Metacritic is useless... No it really is because the "footsloggers" claim that gaming sites are bought andfor the user score 8/10 times only people not happy with a product choose to put in a user score.. And of those most acre just little bubbles of spite and angre.
So... Tell me again what good a metacrit link is.
sorry but lots of companies use Metacritic as a rating, so just because you might be an EA shill or simcity fanboy and Metacritic has your game rated low, doesn't mean its useless.
In a way metacritic can be considered a valid tool in terms of using it as a point to note when a game is viewed negatively.
That being said, there are plenty of cases where its been used for the wrong reasons (New DMC which a lot of negative votes were pushed for ruining Dante... which they did but hey, thats just one element to a game that isn't that bad). So yes and no. I like to use it as a meter of 'how much people dislike a game' meter, not for actually scoring the pros and cons of it, cause if its for that your going to NOT find a good rating there.
Also there is a drama with some modder(well he became evil hacker fast aka damage control) basically saying that SimCity servers doesn't calculate anything, they just give some raw numbers of basic values in neighboring cities, which could be easily done offline by any PC capable of running the game.
Which means that actually difference between always online and offline mode is few lines of code that allows saving on your disk instead servers and reading data about neighboring cities from memory. This perfectly shows that whole "advanced" simulation done by their servers was one big sham.
Metacritic is useless... No it really is because the "footsloggers" claim that gaming sites are bought andfor the user score 8/10 times only people not happy with a product choose to put in a user score.. And of those most acre just little bubbles of spite and angre.
So... Tell me again what good a metacrit link is.
sorry but lots of companies use Metacritic as a rating, so just because you might be an EA shill or simcity fanboy and Metacritic has your game rated low, doesn't mean its useless.
In a way metacritic can be considered a valid tool in terms of using it as a point to note when a game is viewed negatively.
That being said, there are plenty of cases where its been used for the wrong reasons (New DMC which a lot of negative votes were pushed for ruining Dante... which they did but hey, thats just one element to a game that isn't that bad). So yes and no. I like to use it as a meter of 'how much people dislike a game' meter, not for actually scoring the pros and cons of it, cause if its for that your going to NOT find a good rating there.
In DMC at least the oficial reviewers gave it a good score to even it out. On Simcities case the low scores are coming even from the gaming site reviews going as low as 20 out of 100.
The game has a lower score than darkspore for crying out loud. DARKSPORE.
They can't even keep their servers online and most people would rather play it offline , and already there has been a way found to play it offline without the "always online connection"
I love the concept that they're going for, but the execution thus far is falling flat on its face. If they want people to play together, why is it that every time I try to look for a region to join, the game shows me ones that are full? I know they've said they're going to prioritize the game finder to show regions with empty areas ahead of full ones, but shouldn't that have been the case to begin with?
I think the game is fun so far. But if I have to stay online, I want the gorram features I was promised. I want that multiplayer experience they said they would deliver. I want sims that actually have individual homes & jobs, and I want a traffic system that works properly. I understand that devs aren't perfect people, but with the resources available to them they should've been able to do better.
Definitely not buying any DLC until they fix the game.
Instead of building from the ground up to be multiplayer maybe they should have built it from the ground up to be a good game.
One that didn't have tiny city plots, entire cities made with just residential, DRM and server problems, the laughable agent system for traffic and sims, and more...
Did they even play Sim City 4?
They act like it's impossible to make a single player game with optional multiplayer. It's sad to see Sim City turned into an always online service with excuses and lies trying to defend it when it never needed it in the first place.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Fundamentally, SimCity has always been a 'software toy'. That means that there's no real end state, no way to win. It's just a thing that you play and experiment with. You build, and tinker, and mess around. It's a toy, not a game; it's a sandbox, not baseball.
So, in this iteration of the game, you don't even get to buy your toy. Rather, you rent a toy from EA, who lets you play with it only in very limited, circumscribed ways, only on their servers. So you have to have a live Internet connection at all times, and their servers have to be up, and have to have space for you. And the rules for play are draconian. If you want to, say, build a city, save it, blow it up with something terrible, and then restore from save, you can't do that anymore. That's an unauthorized usage of their toy. And if you figure out ways of using their toy that they don't like, they'll ban you forever.
All third-party modding is shut out. One of the best parts of SimCity 4 and The Sims is that users can create and share content among themselves for free. You will no longer be able to do this. You will be required to run only Official Authorized Content.
Further, you're not getting the whole game for your $60 or $80, depending on what version you're buying. EA's plan is to sell you Simcity 5 over and over and over. They've directly admitted that they already have it running with larger cities, but they're not releasing that now. They claim it's because it "won't run on Dad's PC", but the real reason is so they can sell it to you again later. Want subways? That's gonna be $20. Want railroads? Another $20. Bigger cities? Oh, that's in the $30 expansion.
