EA has announced that February 20, 2009, will mark the rather momentous occasion of stereotypical gamers finally venturing into the brightly lit outside world ... in the game. It's the day The Sims 3, the latest interactive simulation of an annoying, fickle, selfish and lazy race of creatures, will be distributed -- both physically and digitally -- to a bunch of annoying, fickle, selfish and lazy creatures.

If you'd like to append "supercilious" to that list of adjectives, you should consider purchasing The Sims 3 Collector's Edition, which will include an exclusive in-game "Italian-style" sports car for you to maneuver through your envious neighborhood (no wonder those floating diamonds are green). Also included in the package will be a Sims Plumbob USB drive, a tips and hints guide, The Sims 3 Plumbob stickers and, oh yes, the game.

Calling all gamers, non-gamers and militant atheists alike, Will Wright's years-in-the-making "Sim Everything" Spore has passed through its cell, tribal and civilization phases and has gone gold. The game is set to make its previously announced PC and Mac release date of September 5 for North America and September 7 for Europe. We now look forward to breaking even more Sporepedia milestones in our quest to collectively become 84% God. In the meantime check out our exhaustive Spore Q&A with Maxis Producer Thomas Vu from last month's E3.

Fun fact: Spore's original release date was Fall 2006.

It seems Spore has a shot at the big screen. No, not that 60" LCD monitor that cost you nearly all your limbs, but that one you view in the dark with a bunch of popcorn-munching strangers. According to Reuters, EA is looking to connect upcoming everything-sim Spore with television and film, hoping that the right deal will add momentum to the game's marketing machine and boost sales.

"With Spore, we're looking way outside the game space, such as TV, movies, etc.," said the game's revered designer, Will Wright. "We're basically planting the seeds to spread Spore out to a much wider group of people than would ever play a computer game." The aggressive, multi-medium marketing is thought to be prompted by EA's last round of disappointing financial results, with the publisher chasing down audiences in a bid to regain its top publisher throne. With Will Wright's latest, sights are being set even beyond the huge popularity attained by The Sims.

"Longer term, I think the brand of Spore potentially has a wider net to cast than The Sims did," notes Wright. We also reckon Spore is the easier one to adapt into an entertaining film, what with all the kooky aliens and spaceships.

Even those who indulge in the sanctioned decadence of a Hyborian lifestyle can find themselves bound to otherworldly codes of conduct, as one Age of Conan "Game Master" (real job, apparently) recently learned after he engaged in a brief, albeit illicit affair with one of the game's denizens. While some would-be sleuths have concluded that the incident was a classic case of entrapment, the governing authority nonetheless terminated the frolicking GM. "If the guidelines are broken there are consequences," Funcom has stated. Let this be a lesson to all of us working the virtual shift: Pants are to be worn at all times.

[Via Big Download]

If those pesky Achievements for the game are to be believed, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise will support four player online co-op. 360sync.com lists all the "bleep bloops" for the upcoming candy-filled animal simulator and one 10-point achievement, named "Full House," comes with with the description: Play 4 Player Online Co-op for 1 hour.

We're still not exactly sure what co-op entails, as there also Achievements listed for playing two player co-op, both online and off, for one hour. We should get more details soon before VP: TiP starts getting whacked at retail on Sept. 2.

[Via X3F]

Break it to Make it! Did you hear? This week's Virtual Console update includes a video game adaptation of 80s dance flick, Breakin'. Finally we can live out our closet fantasies of break dancing in the shoes of Kelly, Ozone and -- personal fave -- Turbo. Oh, wait, that's not what the game is about? Monday mornings are so cruel.

• Break In (TurboGrafx16, 1-4 players, 700 Wii Points): No, there's no fancy footwork here. Instead, Nintendo offers up this decidedly break dance-free game of pool. So, yeah, it's pool.
• Star Parodier (TurboGrafx16 CD-ROM, 1 player, 900 Wii Points): Well, at least this is something to get excited over. A parody of Hudson shooter Star Soldier, here you'll be able to fly about and shoot down colorful bad guys as Star Soldier's Paro Ceaser, iconic pyro Bomberman, or a giant flying PC Engine that shoots cards and discs at enemies. That almost makes up for this morning's dissapointment.

The festivities on Piñata Island won't get into full swing until Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise hits shelves on September 2, but that's not stopping Rare from handing out an early party favor. As we reported back in May, the game will use the Xbox Live Vision camera to "scan" physical cards – similar to Sony's Eye of Judgment – that unlock items, change the in-game weather, etc. The first of these cards is now up on MundoRare, featuring a curious critter created by VP2 designer Ray Stevenson.

Clicking on the card image above will take you to a full-sized version that can be printed out and tucked safely away until the game streets. The rest of the dev team is also crafting cards that will surely pop up online closer to launch. Speaking of making cards, you'll be able to do the same simply by snapping photos of items and piñatas in your garden via an in-game camera. They can then be emailed to friends, who can print them out and hold them up to their Vision cameras, thus completing the circle of life.

