After Sims Rereleases: Latest Updates and Analysis

After The Sims 1 + 2 rereleases stumbled out to mixed reviews, EA issues a patch that boldly declares they 'should now launch in most situations'

Such uncertainty is the secret spice that makes PC gaming so exciting. So I was disappointed to see EA has released a new patch for the Sims 1 + 2 legacy, which among other fixes ensures The Sims 1 "should now launch in most situations". Note it doesn't say "will now launch in all situations", so there's still hope for runtime daredevils such as myself.

Base functionality is one of numerous issues EA addressed in its patch for the Sims 1 + 2 Legacy, after both packages launched last week to a less than stellar reception. Both games and their included expansion packs currently sit with a 'Mixed' rating on Steam, with players citing issues ranging from the games booting in super low resolutions, to frequent crashes, to the aforementioned failure to launch at all.

As for The Sims 2, EA fixed a crash caused by Alt+Tab and Alt+Enter, as well as the sequel's annoying tendency to launch at 800x600 before scaling expressed resolution to "fill the entire monitor". It also nixes a problem where "the game would sometimes crash when creating a family", which anyone who has created a family in real life will empathise with, alongside a glitch where "sometimes non-adult Sims (children, pets) would disappear." There's nothing worse than walking your dog for them to suddenly warp into null-space, so I'm glad EA has resolved that.

None of this changes the fact that both packages appear to be extremely basic ports reminiscent of Konami's Metal Gear Solid rereleases from 2023. Not that every rereleased game needs a Nightdive-level makeover, but ensuring these decades-old games look crisp on a modern display and run without fuss isn't much to expect when being charged £20-30 a pop.

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Duskers is getting a ship-building sequel years after the sci-fi roguelike scared us to bits

The creators of sci-fi corridor explorer Duskers are making a "spiritual successor" to the 2016 space game. The studio revealed their plans in a video showing three prototypes they're currently working on. The working title for this one is "Humanity [website]" and it'll see you carving up derelict ships to build your own vessel and sometimes defending that ship from pirates trying to take it over. It sounds like you'll still be the sweaty cybermaster of a bunch of glitchy drones, who now might suffer "fun personality quirks" when you install upgrades, "like not wanting to go down narrow corridors because it's now claustrophobic".

Sad, busted-ass space robots just trying to get by? Yes, I'm interested.

"What can I say? I still love Duskers," says Tim Keenan, co-founder of Misfits Attic, in the video that reveals off what the studio has been up to, including two other game prototypes.

The footage for Humanity [website] displays the player cutting up and rearranging the rooms of a spaceship using the green retro interface familiar to players of the first game. The player types "slice" as a command to chop up parts of the vessel, for example. But that's really all we see that seems significantly different so far. The rest of the video talks of pirates and scrap-hunting in deep space. But it seems too early in development to show any of that yet.

Keenan wants the game to go beyond mere survival though, to include themes of "sacrificing to save the survivors of this bleak future, and rebooting humanity". But he also reassures viewers that the tone will still be pretty grim. "It's just a ray of hope, not a sunrise," he says. "The game will still be dark."

Like I say, this is not the only thing the studio is working on. Misfits Attic have three projects in the pipeline. The others include a fantasy-themed strategy game currently titled "Scheme", which sees you "starting as a lowborn and rising to power while outwitting and backstabbing some very powerful highborns". It's described as "Crusader Kings lite", in which you never have any armies yourself, but need to use Game Of Thrones style manipulation to convince other factions to war with one another.

The third game is a tactical chessy roguelike temporarily known as "Magic Wizard Chess" but in which something weird is going on behind the wibbling CRT scanlines. "While you're playing you may be psychologically evaluated for an unknown reason," says Keenan, "but don't worry about that."

Duskers remains one of the best hacking games you can play today. It gives you the feeling of being a lost and lonely engineer hired by a big ugly organization from the Alien movies, except all you have are unreliable drone pals and shaky typing hands hovering over your command-line interface. It would be cool to see a follow-up some day, but with three games in the assembly line, it might be a while until those bay doors open.

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Psychologist says 'there's a real sense of effort' to The Sims 4's emotional realism, from Maslow's Hierarchy to personal pep talks

The Sims series turned 25 this week and to mark the occasion we've asked a psychologist to take a reality check on The Sims 4 . The series is meant to simulate life, sure, but certain things are always going to be exaggerated for comedic effect. You can't really die from laughter, right? Well, probably not.

Charted psychologist and author Dr. Audrey Tang sat down to take a look at how sims behave: their basic needs, personality traits, the power of moodlets, and more. She was able to give some reassurances on one of The Sims' weirder deaths—extreme emotion could possibly exacerbate a heart condition or give you shortness of breath but dying of it? Probably not. Laughter is good for you, physically and psychologically!

Psychologist vs The Sims: What It Gets Right (and Totally Wrong) | Reality Check - YouTube Watch On.

While death by joy doesn't get a pass for realism, Dr. Tang gives props to The Sims for other psychological principles it incorporates. Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, while not really scientifically proven, is a handy framework for looking at human motivation and prioritizing basic physiological needs over social and self-actualizing goals. Dr. Tang says it is actually quite neat that The Sims 4 mirrors that prioritization—by not allowing a sim to do fun tasks like practicing music while they're dead tired.

Dr. Tang also says that giving yourself a pep talk in the mirror to increase your self-confidence really does have some research to back up how it by primes your brain to see the positives throughout your day. Meanwhile short term comforts like good food can offset big emotions like grieving the loss of a loved one, but the process of mourning lasts a lot longer than the meal does in real life. That's an interesting one that The Sims 4 has built on itself recently with the Life & Death expansion pack and its grieving styles.

In all, Dr. Tang gives The Sims 4 a passing grade in her reality check. The game isn't meant to rigorously simulate true human behavior, sure, but she says "there's a real sense of effort that was put in there to make it as realistic as possible."

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