With The Sims and The Sims 2, Maxis introduced a whole world of highly customizable gameplay simple enough for casual audiences, but challenging and engaging enough for more serious gamers. You created a family, or roommates, or any number of disfucntional scenerios with people living together and released them into a house where you controlled every part of their lives. As you played, your “sims” would grow, learn, get jobs, play, make friends and eventually become highly successful.

This Sunday, Maxis, along with EA Games, will release Spore, a new simulation experience entirely. In Spore you control a species of animals in a quasi-evolutionary series of stages. You start as a cellular creature in the ocean and eventually develop into a space-fairing industrial society. At every point in the game, you control the look of your species and how they progress.

The Creature Creator tool in the game delivers a very complex, but easy to use drag and drop system to create your very own unique creatures. I’ve been playing around with the tool ever since it was released a while back (sans the actual game) and I absolutely love the open-endedness of the creation process. Here’s a couple of my creations displayed on YouTube: Cenatauren, Flocksum, and Skothma.

The game comes complete with online features enabling you to see the worlds and creatures others create and interacting with them.

I’m sure there will be plenty of surprises in Spore when it ships Sunday, September 7.

Until then, try out the Creature Creature free trial download yourself or browse litterally millions of creations online in the Sporepedia.

You never realize just how weird software names can be until an even newer one enters the market. While Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is pretty plain-jane, other Web browsers hold less conspicuous names like Opera, Firefox and now Chrome.

Yesterday Google  released the Windows beta of their new Web browser, Google Chrome. Like Firefox, Camio, and Opera, Chrome is open source encouraging developers to help better the program.

Google seems to have designed Chrome with the intention of delivering the most intuitively simple user interface possible. It looks nice. For example, the URL box serves as a dynamic field meaning that simply typing a word or phrase will either complete the address you’ve already started typing or suggest search phrases at the same time. Then you only need to select which you intent and you’re off!

Under the hood is where the big difference lies when comparing Google Chrome to other Web browsers. Google has developed the browser to handle each browser tab as a separate string of programs. Meaning the content or rich media in one tab will not effect the preformance of the content in another tab. This is a pretty large step if Google can deliver on this feature seeing as one false move in any browser I’ve ever used brings the whole program crashing down.

Since Google Chrome was developed for Windows first, one can’t help wonder how secure it is. On Chrome’s information page, the only mention of internet security is a page that will come up explaining the site your are trying to visit may contain malware or will try to phish your personal information. Of course, you can by pass this page. I seriously doubt, though, that this is the browser’s only security protocol.

It’s exciting to see new things come from Google and with them the new ideas on how old things can be done.

There’s a geeky little comic book on Google’s site explaining the reasons beind Chrome and how it came about.

If you’re running Windows and interested in taking the new browser for a spin, go here. However,  remember the program is in beta and is expected to be buggy. That’s why beta exists!

The number is pretty easy to remember: 1 (800) GOOG-411.

Upon using the service, I can say it works just like any other 411 service. Simply state your city and state and then the listing you’d like. As with other 411 services, speaking clearly and concisely will have the best effect as you will be talking to a computer.

GOOG-411 will connect your call free of charge and send you on your way. I’ve programmed the number into my cell phone and plan to use it exclusively.

Be wary, however. The only way to get into beta is to sign up through your account at the official Web site and then receive an e-mail with a beta key and directions. Don’t be fooled by other sites and videos that would lead you to beleive they have a secret way to access the beta. Every one of these tricky sites will ask for your World of Warcraft log-in information and maybe your security question’s answer.

The fact is they are simply fishing the information out of gullible WoW patrons in order to comprimise your account’s riches somewhere in the future.

Be patient, if you’re not accepted into beta, which is generally more of a job than a gaming experience, you’ll soon be seeing new lands. Blizzard hasn’t commented on an actual release date, but since the game is in beta phase, I’d expect it to be out by the end of the year.

Usually all the big boys come to play at E3 including Microsoft, Nintendo and Sony, along with countless software developers and publishers.

This year, Gametrailers.com has teamed up with E3 to bring tons of the information from the show floor via video to consumers not invited to the show. Sadly, since E3 2006, the show has slimmed down considerably to better serve the gaming media.

Things I’m looking forward to hearing about this year are:

• Little Big Planet (PS3)
• Final Fantasy XIII (PS3)
• Gears of War 2 (XBox 360)
• New Wario Game (Wii)
• Secret Nintendo game (Wii)
• Anything new on the MMO front especially WarHammer Online
• Decisions from Microsoft about a Blu-ray addon to the 360

Of course, anything exciting I just can’t hold back, I’ll try to post here. With the PS3 maturing and the 360 already in it’s prime, this looks like it might be a very good year for gamers.

Also now available on iTunes are plenty of new applications that can be run on any iPhone model.

It seems the entire blogosphere (that’s the online journalism community) is ablaze with iPhone madness. Just check out Digg or Wired and see what I mean.

So how does this effect you? Well if you’ve already made the switch to Vista, you should shouldn’t be bothered with this news. However, should you still be running XP or planning to purchase a computer with XP installed, you should consider a couple of points.

First, Microsoft won’t stop supporting Windows XP until next year. They’ve officially stated that XP will be fully and freely supported by online updates and patches until April 2009.

Secondly, Microsoft is already working diligently on the successor to Vista, dubbed Windows 7. They have stated that it should be released by late 2009, however, Microsoft is known to miss release dates by months.

And lastly, there’s no need to rush. If you’re at a point where your Windows XP computer isn’t very able to run Vista, then simply keep XP for now and plan to upgrade sometime after 2009 has passed. We should know more about what Microsoft will be doing around that time.

To read the official letter from Microsoft about the fate of XP, click here.

Via Digg.com and ZDNet.

The Adventures of André and Wally B. is almost 2 minutes of very technical computer animation from 1984. Animated by John Lasseter, in conjunction with Lucasfilm, who would later become a huge player in the development of PIXAR and Disney, the short is reported to have been the first use of manipulatable shapes (stretching and squishing) that gives computer animation the life needed to appear real.

With Wall-E just released and breaking the box office wide open, it’s amazing to revisit the roots of such a creative company.

Via Digg.com and Experience Project.

More importantly to myself is all the new updates to World of Warcraft and even more news on the new expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. If you’re a WoW head like I am, there’s so much content to take in, it’s almost overwhelming. Best place I’ve found to view everything nicely packaged is MMO-Champion.com.

Starcraft II is still in development. Sadly there were no release dates announced, but Blizzard says to expect Wrath of the Lich King by the end of 2008.

The email suggests that the Chinese government is purposefully covering up the number of victims effected in the recent natural distasters in China. The email includes a link to a Web page which states:

A new powerful disaster just occurred in China. The most deadly, 9 magnitude, earthquake took away million of lives in the heart of China, Beijing. Rapidly growing panic paralyzed life of Chinese capital. 2008 Olympic Games are under the threat of failure. Click on the video to see the details of this terrible disaster and choose either “Open” or “Run”. 

The video below it is actually just an image. Clicking on it will prompt you to download a file named beijing.exe — a virus meant to undermine your computer turning it into a spamming machine.

If you receive this email, do not visit the site. Invisible code uses vulnerbilities in unique ways and can download the virus into your system just by visiting.

In case you’re wondering, the screen shot above was taken on a non Windows computer.