Screenshots (Pre-Release)

[bri3d 4]

New article (French, translated): http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=fr&tl=en&u=http://www.gamekult.com/articles/A0000067973/

And new screenshots!

I think the most important point is in screenshot #5 - buildings, not lots, with foundations!

[DARKO 3]

Everything looks really good. I guess my only nibbles are this:

1. The terrain. While it looks alright as is I'd like to see some variance on it in the way of bushes/underbrush/grass/wildflowers/varied tree species.....etc. Of course the non snow pics could be in some sort of tundra region, but nonetheless someone hit it on the nail when they said it kinda looks like trees floating on a flight simulator map. The terrain is great but I hope we either can dress it up a bit or more will be done with it by final release.

2. The avenue/median in the city pic I don't care for. I'm hoping we can just have a grass median, park or just plain concrete in their. The orange looks weird.

Also the building on the left in the forefront looks as if it does the same thing buildings have done in every builder I have known. They don't "Snap" conform to the ground/road smoothly. I've always hated that. I wish the buildings could fit the contour of the roads, it would look so much more realistic.

3. Buildings on slope. I wish there was some sort of compromise on this. I just hate those big blocky walls.

Other than that I think it looks marvelous. great job so far!

[Kevin 101]

Loving these new screen shots. I'm going to have a lot of fun with those ski slopes!

[aking88 7]

Looks wonderful, sure wed like more detailed terrain but lets face it its supposed to be able to run on PCs .

The trees and natural background in the distance looks really good here

Keep working on the flora MC .

The pedestrian walkways are still quite broad, most ive walked on are quite a bit thinner...

The inter city travelling will be great in this game im certain . Dont forget to make high speed rail curves leaning... maybe we could even control the angle thereof and maybe for motorways as well?

Also I dont see any buildings designed for wall to wall growth.

The snow-grass transition looks great. Im eager too see how rivers will look. I hope that buildings will line up with diagonal roads.

[doodlea21 31]

THAT'S IT!

...

I am definitely going to buy this game when it's released. Just a few more months to go.

[Simtastico 0]

yeah, looks hot! or cold perhaps since it was a ski resort on the pics hehe

[KingTitan 6]

Wow...just the terraine is enough for me to want to buy this game when it's released.....I can't wait.

[MrCinatit 30]

Yowzer.

Yeah, OK, I agree with the assessment that the trees and avenues could use a little bit of work. But, if the XL crew is listening like it seems very much they are, we just might have the ability to modify the looks of those trees and avenues to the way we want them.

That curved land bridge is the stuff that dreams are made of. Remarkable.

[stratusmonkey 0]

I don't know what it is with SC Societies and now this game, but the roads are too big. I'm sure there are some places where the cars are adrift on wide, empty pavement and crosswalks are as wide as trucks are long. But the curbs / gutters of the sidewalks are almost taller than the cars. In picture 5, the scale looks okay, but still not great.

I realize this is partly driven by how the scale of roads and cars to zones was fudged for SC4, but come on! It's not as if roadways only come in two widths: wide and double-wide.

I know, I know. They're working on it. But I'd figure getting things to the right scale and making fundamental decisions about the transportation network would be at the top of the priority list.

[ford-prefect 5]

Well, in "City Life," the roads were really messed up - they were all the same length, they just made the sidewalk smaller when they wanted to add more lanes, I'll take actually differences in the roads if it means they're a bit wide. What would be really cool, though, if you could have really so many kinds of roads that you could make thin, pedestrian only European cobblestone alleys.

It all looks good, the people look kind of weird, and there seems that like always there's more snow around everywhere than there will usually be in an average city, but that's not too big of a deal. Hopefully you can easily change that in a terrain mode or whatever. Really the things most important to me: freedom to do whatever you want with roads, which seems like that's already true, but what's just as important is that buildings FIT on these curving roads, and that they don't keep on a grid pattern or that buildings can fill up a block without there being a lot of random extra space that wouldn't exist in real life because people would know how to build to the STREET and not building the streets to the BUILDINGS, which is what you've been having to do in pretty much every city building game ever.

[Eʟᴇᴍᴇɴᴛ 273]

looks pretty awsome. Can't wait to get it

the only problem I see is the overall performence and smoothness of the game I'm not sure if my 5 year old computer can handle it. maybe I should get a new computer...

[derwilly 17]

New pictures from the Wired press release!

 

[Micah 16]

The city view is simply amazing; however, the "people" view seems more like SCS, but I guess you can only expect so much from these early-generation 3d city simulators.

[Yeah_Right 2]

im loving it

[mskero 0]

this is so cool

pozz from croatia

[shpangler 19]

I have big doubts about this game, i'm not sure what it is but it doesn't look 'right'? Maybe i'm soo used to seeing SimCity 4, but this looks a tad cartoonish for me. SimCity4 may have had bad graphics but at least the cities looked and felt real to me based on the textures. MOST of these screenshots it seems like the textures are too clean, the roads are too wide. I love the terrain though, thats a plus. I know it's only the beta version right now but thats just how I see it so far...

