Back in 2006, EA Games were working on a title that featured Sims-like characters for the Nintendo Wii. Well, now the game publishers have announced that the title will be out for both the Wii and the DS consoles.

MySims looks very similar to The Sims, which was a huge hit on the PC, with cute colourful visuals.

A new website has been set-up to promote the new game and will be out at the end of the year. Check out the cute images here.

I wonder how addictive this will be?

A parody song helping Sony understand where they went wrong and how they killed their brand.

Step 1 you make your console cost the most, then you beat your chest and boast.

Sony you went wrong with your ps3
I’ll just keep playing my 360
Now you know how you killed your brand.

Very kewl [Source]

The Honda F1 Racing team have unveiled a new livery for the 2007 season, a picture of the planet earth.

The Japanese manufacturer are moving away from traditional advertising featuring sponsor logos on the car. With this ‘green’ themed RA107, the team are hoping to raise awareness on the environmental issues facing the world.

A new website has been devised for those interested in supporting the idea adopted by Honda. By making a donation to myearthdream.com supporters can pledge to the ‘lifestyle change’ to be more environmentally friendly, and in return their name will be featured on the car and the Honda F1 website.

Music giant Universal Music and sports drink firm Gatorade are the first to sign up to this exciting new concept, while other companies – including Fila, IBM, Instron, Oliver Sweeney, Perkin Elmer, Showa Denko, TUV and GF Agie Charmilles – have also joined up.

“Climate change is probably the single biggest issue facing the global community and F1 is not immune from it,” said Nick Fry, Honda F1 team boss.

“On the contrary, we believe that F1 with its huge global profile and cutting edge technology can play an important role in not only highlighting the issues but also playing our part in developing solutions.

“In addition, the FIA recognises the opportunity for F1 to showcase innovative technologies for the benefit of society for the long term. For example, by 2009, devices for energy recovery will be in place on the cars.

“So we at Honda F1 are proud to dedicate our car to the environmental challenge. We believe that practical solutions can stem directly from engineers working on our F1 programme.”

Fry added that the team’s plan for the year would not only raise awareness of global issues but also encourage the general public to do more to help the situation.

“First and foremost, we are a race team and F1 is very much a team sport. We achieve our racing objectives only by working together, and parallels can be drawn with the way that we must all join together to address the environmental challenge.

“We hope that in raising awareness and highlighting the issues we will encourage members of the public to come together and help take on the challenge of climate change.”

Honda F1 Racing chairman Yasuhiro Wada added: “Honda constantly strives to be innovative in both its technology and its thinking and to sincerely respond to the demands of customers and society.

“Honda has always made great efforts to contribute to the preservation of the environment in its corporate activity.

“We hope this new initiative for Honda in F1 will help to further stimulate awareness and interest across the world for these important environmental issues.”

British actress Dame Helen Mirren has been named best actress in this year’s Academy Awards while the most influential film-maker of this modern generation, Martin Scorsese, has finally won an Oscar as best director.

As for the best actor, Forest Whitaker was rewarded the honour with his portray as the Ugandan dictator Idi Amin in The Last King of Scotland.

Following the success of winning the BAFTA, Golden Globes and Screen Actors Guild, Dame Helen had been the overall favourite to win the best actress Oscar with her performance in The Queen.

With this latest triumph in Hollywood, the British star will have the unique opportunity to meet the real monarch for lunch at Buckingham Palace. Queen Elizabeth II has invited Dame Helen, director Stephen Frears and screenwriter Peter Morgan.

But the best news on the night was Martin Scorsese finally winning that golden statue, as he has missed out on collecting the award on numerous occasions (for classic movies like Raging Bull and Goodfellas). For good measure, his latest movie – The Departed – also picked up the all-important best picture. In total, the remake of the classic Hong Kong movie was awarded with four Oscars.

Pan’s Labyrinth, the Spanish-language fairytale, won three Academy Awards including best cinematography, art direction and make-up. While Dreamgirls, Little Miss Sunshine and the documentary An Inconvenient Truth all came away with two awards apiece.

The best animated feature film was awarded to Happy Feet, while Germany’s Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others) was the best foreign language film.

