading that bit right now.

Alice and Kev have gained quite a following since Robin launched their blog, which is kind of depressing in and of itself, as you generally won't find a real homeless family on the receiving end of this kind of attention. Perhaps the fake family will help raise awareness of real families in similar situations. If not, perhaps they should.

You can follow the entire story so far at the link below, where you can also download Alice and Kev, placing them into your own Sim town to see how they get on.

Alice and Kev [Robin Burkinshaw via BoingBoing]

The most unpopular President in America's history has taken the White House, leading to heretofore unseen levels of civil unrest. On the island of Ibis, experiments with Third Energy technology have brought bloodthirsty long-extinct reptiles forward through time. The Allied Nation Task Force has invaded North Korea after a ruthless general with a cache of nuclear weapons at his disposal took over the country, and an untrained member of an elite military taskforce prepares to enter an offshore clean-up facility on a mission to rescue some very important hostages.

This isn't a 2009 one would find plastered across CNN or debated on Fox News. None of these events have happened or will happen, but to some of us they're even more familiar than reality. This is the 2009 that countless gamers have experienced on their computers or via their consoles since 1987 – more than twenty years worth of 2009.

The Real Year So Far...
2009 is already shaping up to be an eventful year in real-world history. The first black president in American history has taken office. The global economy is in a shambles. Violence continues to plague the Middle East. Satellites are colliding in space; a massive earthquake has ravaged parts of Italy; and real-life Somali pirates are running rampant.

Though the world may seem like an increasingly dark and dangerous place, it could be a great deal worse. Just take a look at some of the major events that have occurred in video games set in 2009.

Light Years Ahead
Writing games based in the future is very much like throwing darts. The closer you get to what you're aiming at, the more accurate you become. A game based in the year 2009 written in 1987 is bound to offer a much wilder interpretation of what the world looks like than one written in the year 2000. It's a phenomenon we like to refer to as the reality curve, readily demonstrated in the games that portrayed 2009 as an age of highly advanced technology.

	Mega Man (Capcom 1987 - Nintendo Entertainment System): Mega Man fans will argue back and forth for hours concerning the actual dates in which the various games in the series take place, but we've decided to take a far simpler approach. With the first three games taking place in the year 200X, it's pretty safe to assume that at some point this year in the video game universe, Dr. Wily has unleashed another army of evil themed robots, each with their own specific strengths and weaknesses for the titular blue bomber to exploit, such as "Allergic To Squirrels Man" and "Shoot Me Right Here Man".
	Dino Crisis (Capcom1999 - PlayStation 2, Dreamcast, PC): Renowned scientist Doctor Edward Kirk, thought dead for years, turns up alive on the island of Ibis, where his experiments with Third Energy technology have resulted in a rift in time and space, which allows vicious dinosaurs to invade. This is exactly what happens every time a scientist pokes about with time. You'd think they would have learned this by now.
	Incoming (Interplay 1998 - PC, Dreamcast): In 2008, aliens attack our lunar base. By June of 2009, we're prepared to strike back. A rather straightforward vehicle shooter from Rage Software, Incoming presents a rather optimistic view on how the people of the world would react to alien invasion. In reality we'd need to form several committees and commissions to investigate the nature of the threat and countries would argue over who got the first shot at the invaders. Eventually the whole situation would be resolved by Naval snipers.
	Abuse (EA, Bungie, Red Hat 1996 - PC): In this 2D shooter, protagonist Nick Vrenna becomes falsely imprisoned in a facility where scientists are experimenting with a nanotech virus called "Abuse". A riot occurs, turning the prisoners into monsters, but luckily our hero is immune. Fancy the only man immune to a terrible virus winding up at the same prison where the virus is accidentally released. What are the odds?

Years Of War
War never changes. If this is true, why bother setting a game with a war setting in the near future? For some titles it's a simple matter of keeping up with a pre-established chronic logical order. By the time Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty was released in 2001, the previous title in the series had already established events up to 2005, so 2007 and 2009 were used to advance the story.

Another reason to give a military-themed story time to breathe is to distance it from current world events. The first nine years of the 21st century have seen more than their fare share of major terrorist acts and armed conflicts. Setting a game even a few years in the future, as was the case with Rainbow Six: Lockdown, adds a much-needed air of fiction to the proceedings.

Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction (LucasArts. 2005 - PS2, Xbox): Mercenaries takes place in an alternate North Korea, after the ruthless General Choi Song leads a successful coup against his father President Choi Kim in order to keep the country from reuniting with South Korea. The revelation that Song is stockpiling nuclear weapons causes the Allied Nations Task Force to step in and topple his regime, only to have Song himself escape with the launch codes for missiles currently under production in secret locations. The player takes the role of a mercenary, tasked with tracking down Song and his secret underground army before the weapons are ready to launch.

Mercenaries effectively uses the four year time jump along with the change of location to help distance events in the game from events in Iraq and Afghanistan that influenced the development, though certain similarities still shine through, such as the use of the "Deck of 52" to keep track of Song's henchmen. Major movers and shakers in Song's organization are represented by face cards from a deck of cards, much like the system Coalition forces used in Iraq while tracking down members of Saddam Hussein's government. You can hardly blame them - the concept has major motion picture written all over it.

Army of Two (EA, 2008 - Xbox 360, PS3, PC) : The story in EA's Army of Two actually spans sixteen years, from 1983 to 2009. Over the course of the game the pair slowly uncover a plot to privatize the military, leading to a final confrontation in Florida between the mercenaries Elliot Salem and Tyson Rios and their commander at the Security and Strategy Corporation headquarters.

Rainbow Six: Lockdown (Ubisoft, 2005 - PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, PC): The anti-terrorism theme has been quite the popular one this decade, for obvious reasons. Rainbow Six: Lockdown is an excellent example of how a game uses a near future setting to sidestep association with current events. In the year 2009, counter-terrorism unit Rainbow must stop the Global Liberation front from unleashing a man-made nanotech virus called "Legion", which has a mortality rate of "Yes". Team Rainbow triumphs in the end, once again keeping the world safe for squad-based shooter players around the globe.

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (Konami, 2001 - PS2): Chronologically the fifth game in the wildly popular Metal gear series, Sons of Liberty actually begins in 2007 with Solid Snake, only to jump to 2009, putting players in control of the wet-behind-the-ears Raiden as he takes on a mission to rescue the president and other hostages from the Big Shell cleanup facility. Raiden eventually learns a great deal about himself, the shadowy Patriots, and how to get around a gigantic enemy fortress while covering his private parts, eventually foiling a terrorist plot to take over New York City.

The time jump in Sons of Liberty's instance, was the combined result of established continuity and series creator Hideo Kojima's diabolical plan to replace Solid Snake with a naked blond man.

Shattered Union (2K Games, 2005 - PC, Xbox): 2009 is just the beginning for Shattered Union, a turn-based tactical game from PopTop Software that based a "What if?" scenario on the oft-challenged results from the 200 and 2004 presidential elections. What if the wrong man for the job had been elected? David Jefferson Adams is sworn in as the 44th president of the United States at the beginning of the game. This leads to a large amount of civil unrest and, eventually, domestic terrorism. The assassination of the president via low-yield tactical nuclear weapon after his second term begins in 2013 leads to the second American Civil War, which the Europeans and Russians can't help but get involved in. You know how those Europeans are, always interfering with international affairs they have no business in.

An Eerie Year
Unexplained supernatural phenomenon has always been a cornerstone of fiction, and interactive fiction is no different. So pervasive are tales of ghosts and spirits in our society that the theme can be transplanted into any setting, from a Victorian-era vampire tale to monstrous aberrations in the depths of space.

Despite having the entirety of human history and beyond to choose from, many game developers choose to set their scary stories in the near future or present day. Why? It's a simple matter of familiarity. It's much easier to stir strong emotions or present a believable setting for supernatural goings on when the player is somewhat familiar with the world in which the events take place. Even better, setting a horror or suspense story a few years in the future allows the developer to intersperse the unfamiliar with the familiar, adding to the player's unease almost imperceptibly without taking them out of the experience.

Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, 2009 - PS3, Xbox 360): Capcom has done an excellent job thus far of keeping their Resident Evil series up to date with reality, hence Resident Evil 5 being the only title in the timeline actually released in 2009. This almost means that it's one of the more realistic games set in 2009, despite the bio-terrorism angle.

The current day temporal settings along with the remote locations games in the Resident Evil series traditionally take place in add a certain sense of realism to the survival horror franchise. On one hand, the events depicted in the game could almost certainly never happen. On the other hand, if they did happen, would we know?