Right now, if you look at The Sims 3, the game costs $30. But if also you buy all the DLC for it, it's *four hundred and seventy dollars*. This is what they are doing with SimCity 5; locking you into their server infrastructure, and then exploiting the heck out of your wallet.
This is a lousy deal, and you would be stupid to take it. Always-on DRM, and a deliberately crippled game, so that they can slowly uncripple it, charging you for every restored feature from prior versions.
Simcity 4 still works pretty well. It's not quite as nice as most current games, and can require you to 'pin' the process to just one processor on a multi-core system (ie, most current machines), but if you want a city builder where you won't have to pay extra to breathe both in AND out, that would be a better option.
But buying this game? In my opinion, you would be wiser to take three twenties out of your wallet, and light them on fire.
Originally posted by majinant Fundamentally, SimCity has always been a 'software toy'. That means that there's no real end state, no way to win. It's just a thing that you play and experiment with. You build, and tinker, and mess around. It's a toy, not a game; it's a sandbox, not baseball.
()
But buying this game? In my opinion, you would be wiser to take three twenties out of your wallet, and light them on fire.
Well, I'll be. I thought I was going crazy and having déjà vu but is this your review or...? If it is then
I would go a step further and say that not only is there no way to win in SC5, there is noway to avoid losing in the long run. Since all buildings require water, which is non-replenishing, in the end, you will fail. It's only a matter of time.
Originally posted by majinant Fundamentally, SimCity has always been a 'software toy'. That means that there's no real end state, no way to win. It's just a thing that you play and experiment with. You build, and tinker, and mess around. It's a toy, not a game; it's a sandbox, not baseball.
()
But buying this game? In my opinion, you would be wiser to take three twenties out of your wallet, and light them on fire.
Well, I'll be. I thought I was going crazy and having déjà vu but is this your review or...? If it is then
Great review.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by birdycephon I would go a step further and say that not only is there no way to win in SC5, there is noway to avoid losing in the long run. Since all buildings require water, which is non-replenishing, in the end, you will fail. It's only a matter of time.
possible spoiler?
...
If you put the pump next to the sewage treatment plant you won't run out of water. The sewage endlessly supplies water.
The head of EA hasn't been shy about letting people know he won't green-light any project that doesn't have multiplayer, so it really isn't a surprise if the dev's actually did design it from the ground up this way.
Originally posted by birdycephon I would go a step further and say that not only is there no way to win in SC5, there is noway to avoid losing in the long run. Since all buildings require water, which is non-replenishing, in the end, you will fail. It's only a matter of time.
possible spoiler?
...
If you put the pump next to the sewage treatment plant you won't run out of water. The sewage endlessly supplies water.
Now that, is something I need to investigate. Last city I built was a 'clean' city, so I exported all of my sewage, and so my city ran dry, even though I was importing a lot of water from other cities.
NOBODY wanted that. Sure, an OPTIONAL multiplayer feature. That would have been interesting. But what the fracking devil did they smoke to transform SimCity into a Zynga Farmville variant?? Was this decision made by the Bad Idea Bears? I can't possibly fathom how they ever, ever came to this idea.
People love games like Sims, Sim City, Civilization, because they are GOD in their small world, and for once they DON'T have to make compromises with noisy neighbours and for once DON'T have to bear the shitty behavior from next door. To escape reality for a few hours to a place of entirely your own making. How any game developer could possibly think it would be a good idea to toss that out of the window is as alien to me as why anyone would drill a hole into his knee for fun.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
"Right now, if you look at The Sims 3, the game costs $30. But if also you buy all the DLC for it, it's *four hundred and seventy dollars*. This is what they are doing with SimCity 5; locking you into their server infrastructure, and then exploiting the heck out of your wallet."
Lol. Just lol.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Comments
In a way metacritic can be considered a valid tool in terms of using it as a point to note when a game is viewed negatively.
That being said, there are plenty of cases where its been used for the wrong reasons (New DMC which a lot of negative votes were pushed for ruining Dante... which they did but hey, thats just one element to a game that isn't that bad). So yes and no. I like to use it as a meter of 'how much people dislike a game' meter, not for actually scoring the pros and cons of it, cause if its for that your going to NOT find a good rating there.
Also there is a drama with some modder(well he became evil hacker fast aka damage control) basically saying that SimCity servers doesn't calculate anything, they just give some raw numbers of basic values in neighboring cities, which could be easily done offline by any PC capable of running the game.
Which means that actually difference between always online and offline mode is few lines of code that allows saving on your disk instead servers and reading data about neighboring cities from memory. This perfectly shows that whole "advanced" simulation done by their servers was one big sham.
In DMC at least the oficial reviewers gave it a good score to even it out. On Simcities case the low scores are coming even from the gaming site reviews going as low as 20 out of 100.
The game has a lower score than darkspore for crying out loud. DARKSPORE.
Where is the mod download link... no download, not truth.