The full list of winners and nominees in the 79th Academy Awards:

BEST PICTURE
The Departed

Babel
Letters From Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

BEST ACTOR
Forrest Whitaker, The Last King of Scotland

Leonardo DiCaprio, Blood Diamond
Ryan Gosling, Half Nelson
Peter O’Toole, Venus
Will Smith, The Pursuit of Happyness

BEST ACTRESS
Helen Mirren, The Queen

Penelope Cruz, Volver
Judi Dench, Notes on a Scandal
Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada
Kate Winslet, Little Children

BEST SUPPORTING ACTOR
Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine

Jackie Earle Haley, Little Children
Djimon Hounsou, Blood Diamond
Eddie Murphy, Dreamgirls
Mark Wahlberg, The Departed

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS
Jennifer Hudson, Dreamgirls

Adriana Barraza, Babel
Cate Blanchett, Notes on a Scandal
Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine
Rinko Kikuchi, Babel

BEST DIRECTING
Martin Scorsese, The Departed

Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Babel
Clint Eastwood, Letters From Iwo Jima
Stephen Frears, The Queen
Paul Greengrass, United 93

BEST FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM
The Lives of Others, Germany

After the Wedding, Denmark
Days of Glory (Indigenes), Algeria
Pan’s Labyrinth, Spain
Water, Canada

BEST ADAPTED SCREENPLAY
William Monahan, The Departed

Sacha Baron Cohen, Anthony Hines, Peter Baynham, Dan Mazer and Todd Phillips, Borat Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Alfonso Cuaron, Timothy J Sexton, David Arata, Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, Children of Men
Todd Field and Tom Perrotta, Little Children
Patrick Marber, Notes on a Scandal

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY
Michael Arndt, Little Miss Sunshine

Guillermo Arriaga, Babel
Iris Yamashita and Paul Haggis, Letters From Iwo Jima
Guillermo del Toro, Pan’s Labyrinth
Peter Morgan, The Queen

BEST ANIMATED FEATURE FILM
Happy Feet

Cars
Monster House

BEST ART DIRECTION
Pan’s Labyrinth

Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest
The Prestige

BEST CINEMATOGRAPHY
Pan’s Labyrinth

The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
The Prestige

BEST SOUND MIXING
Dreamgirls

Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

BEST SOUND EDITING
Letters From Iwo Jima

Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of Our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

BEST ORIGINAL SCORE
Babel, Gustavo Santaolalla

The Good German, Thomas Newman
Notes on a Scandal, Philip Glass
Pan’s Labyrinth, Javier Navarrete
The Queen, Alexandre Desplat

BEST ORIGINAL SONG
I Need to Wake Up from An Inconvenient Truth, by Melissa Etheridge


Listen from Dreamgirls, by Henry Krieger, Scott Cutler and Anne Preven
Love You I Do from Dreamgirls, by Henry Krieger and Siedah Garrett
Our Town from Cars, by Randy Newman
Patience from Dreamgirls, by Henry Krieger and Willie Reale

BEST COSTUME
Marie Antoinette

Curse of the Golden Flower
The Devil Wears Prada
Dreamgirls
The Queen

BEST DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
An Inconvenient Truth

Deliver Us From Evil
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country, My Country

BEST DOCUMENTARY (SHORT SUBJECT)
The Blood of Yingzhou

District Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands

BEST FILM EDITING
The Departed

Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
United 93

BEST MAKEUP
Pan’s Labyrinth

Apocalypo
Click

BEST ANIMATED SHORT FILM
The Danish Poet

Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts

BEST LIVE ACTION SHORT FILM
West Bank Story

Binta and the Great Idea (Binta Y La Gran Idea)
Eramos Pocos (One Too Many)
Helmer & Son
The Saviour

BEST VISUAL EFFECTS
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest

Poseidon
Superman Returns

Basic Instinct 2 star Sharon Stone has been awarded as the worst actress in the Golden Raspberry Awards – the annual ceremony that mocks the worst of Hollywood ahead of the Oscars presentation (which takes place today, February 25th).

The film and actress picked up four awards or Razzies, including worst screenplay, worst sequel and worst movie.

Little Man, a so-called ‘comedy’ written by the Wayans brothers, collected three Razzies, including the worst remake or rip-off.

M. Night Shyamalan was named worst director and worst supporting actor for his film Lady In The Water.

The Razzie for worst supporting actress went to Carmen Electra for Date Movie and Scary Movie 4.

John Wilson created the Razzies back in 1980. Members of the Golden Raspberry Foundation decide the dubious-distinction honours in a vote.