Shin Megami Tensei: Persona 3 (Atlus, 2006 - PS2): In a modern Japanese city, a group of high school children do battle in the space between one day and the next in order to prevent the end of the world. The player plays the role of the nameless protagonist, returning to the city after 10 years and joining the Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad, a group consisting of teens that remain conscious during the Dark Hour, a secret time between days infested with shadowy creatures.

For North American players, Persona 3 was a role-playing game mixed with a quirky time-management school activities. For Japanese players who could better relate to the school structure presented in the game it was something a bit more personal, heightened by the near-future setting.

Left 4 Dead (Valve - PC, Xbox 360): Does Left 4 Dead take place in 2009? The writing is on the wall, literally. Scribblings on the walls in certain levels give us our only hint to the purposefully story-light setting of Valve's co-operative survival horror masterpiece. All we know is that somewhere in Pennsylvania something terrible happened, the dead walk the Earth, and you've got to make your way to safety. The date in this case is almost inconsequential. Instead of blasting us with heaps of story based in October, 2009, Valve has left it completely up to the player to decide what events led to their predicament, which should make October of this year quite interesting for fans of the game.

Indigo Prophecy (Atari, 2005 - Xbox, PC, PS2): Indigo Prophecy begins in January of 2009, where a series of grisly murders is being perpetrated by citizens seemingly possessed, driven to mercilessly slaughter innocent strangers. What begins as a crime drama quickly becomes a supernatural thriller, culminating in a series of events that will change the face of the world forever.

The Year In Review
Over the course of twelve months, the end of the world has been narrowly averted on five separate occasions; six major threats to the Earth's security have been neutralized; and the United States has been set on a course that will eventually lead to a new Civil War. On top of all of that, Dr. Wily's evil robots have spent the better part of the year raining down specifically-themed destruction.

Technological advances have served us well in the defense of the planet against evil robots and invaders from outer space. Unfortunately, at the same time they've also resulted in the creation at least three different deadly viruses, several different flavors of robotic war machines, and the temporal displacement of flesh-hungry dinosaurs. Technology also could have been the cause of the zombie uprising in Pennsylvania, though no reporter dare get close enough to investigate, even if they have covered wars, you know.

The worst thing about all of these tragic circumstances? For the most part each one is the result of some sort of human failing. Greed, over ambition, lust for power, scientific irresponsibility - we brought all of this on ourselves. The only possible exception is the alien attack, but knowing humans we probably did something to tick them off in the first place. It's what comes from being the top of the food chain (not counting aliens and dinosaurs). With no natural enemies, we have to create them ourselves.

As Years Go By
While 2009 was certainly an eventful year in video game chronology, we have to keep in mind that this is just one period of 12 months in a period that spans the whole of human history and far into the future. Just last year a plumber from the Mushroom Kingdom and his friends faced off against a group of anthropomorphic animals on Sonic and Mario at the 2008 Winter Olympics, and next year the fragile peace between the fictional nations of Osea and Yuktobania erodes in Ace Combat 5. Not to mention more killer robots.

Imagine the same sort of timeline as above, only covering the entire history of video games taking place or involving both real and alternate versions of the planet Earth. How many wars have been fought, invasions repelled, epidemics prevented, mysteries solved, and conspiracies uncovered? Creating such a timeline would be a truly massive undertaking, but one that would grant us tremendous insight into what the sort of shape the world would be in if the entertaining diversions we've enjoyed over the years had basis in fact.

For now we leave such ambitious projects for more idle hands, drawing what conclusions we can from the data we have before us. The conclusion? 2009 was not a good year to be a video game character.

Searching for new ways to train an influx of younger railroad workers, Union Pacific employees Jon Jensen and Steve Bakuna turned to our favorite hobby, helping design a virtual training program that teaches employees how to maneuver locomotives, operate switches, and sort cars onto different tracks depending on destination.

"Video gamers, like those who play Xbox 360 or PlayStation 3, feel right at home using Union Pacific's latest training technology," said Scott Hinckley, general director-safety and security. "This is a natural training medium for employees who grew up in the video gaming environment and it enhances their extensive safety and operation training."

Taking two years to develop, the first Rail Operations Simulation program was a re-creation of Union Pacific's Cheyenne Yard, which wound up so popular and effective that there it is now being used at forty-five different locations throughout the Union Pacific Network.