EA, Maxis, and Lucy Bradshaw would likely disagree :P
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
I love the concept that they're going for, but the execution thus far is falling flat on its face. If they want people to play together, why is it that every time I try to look for a region to join, the game shows me ones that are full? I know they've said they're going to prioritize the game finder to show regions with empty areas ahead of full ones, but shouldn't that have been the case to begin with?
I think the game is fun so far. But if I have to stay online, I want the gorram features I was promised. I want that multiplayer experience they said they would deliver. I want sims that actually have individual homes & jobs, and I want a traffic system that works properly. I understand that devs aren't perfect people, but with the resources available to them they should've been able to do better.
Definitely not buying any DLC until they fix the game.
http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/grimoire-forever/
Support old-school gaming!
Instead of building from the ground up to be multiplayer maybe they should have built it from the ground up to be a good game.
One that didn't have tiny city plots, entire cities made with just residential, DRM and server problems, the laughable agent system for traffic and sims, and more...
Did they even play Sim City 4?
They act like it's impossible to make a single player game with optional multiplayer. It's sad to see Sim City turned into an always online service with excuses and lies trying to defend it when it never needed it in the first place.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/So, in this iteration of the game, you don't even get to buy your toy. Rather, you rent a toy from EA, who lets you play with it only in very limited, circumscribed ways, only on their servers. So you have to have a live Internet connection at all times, and their servers have to be up, and have to have space for you. And the rules for play are draconian. If you want to, say, build a city, save it, blow it up with something terrible, and then restore from save, you can't do that anymore. That's an unauthorized usage of their toy. And if you figure out ways of using their toy that they don't like, they'll ban you forever.
All third-party modding is shut out. One of the best parts of SimCity 4 and The Sims is that users can create and share content among themselves for free. You will no longer be able to do this. You will be required to run only Official Authorized Content.
Further, you're not getting the whole game for your $60 or $80, depending on what version you're buying. EA's plan is to sell you Simcity 5 over and over and over. They've directly admitted that they already have it running with larger cities, but they're not releasing that now. They claim it's because it "won't run on Dad's PC", but the real reason is so they can sell it to you again later. Want subways? That's gonna be $20. Want railroads? Another $20. Bigger cities? Oh, that's in the $30 expansion.
Right now, if you look at The Sims 3, the game costs $30. But if also you buy all the DLC for it, it's *four hundred and seventy dollars*. This is what they are doing with SimCity 5; locking you into their server infrastructure, and then exploiting the heck out of your wallet.
This is a lousy deal, and you would be stupid to take it. Always-on DRM, and a deliberately crippled game, so that they can slowly uncripple it, charging you for every restored feature from prior versions.
Simcity 4 still works pretty well. It's not quite as nice as most current games, and can require you to 'pin' the process to just one processor on a multi-core system (ie, most current machines), but if you want a city builder where you won't have to pay extra to breathe both in AND out, that would be a better option.
But buying this game? In my opinion, you would be wiser to take three twenties out of your wallet, and light them on fire.
they just forgot to start (all) servers on day one :>
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
uh and btw, basically baseball is played in a sandbox too *G*
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
Well, I'll be. I thought I was going crazy and having déjà vu but is this your review or...? If it is then
Great review.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
possible spoiler?
...
If you put the pump next to the sewage treatment plant you won't run out of water. The sewage endlessly supplies water.
The head of EA hasn't been shy about letting people know he won't green-light any project that doesn't have multiplayer, so it really isn't a surprise if the dev's actually did design it from the ground up this way.
EA ruins games.
You make me like charity
possible spoiler?
...
If you put the pump next to the sewage treatment plant you won't run out of water. The sewage endlessly supplies water.
Now that, is something I need to investigate. Last city I built was a 'clean' city, so I exported all of my sewage, and so my city ran dry, even though I was importing a lot of water from other cities.
NOBODY wanted that. Sure, an OPTIONAL multiplayer feature. That would have been interesting. But what the fracking devil did they smoke to transform SimCity into a Zynga Farmville variant?? Was this decision made by the Bad Idea Bears? I can't possibly fathom how they ever, ever came to this idea.
People love games like Sims, Sim City, Civilization, because they are GOD in their small world, and for once they DON'T have to make compromises with noisy neighbours and for once DON'T have to bear the shitty behavior from next door. To escape reality for a few hours to a place of entirely your own making. How any game developer could possibly think it would be a good idea to toss that out of the window is as alien to me as why anyone would drill a hole into his knee for fun.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
"Right now, if you look at The Sims 3, the game costs $30. But if also you buy all the DLC for it, it's *four hundred and seventy dollars*. This is what they are doing with SimCity 5; locking you into their server infrastructure, and then exploiting the heck out of your wallet."
Lol. Just lol.
"Censorship is never over for those who have experienced it. It is a brand on the imagination that affects the individual who has suffered it, forever." - Noam Chomsky
Riiccitello steps down.
Sims "MMO" announcement.
There's a connection here somewhere.. or maybe not.