[danza3343 1]

Originally posted by: Godzillaman

Originally posted by: TimeMaster um... what if the gameplay is sort of like SCS? I mean im not going to play it if you build your own houses (like in SCS)quote>

Seriously, are you blind? There are zones in the last picture...quote>

Well, houses, zones...

It was the same in City Life, you would have to build each induvidual foundation slot. Don't tell me that its like simcity where you can just shift click and cover an entire area, allowing the computer to gracefully calculate the size of houses, lots and spare room that can't be used but instead being used as larger gardens, parking space ect.

This game is over rated.

Simcity is old but at least it still beats every next gen game in terms of detail.

[gabry85 2]

That's not all (thanks, tr0ub1e).

[KingTitan 6]

Oh those are just incredible as well. OMG. I can't wait. The textures look like theyneed to be worked on a bit like the foilage.

-KT

[Muck308 55]

I think I would spend even more time just looking around than building with this game ( same thing I do with sc4) But even more so. It looks fantastic. Look at those bridges!

EDIT- Ooh! and I see that they have Toronto city hall in there. What a great structure

[CarmineHilton 6]

I personally still think that the 3D looks a bit crappy... I mean, SC4 isn't 3D but it's much more sharp!!

That's why I like the game so much The seperate renders of the buildings look quite good though, but ingame it kinda dissapoints me a bit..

[danza3343 1]

Originally posted by: CarmineHilton I personally still think that the 3D looks a bit crappy... I mean, SC4 isn't 3D but it's much more sharp!!

That's why I like the game so much The seperate renders of the buildings look quite good though, but ingame it kinda dissapoints me a bit..

quote>

Technically SC4 is 3D, you are just limited to a 4 choice view point, texture rendering isn't actually very hard or memory hogging, its surprising some of the fail I can spy

Although the ideas for the building designs are nice :3

[GMT 389]

looks like they use the same water engine GTA4 uses... at least it looks pretty much the same with the waves and reflections and how they look and stuff...

anyways, I'm in love!

hope the laptop I get in october can handle it... otherwise I see myself realising my 2.6k€ pc plans :-(

[ExiL3 10]

WOW, now I am really impressed, the textures and city details have gone up quite a bit. I think this game might be fun after all!

[Glenni 1,444]

Originally posted by: ExiL3 WOW, now I am really impressed, the textures and city details have gone up quite a bit. I think this game might be fun after all! quote>

You liked my norwegian house set before? Well too bad you couldn't zoom in on them.. lol, as soon as  the game is released, and we got the tolls to import/export from 3dsmax, i am SOOOO going to make some norwegisan stuff for that game!

[DARKO 3]

I still say those last bunch of shots are not taken with the game having its full array graphically. I mean just look at the cars....that gives it away. I think the shots are in medium setting or possibly even low settings. More likely medium with some other stuff down a notch. Compare them to other shots taken not to long ago and you can see.

One more thing. I actually liked it when the buildings were more brown. Everybody cried about that and overreacted I think. Now they look too light IMO. Cities are brown for the most part. i wish they would have made more of a compromise in that area rather than just appease a few crybabies about everything being too "Brown". it looked more realistic before IMO.

Roads do look very plain and boring. After spending the time and resources on this game thats the best textures for the roads that have been worked up? I find that completley hard to beleive.. I really hope they are not the final version. As well its disappointing to still not see approaches connecting lots and streets/roads. Even if it has no functionality(ie..cars driving up them), why can't we still have driveways for aesthetic reasons alone. It would make everything street level look ten times more realistic. Just that alone.

Really though, other than that, I'm very impressed. A few things need some polishing but overall things are coming along nicely.

[toxicpiano 125]

Originally posted by: danza3343

Originally posted by: CarmineHilton I personally still think that the 3D looks a bit crappy... I mean, SC4 isn't 3D but it's much more sharp!!

That's why I like the game so much The seperate renders of the buildings look quite good though, but ingame it kinda dissapoints me a bit..

quote>

Technically SC4 is 3D, you are just limited to a 4 choice view point, texture rendering isn't actually very hard or memory hogging, its surprising some of the fail I can spy

Although the ideas for the building designs are nice :3quote>

no, it's 2.5D. The buildings, trees, props are all 2D, the Terrain, automata, networks are 3D...

[Glenni 1,444]

Darko might be right actually, it looks like some of the shots are shot when on medium or even low graphic settings.

[MandelSoft 2,769]

EXCELLENT!!!! Can't wait to buy this!

[incuman 0]

The one thing i've alwasy wanted when ever waiting for a new city sim, is curved roads and lots that relate to them.

Not pre made buildings that fit into a triangle or semi circle lot

A way you can zone to fill curved or angular edges of roads, and the building that grows in it would be like all the other square lots, BUT the land it's on changes to line the road with hedges or a wall. So it really looks like the building was designed to fit in the lot whatever shape that lot is.

PLUS grass land around houses to look like the none zoned terrain over the fence.

Oh and that over head pictures amazing!