46 replies to this topic

[TheDR]

Here is what I think after playing the Beta.

Bits I liked:

• The roads! I really went in without any positive or negative ideas about the roads, I came out really liking they way they are set up in the game. Sim City 4 took ages to line up roads, counting out squares and trying to make it look nice. The new roads are amazing in comparison, curved roads combined with the new guide system lets you place more curved roads in the same shape right next to your existing roads. Also grids are a lot easier to do. Definitely a straight upgrade from previous titles.

• The look and feel of the game. It is all very polished and everything looks good, little things like being able to upgrade roads and the detail on the buildings just looks great.

• The lack of pipes is a plus. Sure they are taking away control, but I never really enjoyed placing pipes in previous titles, I'd usually just follow the road. After playing this seems like a sensible removal.

• The zoning. I wasn't sure If I was going to enjoy the new "stuck to roads" zoning, but it makes more sense. It's also very satisfying to "fill in" a road with a row of zoning.

• I think quite a few things in the game feel productive and satisfying. Watching water being pumped through your roads (the same with power) and watching sewage being pumped away. Everything has the perfect sound accompaniment, be it ear-catching (the zoning) or disgusting (the sound of sewage being pumped out, you only hear it when on the sewage tab).

Bits I disliked:

• DRM stopped me from playing the beta for 40 minutes because the servers were overloaded. I got into the game and it disconnected me after 10 minutes. It took about half and hour to get back in. I don't need to say anymore, I can't imagine anything but an appalling launch reminiscent of Error 37.

• The price. Really EA? Really? Being a Brit, I'd like to get the British buildings DLC thing but that will cost me £65, which is ridiculous considering it's a PC only game (I would of thought twice about buying if it was only £30!). I understand games cost a lot to make, but everyone knows this game will sell well no mater what. It seems so pointless to put crippling DRM and an extortionate price tag onto the game.

• The size of the plots. They aren't small, but it's no city. The challenge of Sim City for me was always expanding out of your starting plots and using the rest of the map. I think the game will be better with focused region play (industry cities, residential cites ect.) as you won't need to take up most of the map straight away trying to avoid placing your industry next your your residential (because they are in another city altogether).

• They only give you an hour, which isn't enough!

Overall:

Will I buy it right now? No. I do recommend you try it if you can, it's worth a go just to try out the roads, they really nailed that part.

When it gets a bit cheaper perhaps, I'd also like to see how much content and ideas they are holding back for the obvious expansion (terrain editor, bigger plots, subways, farming - basically all the features in Sim City 4 missing from the game).

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

So far I've only been able to get to the bit where you visit the second city in the tutorial, then we it started loading the first city again I got an error. Haven't been able to start the game again yet... keep getting an error (that is cut off). D:

Edited by Bob, 26 January 2013 - 16:20.

[TheDR]

Bob, on 26 January 2013 - 16:19, said:

So far I've only been able to get to the bit where you visit the second city in the tutorial, then we it started loading the first city again I got an error. Haven't been able to start the game again yet... keep getting an error (that is cut off). D:

I crashed on the tutorial as well. Once you get in again (I reloaded Orgin a few times) you get to create a city.

[CJ]

Hey, you're lucky you got to even start the game, the launcher was stuck at 20% for a few hours, then at 30%, and now it's just displaying this

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

That's the error I'm getting at the moment (except mine is installed).

On a related note, this is my first time using origin, and even that isn't playing nicely. I keep getting a 'Press x for help' message appearing all over the place and I'm not even using origin. >_>

[CJ]

Well, looks like this piece of garbage finally decided to work. I just left it hanging at that loading state and did random shit and it was telling me I needed to restart the launcher to finalize the update. Will post my impressions when I'll actually play the game

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Indeed, seems to be working for me too.

EDIT: Spoke too soon. I can load the game, but still get errors saying that it can't load the city or region. >_>

Edited by Bob, 26 January 2013 - 16:49.

[CJ]

... You're not missing out, I can tell you that much.

The tutorial region size is barely that of one in the Sims, and the city management element appears to have been oversimplified to the point where it's become non-existent...

[Alias]

>only one not to get the beta


;_;

[Slye_Fox]

Alias, on 26 January 2013 - 17:11, said:

>only one not to get the beta

LIES!

