The Sims 3

We know how it is. You get up on Christmas morning, awaiting the game or games that you asked for and then your parents (or uncle or cousin or best friend) give you...a gift card or money instead. Their excuses are many; they couldn't find the game you wanted. They forgot what your game's name was. They got confused. So you are left with a generic way to get the games you really wanted.

But wait! Before you head out on the day after Christmas to start shopping you may want to consider another path. The truth is that there are a lot of major PC game releases that are due out in the first quarter of 2009. Publishers tend to release major titles during that time because their fiscal year ends on March 31 and they want their financial results for the year to end on a high note. The result is a glut of huge titles that you may want to save your holiday money to purchase.

Big Download has 10 examples of games currently due out during that time period that you may want to consider. Keep in mind that release date scheduled can and ususally do change so keep an eye out on our site for any delays in the titles that we will mention

Click on the image above to continue reading Big Download's 2008 Holiday Gift Card Guide For Future Games

This narrated video for The Sims 3 discusses some of the in-depth features the game will have in creating different Sim characters. In addition to customizing the look and physical characteristics of each sim, players will be able to put in specific personality traits that will define how your sim interacts with the world. Best of all, sims will be able to take care of their own basic needs, leaving players free to take care of other game aspects. Players can even earn an object called a Steel Bladder, so that their sims will never need the bathroom again.

Download HD The Sims 3 'Create-a-Sim' Video (55 MB)
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Wow. Electronic Arts is really trying to push the US Presidential election big time. We've already reported on the plans for Pandemic's Mercenaries 2 downloadable characters of Barack Obama and Sarah Palin (which likely won't be for the PC version) and yesterday we reported on the Spore team making the nominees into Spore spaceships.

Today we have some images from two short videos promoting the upcoming people sim sequel The Sims 3, also from EA, that show off the nominees as well. As you can see Palin's Sim is the main focus of both videos, especially since she's show in one of them dancing in a bikini. Obama's Sim makes quick appearances at the end.

Download The Sims 3 Sarah Palin Dance video at Big Download right now
Download The Sims 3 Sarah Palin Fight video at Big Download right now

This is the instrumental theme song for The Sims 3 in MP3 format.

Download The Sims 3 Theme Song (2 MB)
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The rather simply music soundtracks for previous games in The Sims franchise are going to get an upgrade for the next game in the series, The Sims 3. Publisher Electronic Arts announced today that movie music composer Steve Jablonsky will handle the score for the people sim game that's due in stores in February.

Jablonsky is perhaps best known for his work in last year's Michael Bay action film Transformers. He also handled the music for Bay's previous movie The Island (whose theme has since been used in other movie trailers). This isn't his first time handling music for a game as he also composed the score for EA's Command and Conquer 3. Jablonsky will handle the score for The Sims 3's theme music as well as the music that is used for the game's Create A Sim feature and other key areas.

Download the Sims 3 theme song MP3 at Big Download now

The excitement over the release of Will Wright's Spore has died down somewhat but his most famous and popular game creation, The Sims, is only a few months away from launching an all new version that is almost a sure bet for success. The Sims 3 is due out on February 20, 2009 and today Electronic Arts released new screenshots from the highly anticipated title.

While Wright himself has had little to do with The Sims franchise since the release of the original version several years ago, The Sims 3 looks like it will open up the world of those strange sounding sims folks. Instead of just living in a home, The Sims 3 will allow people to explore an entire neighborhood. Players will be able to custom design their own Sims like never before in the new game and even give them different personality traits. As you can see the new screenshots show off the more detailed visuals that The Sims 3 will have. Again we expect this title to stay atop of the best selling PC games list for a while after its release.

The developers of the Sims 3 lay out everything that makes the upcoming sequel great and unique. Sims will inhabit a bigger world than ever before, so players won't have to feel as though their sim families need to be trapped in the same old house. The wildly popular Sims franchise and its expansions always end up on the top-ten best selling charts.

Download HD "What is the Sims 3?" Video (615 MB)

Get ready for the first in a long, long line of Sims 3 games from Electronic Arts. The publisher just announced that you can expect the next generation of people sim game to ship to stores on February 20, 2009. The new game will allow the Sims to explore their surrounding neighborhood instead of being stuck inside their home as well as lots of customization features for each Sims.

Along with a release date, EA just announced a Collector's Edition of the game which will include "additional collectible The Sims merchandise and a bonus in-game Italian-Style Sports Car unavailable elsewhere." People who pre-order the Collector's Edition will get access to yet another in-game vintage car and a poster that showed off the Sims 3 neighborhood.

The top-selling video game franchise of all time has reached another milestone as Electronic Arts announced today The Sims series has surpassed 100 million units sold worldwide since its debut in 2000. What began as a social experiment on the PC, as gamers were tasked with maintaining the lifestyle of dependent avatars, exploded as a pop culture phenomenon that has been translated into 20 different languages and spawned countless expansion packs, a hit 2004 sequel (The Sims 2), mediocre console iterations and unfortunate marketing tie-ins.

Originally the brainchild of Spore lead designer Will Wright, The Sims shows no signs of slowing down as a new title in the franchise, The Sims 3, was recently announced. For the first time in franchise history, gamers will be able to venture their Sims beyond their front doors and into the neighborhood when the title releases sometime in 2009.

[via Joystiq]