zaphodzzplural

Kill all sims !!.. (or why I like instant volcano's)


Ummmmm.. I was just awonderin.. anyone keeping an eye on this new Sim City thing ?

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Aimee Weber

I am anticipating it with all the energy and enthusiasm I felt with Spore and Sim Societies.




(yes, I hold a long grudge. )

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jauani

Last sim city was a yawner

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Cristiano

I tried out the beta - and all I can say about it is that it is far, far better than the last one, and worth the wait. It still has some rough edges, but it was very engaging and fun to play. It is the best of the series.

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Jopsy Pendragon

*gigglesnort* What Aimee said.

God only knows what kind of toxic DRM they'll wedge into this one.

Frankly, I picked up Ubisoft's "Anno 2070" recently... and find it satisfies my "city planning/optimizing" craving in building games rather well. Downside? Bought it through steam, but it doesn't authenticate via steam. Gotta set up a whole redundant "uplay" account and log in through that. (bogus!!!).

Aimee Weber

If I buy it, it will be because of positive reviews from LOTS of folks like Cris and other SLUers that I know. And even then I'm going to give it a few weeks to see if opinions change when the newness wares off.


At this point I only trust people I know with game reviews. Pro game reviews so consistently rave about snooze-worthy games that I don't trust any of them (with the possible exception of Yahtzee from Zero Punctuation ... when he decides to sell out he should ask for a hefty payout from the game company because he's built a ton of cred).

Jopsy Pendragon

... so I've got to ask ... Have they learned from the outrage over the DRM for spore?

Or will SimCity5 be poison-pilled to kill itself if you dare to, oh, upgrade to a new computer more than three times and still expect to be able to play it? (like Spore is rumored to be... and from my personal experience, I'm not sure I can disagree)

Aimee Weber

As I understand it, it will have "always-online" DRM and will needlessly save your games to the cloud rather than locally.

Cristiano

It does have an always on requirement, unfortunately. Not a dealbreaker for me, but if Diablo 3's launch was any indication, a lot can go wrong. Just during the SC beta they had issues keeping the servers up under the load.

Ramen Jedburgh

Last I checked it was like $90, which is $40 above my upper limit I am willing to pay.

Also that limiy is for something I REALLY want, otherwise $90 is $80 over the upper limit I am willing to spend on a game.

So no.

Also EA is run by Satan.

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Jopsy Pendragon

ugh. But less obnoxious than the "use thrice & you're done" crap with spore.

Aimee Weber

But, you know, maybe I'll give it a try ...

Jopsy Pendragon

surely that's the 'collector's edition price, not the regular price?!?!

Ramen Jedburgh

Ok, regukar version is $60, which is still too much considering it's EA and placing buildings in game will likely ALSO cost you a quarter each.

Digital Deluxe is $80.

Ariane

It is for me. Too bad, the new features sound cool, too.

Strike 1: Its EA.
Strike 2: It requires always on internet.
Strike 3: It requires Origin.

You are out!

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Cristiano

I don't get the hate about Origin - it seems rather irrational to me. While it is a lot less feature rich than Steam, it's the same thing.

Ramen Jedburgh

EA is kind of a crappy company.

Origin's idea of a good sale is to pack every game from a series into a bundle and knock $5 off the total price.

Cristiano

I've gotten some great deals on Origin, so that's just not true. While they rarely discount as much as Steam, I've gotten some stuff half price or less. EA is a crappy company, but they do make some incredible games. I'm not too fond of any of the major publishers, but in the end, I care about the game.

Lil Hapmouche

I'd rather say that EA's main talent is buying out companies which do make more than incredible games, but well...
Over here, Origin got its bad image because it was released with an extremely unfortunate EULA which wasn't on par with customer rights and it had to be corrected. Plus, the software suffered from a reputation that it would scan all hard drives and take note of any potentially cracked installations - that's a matter of one's own belief. Steam is rather seen as a "plain" DRM tool, a step below Origin.

