The Sims has been with us now for what seems like forever. There’s been 3 main titles and plenty of DLCs to support the growth of the game’s community and some features of the simulator that allows you to build a life for your Sims that you can only dream of are pretty much a game standard by now. So much so that you’d imagine there couldn’t possibly be a Sims game without them.

Seems swimming pools aren’t one of those things though. At least, according to Maxis and EA.



The news that the new Sims 4 game will not include the swimming pools that are a long-stayed feature of the game has met with some understandable ire from the community on Reddit. Sims Team producer Ryan Vaughan tried to cool the fury by reminding them that many new features to better allow you to customise the houses you build.

“While we recognize that some of you will be disappointed…You should know that we’re building an incredibly strong foundation that is capable of fulfilling every one of your desires in the years to come” he wrote.

The Sims 4 game will include a new ‘fountain’ tool to help create landscapes along with wall height adjustment, dynamic foundation sizing and something called Smart Windows. It’s hoped by the team that these will make up for the removal of things such as the swimming pools and also the toddler stage of a Sim’s life-cycle. The game will be released on September 2nd.

YouTube is the largest video site on the internet, hands down. If it weren’t for its creators though, there wouldn’t be a YouTube. With that in mind, the company announced a set of new tools today at Vidcon. The purpose of these tools? Simple: Allow creators to be more creative.

While many of the tools were previewed and can be considered as “coming soon” features, the reveal fits in nicely with the wider creator community’s repeated requests for more transparency about changes to YouTube’s platform. Let’s face it, changes can be disruptive and in the past YouTube has rolled out some fairly unpopular changes without telling anyone beforehand.

The new tools announced vary widely, but here’s a quick list:

YouTube Creator Studio – Out now on Android and coming soon to iOS. The Creator Studio allows creators to view analytics, manage and edit videos, blast notifications and sort through comments, all on the go.

Audio Library Enhancements –Creators will now have access to royalty-free sound effects. This means you don’t have to create all of your own sounds anymore, instead you can simply grab them from the library.

60 FPS Video- A HUGE part of YouTube is gaming videos. We all know the pain of seeing a 60 fps game moving at 30 fps on the video service, and now that all changes. Coming soon, 48 and 60 fps options will be available to go along with the 1080 quality settings now available. Will everyone care about this? No. is it a massively good thing for the YouTube gaming community? You bet it is.

Fan-submitted Subtitles- Not everyone on YouTube speaks the same language, but everyone does watch videos. Now, everyone can watch and enjoy the same videos. In theory.

Creator Credits- Creators love to collaborate with each other. So now, YouTube is letting collaborators name and link their fellows in a way that people might actually click. This one is in the “coming soon” category.

Bye Bye Annotations, Hello Cards- Annotations don’t work on mobile devices. So now, YouTube is changing the way links are displayed by replacing them with cards that will work across all mobile, tablets and desktops. Another “coming soon” feature.

Fan Funding- Here’s where the hate train probably starts for a lot of people. Kickstarter and other crowdfunding platforms have been attracting the attention of creators because theres really no way to crowd fund things on YouTube. In an effort to retain creators and, of course, make more money off of them, YouTube is basically creating an online tip jar. Right there in YouTube. No need to go elsewhere. This feature is currently being tested “by a handful of selected creator channels”.

So there you have it. Major changes are coming to YouTube. When all of them will be fully implemented is anyone’s guess,b ut it seems that the platform is at least intent on innovating as the landscape of online video evolves. What do you think? Sound off in the comments below.

Special announcement from Legendary and Pacific Rim director Guillermo del Toro hit Youtube yesterday!

Check it out below:

As del Toro revealed in the special YouTube video, he’s officially making a sequel to Pacific Rim with Travis Beacham (who wrote the original’s screenplay) and Zak Penn (who is rewriting the Ready Player One adaptation). The film will be distributed in the United States by Universal, and it’s set for release on April 7, 2017.

In case anyone is worried that del Toro will get too clever and try to do something new with it, he assures everyone that it will feature “more Kaijus, more Jaegers, kicking each other’s butts.” And, just in case you inexplicably want more than that, he also told Buzzfeed that a bunch of characters would return, including “Raleigh, Mako, Newt, Gottlieb and who knows, maybe even Hannibal Chau.” For people who don’t remember anything about Pacific Rim except the punching, Raleigh is Charlie Hunnam’s character, Mako is Rinko Kikuchi, Hannibal Chau is Ron Perlman, and the rest are people that we don’t remember either. How about that punching, though? Pretty sweet, right?

Del Toro also announced that he’s going to continue the Pacific Rim comic book and that he’s working on an animated series of some sort that will premiere before the movie, most likely to lay all of the necessary groundwork required to justify why more giant robots are fighting more giant monsters. We’re thinking it will involve a quick voiceover of someone saying “The Kaiju came back, so we’re gonna beat them up,” and then it will end.

Fire up your Jaegars pilots! We’re going back to monster bashing!

Focus Interactive dropped a new Space Hulk: Deathwing trailer!
The First-Person Shooter set in the famous universe of Warhammer 40,000 from Games Workshop, can now reveal its summer trailer!

Still not showing gameplay footage, but damn, the CGI looks cool.  Check it out below:

This first in-game video, created using the game engine (Unreal Engine 4), plunges you headlong into a Space Hulk, with the game’s main character – a Librarian of the Deathwing,and a squad of Deathwing Terminators, in their a head-on confrontation with the merciless Genestealers. A clash that will prove deadly for the elite warriors of the Dark Angels and the outcome of which has a HUGE surprise in store.

 

This explosive video showcases the amazing work and meticulous attention to detail by developers Streum On studio. Theelite squad of the Space Marines repels the attacks of the Genestealers with heavy fire from their Storm Bolters and Assault Cannons, destroying the most reckless creatures with crushing blows from Force Swords and Power Fists. You can see the incredible level of detail on the smallest game elements: the Tactical Dreadnought Armour of the Deathwing Terminators, their weapons, the Genestealers, and the backdrop are all rendered with a care that will astound any fan of Warhammer 40,000!

Looking forward to this game, lets hope we get some gameplay footage soon!

The first major event for Wildstar is coming up in early July, and it looks to be rather interesting. Wildstar already has a rather tongue in cheek sense of humor built in, and the Strain looks to push that even further. According to Carbine:

“Born in the depths of a mysterious Eldan laboratory, the Strain is a virulent biological anomaly that has begun to spread across planet Nexus. With the power to change lifeforms into terrifying, mutated abominations, the Strain is an unimaginably dangerous threat.

All efforts to fight this nightmarish plague have met with failure. It is only a matter of time before it destroys all life on Nexus and beyond.

Who created the Strain, and for what purpose? Does it have anything to do with what happened to the Eldan? And can the universe be saved, or is already too late?”

If this wasn’t enough to get you excited, then the promise of shiny new loot and even more housing options certainly should be. Want to put a lab of biological horrors next to your humble abode? You can do that now. Giant purple eyeballs on tentacles? Check. How about a sarlacc like maw in the lawn? Yup. New emotes, mount customizations and more are all part of the Strain Ultra Drop. In addition two zones will be available, one of which promises shiny new loot and challenges for max level players.

As someone who has burned through a ton of monsters on the way to level 50, I find myself particularly excited about this event. Not only is it the first one we get to participate in on Nexus, but Carbine seems intent on providing not just new challenges and monsters, but new areas and tons of new ways to customize our houses. Given that housing decor is not only a fun way to spend time, but also has a huge impact on your Rest XP, this is a promising sign of things to come.

What do you think? Are you ready to go kill some freaky purple space monsters? Let me know in the comments below.