The Sims 3 - next PC blockbuster of 2009 is almost here!

The following is from the Sims site, and not my writing:
Sims3 Home page
That's right, see my counter at the bottom Rt of the page....June 2.....sooooo close!!
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The freedom of The Sims™ 3 will inspire you with endless creative possibilities and amuse you with unexpected moments of surprise and mischief!

Create over a million unique Sims and control their lives. Customize everything from their appearances, to their personalities and even the home of their dreams. Then, send your Sims out to explore new locations around town and to meet other Sims in the neighborhood. The Sims 3 includes exclusive extra game content and robust online features, available only after you register online with an authentic copy of the game. Download a complete second town filled with intriguing Sims and secrets to discover. Get $10 Worth of SimPoints to customize your game with additional in-game items from The Sims 3 Store. Choose from hundreds of game items to enrich your Sims lives.
Pre-Order Now!
The Sims 3
The Sims 3 Collector's Edition
Pre-Order

Expand your game with exclusive content & share creations with other players at TheSims3.com!
• At launch on June 2, register your official The Sims 3 game to get an exclusive second town. • Receive $10 in FREE SimPoints to shop for exclusive in-game items from The Sims 3 Store. • Create and Share Sims, houses, movies and more on The Sims 3 player exchange. Learn more...

Control your Sims’ Destinies!
• Face short- and long-term challenges and reap the rewards. • Your Sims can pursue random opportunities to get fast cash, get ahead, get even, and more. • Choose whether or not to fulfill your Sims’ destinies by making their wishes come true. Will your Sims be thieves, rock stars, world leaders? You decide! Learn more...


Customize Everything!
• Design and build your dream house and decorate it to fit your Sims’ personalities. • Customize all your Sims’ possessions from clothing to furnishings or even their car. Learn more...

Explore New Locations!
• Explore the ever-changing neighborhood—and take your Sims to meet friends in the park, go on a date at the bistro, visit neighbors’ homes, converse with less-than-savory characters in the graveyard, and more! Who knows what might happen? • Admire the natural beauty of the beach, the mountains, and more. Learn more...

Create any Sim you can imagine and give them unique personalities!
Create millions of different personalities with traits such as evil, artistic, kleptomaniac, clumsy, insane, romantic, and more. • Influence the behaviors of your Sims with the traits you’ve chosen. Will you create a neurotic romantic with a heart of gold, or a geeky super-genius with an evil streak? • Create any Sim with easy-to-use design tools that allow for unlimited customization of facial features, hair color, eye color, and more. • Fine-tune your Sims’ body shape from thin to curvy to muscular.
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I know my wife can't wait, but it looks pretty neat I have to admit!

SPORE -finally a successful PATCH v2

i paid a lot of money for spore, 50 smackers, something i rarely do, because i couldn't wait any longer...

it IS different AND fun, and also, to some extent a bummer, different than i wanted it to be.
but there are a thousand reviews on this game at amazon, so if you go there, try to read some of the best as well as the negatives, as most of the bad rating the game gets there is solely due to the in-game DRM [copy-protection] and limited install software installed. EA has already curtailed the initial hard-nosed stance a bit, with the first patch, but it is important to understand what you can and can't do with the install process. Don't believe the gossip, go to the source.

After an AGGRAVATING few days of trying to get the second patch to work (V1.02), reading hundreds of others going through the same and similar issues on the spore site forums, trying in vain to follow suggestions to no avail..i finally stumbled onto some advise in one of the posts, that actually worked.

The problem i was having, was the in-game auto-patching process failed. I tried to run the patch manually from the C:\ProgramData\Electronic Arts\EADM\cache\ {Anonymous}folder. The patch would act like its installing, going to "100%" numerous times, then the inevitable error would pop up: 'Invalid Patch File'. sigh...i'm not even going to go off on my luck with EA's patches of the last few games i've bought from them....[BF2/BF2142 anyone??].

SOLUTION:
Apparently, there was a bunch of bad patches at some websites, but I read that if you download the patch 'spore_dd_patch_all_v2.exe' from FILEPLANET, then manually paste it [and over-write] whatever may or may not be in the above folder...then click on or "open" the patch from there...Eureka! it finally installed without error.

Just thought i'd pass that along, as i was very frustrated. The patch changes a few things up, but not a lot of the core game-play dynamics. I was hoping for some more challenge, or at least a less fast second,third, and fourth stage...but have been happy to find that the final "Space" stage of the game, is much more involved than almost the entire rest of the game put together. And i think i noticed a little bit less of the annoying space pirate attacks on the home world...but they still happen more than i'd personally like. [Always when i am far from home they attack! ARGH...not again.....]

The game in this last stage is simplistic, but still very addictive. The dev's give you quite a bit of candy to try to collect, with new weapon upgrades, new planet terraforming tools, and a myriad of custom/coloring style utilities to keep the game almost replayable indefinitely.

And when the core game starts to become 'been here, done this", you know that EA has the next batch of add-on's and over-priced goodies lined up bi-annually for the franchise. "Think Sims 2"

Overall, I like this game though, and hope that the game i was hoping it to be [with the creatures parts actually affecting its interactions with other species and not always guaranteeing survival] might come out in another form someday-perhaps inspired by a spore of realism... :)