Actually, Cristiano's feedback is the first positive user one I came across. The others mainly complain about the tiny map size in the tryout and the lack of options. They say it would be way too easy to earn too much money ... and what I saw on screenshots, it looks like you'd be managing a typical Sims 3 neighbourhood on a different level, at least graphicwise.
Based on what I hear, it's aimed at multiplayer gamestyle and player interaction.
EA claims that only "cloud computing" would allow enough processing power, even for singleplayer ... yeah, sure.

Lordfly Digeridoo

I played it three times during the beta - only three because I was busy all weekend. They time limited it to an hour per session (you could start a new city again and play for another hour).

I came away.... cautiously impressed. (Warning: The simcity series is my personal bugaboo. I was reading books on cellular automata when I was 14 because of Simcity 2000. I went to school for urban planning because of Simcity. To this day, my brain has a strong sensory connection between the smell of a christmas tree and the Simcity SNES cartridge.)

This is not Simcity Societies. It isn't even close. It goes back to the heyday of Simcity 2000, when they were actually trying to, you know, simulate stuff. This time, they finally have the computer horsepower to simulate nearly everything.

Every car on the road, every pedestrian on the sidewalk, has an origin and a destination. Sims have names, they have routines. They move out if they can't find a job. They die if they get sick working at the garbage facility. Creating a large subdivision all at once causes a gigantic traffic jam on the freeway due to all the construction vehicles.

Zones are done the old way; you select the type of zone (residential, commercial, industrial) and hope that sims will build something there. You, as mayor, need to create the conditions necessary to develop the zones the way you want them to.

Roads are the catch-all infrastructure; they're upgradable after being plopped down (no more bulldozing for hours), and carry all utilities along them; power, water, sewage. That means no more fucking around with pipes, which I hated doing with the passion of a billion suns.

Utility buildings simulate their reach by pulsing "packets" along the roads. For instance, if you drop a coal plant down in the middle of town, and turn on the power data layer, you will see a little blob of electricity course down the roads, and as they touch buildings without power, you'll hear a spark as that building is powered. Same for water. Sewage is sucked down the pipes every couple of seconds from the storage areas of buildings into the sewage treatment plant. Most ploppable buildings are upgradeable in some way (you can staple an extra floor of classrooms somewhere on a school, for instance)

In fact, the game is a data visualizer's wet dream. The whole game has a very modern/minimalist data spread feel. It's like watching a graph you'd find in Newsweek about some random facts.

Terraforming seems to be completely gone. At least, it wasn't in the beta. Cities feel much smaller (less room to spread out).

Factories produce actual products, and they need to get those products to market (either within your city or globally via trade ports). Excess freight trucks can cause jams.

Mass transit is done via dropping down a depot and placing bus stops all around. Rail wasn't in the beta. There are no highways, only high-capacity boulevards.

Fires need to actually be called on and put out by fire trucks; there is no magical "fire coverage". Same with criminals; a bank robber will continue robbing banks until he is actually apprehended by police, taken into jail, and then released after he's rehabbed. That means if your transit network sucks, expect fires to wipe out blocks.

Certain resources seem limited; fresh water has a number attached to it on water towers, which goes down as the demand for water increases and you slam down more towers. Likewise there are mining buildings and whatnot for things like coal for your power plants, so you could easily build a city built around coal, or iron, or whatever.

All in all I came away very impressed. I pre-ordered it Sunday. Amazon had a deal on it.

The always-on DRM sucks, but that's life. Always on, and sucking.

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Seyla Warden

I have a two-strike policy.

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jauani

I like EA. they make tiger woods, NHL hockey, FIFA, and assassin creed. I think they make battlefield. So with the exception of uncharted they make every game I play...

Cristiano

The other evil empire, Ubisoft, makes Assassin's Creed.

Cristiano

Here is a trailer for the deluxe digital version - even if you aren't buying that version, you can see what the game does look like (it is gameplay footage mainly):

jauani

Aw crap... I'm buying it