Honestly I'm surprised it's taken them this long to catch on, as railroad simulators have been popular with hobbyists around the world for decades now. I guess sometimes it's hard to train an old train company new train training tricks.

The people who get married in Second Life, the idea there seems to be that love is purely a product of the mind, and that just seems insane to me. The body has such a central role in our sexual lives, in our physical lives, that you can't just leave it behind.

Q&A with author Tim Guest [Nerve]

"What we're trying to do is take people into a virtual crack-related neighborhood or crack-related setting and have them experience cravings, just like they would in the real world," Rosenthal said.

It's all a form of classical conditioning, a phenomenon first explored by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov. Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate when a sound occurred, commonly believed to be the ringing of a bell. By ringing the bell before feeding the animal it began to associate the bell with the anticipation of food.

The main difference here is the use of virtual reality to provide the stimulus, rather than actually putting crack cocaine on a table and hitting the addicts with rolled-up newspaper whenever they reach for it. "Bad crackhead!"

While the program has had some success, Rosenthal doesn't see his work as merely a way to help addicts recover their lives.

"This isn't about cocaine, and this isn't really about substance use," He said. "This is about creating new learning and extending that learning to the real world."

In another experiment a hammer was swung towards the neck of the 3D construct, causing subjects to start to sweat, feeling as if they were about to be struck.

"This was a bizarre, fascinating experience for the participants - it felt absolutely real for them," Dr. Ehrsson says.

"This is essentially a means of projecting yourself, a form of teleportation. If we can project people into a virtual version of themselves, just imagine the implications. The experience of playing video games could reach a whole new level."

My one worry about the technology used in gaming applications is that it could be far too real. I've been scared out of my wits playing horror games in the past. What if it were so real I felt I was in the game itself? I could easily see gaming-induced panic attacks occurring. How real do we want to get?

How to be in two places at once [globeandmail.com - Thanks Julian!]

"This isn't the kind of technology, or model, that this industry — or Orkin — is used to considering," notes David Lamb, Orkin's vice president of learning and media services. He's working with senior officers in the company to build a business case for such training, and, given the potential savings the company could eventually realize across its 400 branch offices, "there's a very high probability we'll move into this arena."

Stone's other clients include a medical devices firm, a global energy company looking to train power plant employees in a safe environment, and a major logistics company that he's created a driving simulation for using the Wiimote in a plastic steering wheel assembly.

But why the Wiimote, when other motion sensing devices have been around for years?

The advantage of the Wiimote is that it's a "human-centric device," says Eric Klopfer, a professor at MIT. A gyroscopic mouse, by contrast, "maps well onto the computer's interface, but not to the person's. The Wiimote fits the user. ... People know intuitively what to do with it when they pick it up because we use it like devices we are familiar with — bats, rackets, wands, etc."

Hit up the link below for a deeper look at what Brown can do for you. Comments about the sexual applications of the Wiimote in Second Life are sure to follow.

Wii + Second Life = New Training Simulator [Wired]

Limpit over at WiiDs found this outdoor Wii kiosk in his home town of London. Two young gentlemen in white puffy Wii coats and hats demoed Wii Sports outdoors to an adoring crowd of onlookers on a Samsung HD TV.

This could really add a whole new level of realism to Wii Sports. Imagine dragging your Wii and your big ole TV outside and playing a round of Wii baseball in the rain, just like the professionals do! Your neighbors could pull up lawn chairs and boxes of popcorn and coolers full of beer that they can throw at you when you make a particularly terrible play. It would be the ultimate in virtual reality. Flynn De Marco

Wii Outdoors ?! [WiiDs]

CNET's Second Life bureau was assaulted the other day during an interview with virtual land magnate Anshe Chung. As the interview was set to begin, the CNET theater was set upon by a horde of animated flying penises.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the future.

I believe this is exactly what William Gibson was envisioning when he wrote Neuromancer. I can just picture his editor calling him up. "Yeah, the story is great...very innovative, cutting-edge stuff. Could use a few less airborne dicks."

Unfortunately CNET has no screenshots of the attack, or the one that followed, eventually crashing the server. I'd look harder, but I don't think my coworkers here would appreciate me doing a Google image search on "flying penis". Michael Fahey

Update - Thanks to commentors, we've found the video, and you can see it after the jump!