Last year's Ar tonelico: Melody of Elemia was one of the strangest titles we'd ever played from NIS America, and coming from a company that let us possess watering cans in Phantom Brave and do turn-based strategy as a side-scroller in GrimGrimoire, that's saying something. Offering equal parts role-playing and old school adventure, it was the included dating sim-style mechanics and the game's near-constant stream of sexual innuendo that gave Ar tonelico its unique, acquired tasted.

NIS America now drops word that it plans to release the sequel this December for the PS2. According to the publisher, this time around Ar tonelico 2 will challenge players by having them manage relationships between the game's sultry mechanical dolls known as Reyvateils, adding that "if their emotions are more closely synced, the stronger the magic becomes." We knew there was a reason to keep the PS2 around...magic lesbian robots.

[Thanks, Dennis]

Armored Core for Answer, the thirteenth title in From Software's giant mech love fest, is preparing to stomp onto North American shores later this year. Ubisoft is set to publish the laboriously-titled game, which will unload onto both the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 in September.

Armored Core for Answer follows 2007's Sega-published Armored Core 4, and promises to once more let players slip behind the controls of a giant modular war machine, with "epic" boss fights, "seamless" 2-player co-op and 7-player competitive modes promised as well. Much like most games that come out of Japan, Armored Core for Answer pits rebels against a malevolent megacorp with the fate of the world, not to mention precious customizable parts (130 new, 400 total), hanging in the balance.

Ubisoft has shot down plans to release Tom Clancy's Ace Combat HAWX in September. The flight combat game will instead take to the skies in early 2009, according to a report by CVG, which also states that no reason for the delay was given. Online retailers have updated to reflect the change, with GameStop listing the new date as January 6. This news comes just one day after Ubisoft announced a delay for its WWII-era FPS, Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway. That game, which had originally been slated for an August 29 on-sale date, will hit one month later on September 26.

Will Wright gave the opening keynote today at the nerd-packed Comic-Con 2008, an event so chock full of fellow geeks we're hard-pressed to find a free patch of San Diego Convention Center floor to stand on. For the first half hour or so Will rattled off profound observations and inspirational quips at approximately the speed of light, leaving the second half of the presentation to an extensive demo of the civilization and space stages of Spore.

The touted reveal of the MashON Spore Comic Book Creator wasn't much more than a few minutes' discussion of the tool that will live at http://mashon.com/spore/, enabling players to take the creatures and other assets they make in the game and import them into an interactive comic book creation engine. A booklet passed out to attendees while waiting for the keynote tells us you'll be able to drag and drop screenshots taken in Spore right into the tool, add audio and video clips and other assets, create and lay out the entire story environment and share it with friends via email or Flash embed code. Users can rate and save other players' stories on the Mashon.com site and play them back as digital flip books as well as print them out. Wright talked about how the Comic Book Creator fits within the overall ethos of the game, which is about putting players more in the role of George Lucas than Luke Skywalker, allowing them to actually create the worlds themselves beyond just playing in them.

It appears NinjaBee is ready to talk a little about its upcoming city builder, A Kingdom for Keflings. Teasing the title in a viral video last month, the company finally gave some details to IGN, details which make the game look and sound like a cross bee-tween SimCity and Gulliver's Travels.

It appears the player takes on the roll of a Gulliver-esque character and must build a kingdom for the Keflings, with the final goal being to create a castle. The game features 50 buildings, a tech tree and optional quests. Isn't it interesting that all the different smaller-scale city builder games, like Hinterland and My Life as a King, are releasing this year? Check out video for A Kingdom for Keflings after the break.

[Via X3F]

You make your way down the hallway in City 17, and push open the door into the bright sunlight reflected off of concrete. A Combine soldier stands before you, so you life your semiautomatic weapon, and as you pull the trigger and fire, the gun recoils in your hand. Another Combine stands across the viaduct, and when he fires at you, you feel the bullet strike you from the left, so you turn, and feel the gun jump in your hand again as you take him out.

That's the ideal experience with Novint's Falcon controller. The controller itself is about an eight inch orb that sits on your table, with a three-inch sphere sitting on the end of three arms coming off of it -- like a Soviet satellite sticking out of the globe. The idea is that you push the little sphere around to move your cursor, and the three arms provide resistance against whatever you bump up against. We got to use the controller at E3, and the verdict is that while it does provide a nice experience, the costs might be a little overwhelming for most players. More after the jump.

During our time at E3 last week, we were able to spend about an hour with a very patient Maxis Producer Thomas Vu, who guided us through a near-final build of Spore (the whole thing) and answered a barrage of questions. Here's what we gleaned from our play session, broken down into each phase:

• Part 1: Cell / Tribe Phase (after the break)
  
• Part 2: Civilization / Space Phase
• Part 3: General Information