I too have not received a key.

And from the vids I've seen; I'm glad I haven't and will be sticking to a far superior SimCity 4.

[Slightly Wonky Robob]

Finally got in.

I agree with Doc, 1 hour isn't nearly enough time. I was just starting to get to grips with things, and then I got a 10 minute warning. D:

Having said that, I did enjoy it... but the price (even if you take the VAT off) is way too high to get it on release and I can see the DRM getting pretty annoying, pretty fast (*gasp*, I know).

Edited by Bob, 26 January 2013 - 17:57.

[CJ]

This game isn't Simcity, it looks like a pale copy of Tropico.

I was bored after 40-ish minutes, didn't even have to suffer the fact that the beta lets you play 1 hour only. There were a few good points like the way roads and plotting works, as well as expandable structures (I liked how the windmills worked for example), but overall I get the impression that this game is geared towards mentally challenged individuals, seeing as how even if you lower the taxes to a ridiculously low amount and plop 2 of each public service building, your budget will still be largely in the green, and your sims will have nothing to complain about.

The management aspect that used to be in previous Simcity games is absent, you have no control over anything, and seeing as how the beta doesn't enable interaction with neighboring cities, I was unable to see if that part of the game did offer anything remotely interesting (but TBH, you could easily build a big city without any need for neighbors since as I said, there's basically no maintenance cost or any kind of funding for public buildings (a single block of small houses more than pays enough taxes to fund an entire school...)

TL;DR : A few good idea lost in a sea of shitty ones. You'd better off be getting "brain-dead simulator 2013" instead of this.

[Liten]

CJ, on 26 January 2013 - 16:29, said:

Hey, you're lucky you got to even start the game, the launcher was stuck at 20% for a few hours, then at 30%, and now it's just displaying this

*Insert Major File here*

[Ion Cannon!]

My first thought was damn this tile is small, seriously it's fucking tiny. It may well be 2x2km but it doesn't even feel that big, mainly because all the roads are so wide. To that extent that the roads seem much to big for such a city and they dominate the map in a way I don't like at all.

It also shouldn't be any suprise that I hate not being able to control the density of buildings other than using the afore-mentioned stupidly wide roads/avenues, I also don't like that you can no longer zone plots, you simply zone residential,commercial or industrial on the road and it grows from that, thus at lower levels using the guide system you'll often have significant amounts of grass in between your buildings ; as the guide seems to lay out roads with the intention of high density. But maybe that will be fixed in a later version.

Call me an elitist but it's way to sodding easy, I was making large amounts of cash per hour with very little management at all. Going back to the tiny maps again, you can fill the tile in 1hr, I imagine it takes much longer to get lots of high rises but even so, I want my game to give me much more game time.

DRM, I don't really need to say much. Having to queue to play single player games... disconnections it's just not on and I refuse to support such nonsense.

Okay, so what do I like? I like the data overviews, I like the variety of buildings and I think the product looks very slick and polished visually.

Am I going to buy it? No, unless it comes down in price, they increase the map size and remove the DRM.

[Soul]

Ion you forgot to mention adding modablity, since EA these days seems very against it :(.

[Sgt. Rho]

Fun, easy to get into, not a sim city...

I find it's way too easy to make a functioning city. *heads back to SC4*

[Ion Cannon!]

For any of those who didn't get to play the beta, here are some videos of what you missed. As you can see the maps are waaaay to small and the game is waaaay to easy.

[Soul]

So the game is released and the servers are down just like D3 and people are mad they can't play .

Edit: Oh yeah and EA plans on releasing DLC for bigger spaces for building cities in apparently.

Edited by Soul, 08 March 2013 - 01:43.

[Slye_Fox]

Fuck EA.

[Raven]

Saw that Amazon has stopped selling the game. I wonder why they even bothered with a beta because they had similar issues in beta also right?

[Soul]

The Beta seemed more like a demo, what with the only letting you play for a limited time thing .

[Libains]

Soul, on 08 March 2013 - 15:27, said:

The Beta seemed more like a demo, what with the only letting you play for a limited time thing .

At least that let you play for a limited time. Now that you're actually paying for the product, you're being restricted from playing!