Sometimes there's so much beauty in the world I feel like I can't take it, like my heart's going to cave in.

CNET interviewer assaulted by flying wang [The Register, via Valleywag]

This may very well be the lamest thing to ever come out of the Street Fighter franchise: a Virtual Reality ride through Bisonopolis. What's the point of putting Street Fighter and VR together if you're not going to use it to zoom up Chun Li's vagina in first person? Florian Eckhardt

We're calling bullshit on this. The tiny man-child playing Mario gives the world a convincing bit of thespianism, but there are too many parts where the action doesn't quite match up. We know that for some people, the Nintendo ON is the gamer's wet dream, but everytime we look at VR, we can't help but think how much of a pain in the ass it all looks. Thanks, Josh!Florian Eckhardt

Evil Avatar spotted a rumor as juicy as it is implausible about an upcoming PS3 peripheral designed by Primesense:

In conclusion, we have a very reliable source that claims Sony will have a PS3 peripheral which will recognize a user and his entire environment as well as his movements and will incorporate them into useful, in-console actions. The applications of this tech to gaming are obvious and if this story is proved right, Sony may yet manage to steal Nintendo's thunder in this generation of the console wars.

Ha ha. Yeah, right. Nintendo ON, anyone? Crecente thinks this could be for real — however, a shoddily designed site proclaiming a full virtual reality space for the PS3 is a bit hard to swallow, especially when even MIT grads who are merely the physical projections into our dimension of hovering astral brains have barely been able to get the tech to work right.Florian Eckhardt

PS3 Secret Hardware Revealed (via Evil Avatar)

Very serious website Serious Games Source has a feature on VR being used as therapy for those suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder:

In ongoing research projects the Veterans Administration, the US Army, and the Office of Naval Research are using VR Exposure therapy to treat soldiers afflicted with PTSD. We are developing a number of Middle East conflict simulations that include such common elements as sniper attacks, improvised explosive devices (IEDs), and rocket propelled grenade (RPG) attacks. These applications include functionality that allows therapists to dynamically control the intensity of the experience for the patient, increasing or decreasing the level of stimulation and tension according to the level of anxiety.

This goes along with the traditional treatment for PTSD, which has the patient re-imagining the event while in a safe environment with a mental health professional, and then reworking it over and over until it's been processed. This is a simplistic and hamhanded explanation, but you get the idea.

The problem is that those suffering from traumatic memories will generally do anything to avoid them, making the therapy difficult. Having a simulation do the "imagining" for the patient seems to shortcut this issue.

The article is long and complicated (and very serious) and full of graphs, but a good read anyway. Eliza gauger

Playing Games with Painful Memories:
Designing VR Exposure Therapy Simulations for PTSD [Serious Games Source]

Kick Ass Kung-Fu is a virtual reality (soooo 1990's) installation that gives players a chance to really, well, kick ass. Players' physical movements correspond to the in-game character. In the above clip, a bunch of black belts show off just how the game works and demonstrate a smorgasboard of kicks, flips and punches. Uh, this looks kinda hard. —Brian Ashcraft

More Here [Kahsoon]

GamesFirst has posted a look at one of those quasi-virtual-reality doodads, the Trimersion Head Mounted Display.

It sounds pretty swank. The gyroscopic head gear plots your head's movements and maps them to the appropriate d-stick for looking around in the game you are playing. High-quality stereo sound pumps through the headset and the player holds a gun with all the buttons that you'd find on a PS2 or XBox. Obviously, you can't control which direction you are pointing your gun independently of which way you are facing in an FPS like Halo — your gun is just a graphic rooted to the bottom of the screen.

The entire system is wireless and Trimersion expects to be moving about 100,000 units a month by late this year, not only to gaming enthusiasts, but to organizations like hospitals. One mentioned use for the technology is overlaying three-dimensional MRIs over a patient's body. A tad expensive for this gamer at $395, but hell, that's still cheaper than the PS3. - Florian Eckhardt

Trimersion: The Next Phase in VR HMDs [Gamesfirst]

Just in case videogaming et al was all looking a bit too cool for school recently, enter stage left the VirtuSphere: a giant, transparent exercise ball for humans!

It has both military and fitness applications, and ... actually the dark blue one with the marine in it doesn't look quite so awful.

I'd have a go..

The VirtuSphere [Thanks Wandring_Soul!]