Winners receive gold spray-painted trophies in the shape of a raspberry, which organisers say are worth less than $5!

Last Thursday Feb 22nd the fashion world turned its eyes to Milan for the womens 2008 D&G winter fashion show. The duo produced a stunning line up which will get the hearts of fashion fans around the world racing in a way which D&G seem accustomed to doing every show. Music played at the show was by Madonna.

A few highlights of the show

Neo-Geo and MSX have added their support for Nintendo’s Virtual Console, along with G-Mode, Pony Canyon, Spike and SNK. This is great news for Neo-Geo fans like myself as not only have there been Metal Slug already but we could see titles like King of Fighters making their way too! That would be a perfect partnership with the already released Street Fighter 2.

The first MSX games that are being prepared to be released are Eggy and Aleste for 800 points each. No official word as of yet about the SNK and Neo-Geo games that could make its way to the Virtual Console. Which games would you like to see make it?

Sony has announced that the European specification of their new console the Playstation 3 will indeed be tweaked. What does that mean for the general public and gaming fans? It basically means that Sony have already taken steps to reduce the manufacturing costs at the sake of Playstation 2 backwards compatibility.

The XBOX360 already emulates the original XBOX via software emulation as Microsoft moved from nVidia to ATi. The situation was different for the Playstation 3 as Sony decided it was better to use parts of the Playstation 2 hardware to run such games, however this increased manufacturing costs. Now Sony has probably seen the recent sales statistics (where the PS2 outsold the PS3) and decided that they will gladly sacrifice backwards compatibility for cheaper costs.

Sony’s official website where they list backwards compatible titles on the PS3 have been taken down but should be back on the 23rd of March. However this does not influence the retail price which is still £425, but we get a stripped down version for more money than our American and Japanese counterparts.

Have Sony illustrated once more that they have bitten off more than they can chew? I personally would love to use the PS3 to play my PS2 games, especially if they get upscaled and have filters to make them look better. Both of which though have not been the case and many PS2 games look much worse on the PS3 than they do on the original console.

Sony’s PR team certainly has their work cut out to please people beyond their fanbase, especially when the Wii360 combination is looking more and more attractive.

BBC’s motoring programme Top Gear have set all kinds of challenges including building a hybrid boat/car or a convertible Renault Espace, but the production team have recently tried something a bit more ambitions. Sending a Robin Reliant into space (or up very high in the sky).

So how was it done? Let the official Top Gear website explain the details surrounding the rocket-powered Robin Reliant.

The premise was simple. Space travel costs a lot of money, so can Top Gear crack the budget nut by building a cheaper space rocket based on a car? Richard Hammond and James May went for the most rocket-shaped car they could find – a Reliant Robin, but from that point on, the Simplicity Fairies flew away and left us in a world of pain.

The first problem was down to our own ambition. James and Richard decided to build a space shuttle, which is the most complex kind of spacecraft imaginable, on account of it having to be re-usable. This meant they’d have to build fuel tanks that detached, and find a way of flying a driverless Robin Reliant.

On top of this they’d need some formidable rocket power to get the thing off the ground, so they reunited with our old friends from the British Rocketry Association, the men who’d sent the Mini down the ski jump in the Top Gear Winter Olympics.

After much scribbling, the rocket men announced the shuttle would need eight tons of thrust – 12 times what the Mini had, to take the shuttle to its test flight height of 3,000ft. The project kicked off and there then followed all the trials that would have been the daily fodder of pioneers such as Barnes Wallis, Brunel and the Changing Rooms team. By the way, if you’re surprised from the picture at how big the finished shuttle is (see above), well, so were we, because James is crap at measuring.

See the rocket launch in action and then… crashing back down to earth with a big bang!

[youtube]cxuYuzNo3MY[/youtube]

Image copyright to Max Edwin Wahyudi

Title: Song Hye Kyo
Name: Max Edwin Wahyudi
Country: Indonesia
Software: 3ds max, ZBrush

Rendered by artist Max Edwin Wahyudi, this is a stunning realistic render of a Korean actress called Sonh Hye Kyo. Be sure to click on the image to see it in its full glory! You can also check out his Work in Progress here

Its certainly one of the most realistic 3D renders I have ever seen in recent times but have you seen any other renders that are just as good or even better?