Cities XL single player hands on impressions

[deanco 0]

Note: I like Sim City-like games, but am not insane about them.  This is from the point of view of a causal sim player.

OK, got the game yesterday, put in several hours.

First, the good.  The prettiest Sim City ever.  Easy on the eye.  Two, the gameplay seems to be simplified a bit, and for a casual player, that's a good thing.  I just wanna slap the zones down without worrying too much about the details, and this lets me do that.

Now, the bad, in no order:

The login screen doesn't remember your password.  You must type it in every time.

Worse, it appears you can't even play single player if your internet connection is down.  This is hugely bad.  I have the (French) box next to me, nowhere does it say you need a connection to play at all, which in Europe, is a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Text and icons WAAAAY too small at 1680x1050.  Even blowing up the UI to 100% in the options doesn't help.

The middle mouse wheel rotate is way too sensitive.  The slightest motion sends it spinning uncontrollably.  Nobody in beta commented on this?  If somebody finds an .ini with this setting, please let me know.

The 2X, 3X etc time speed controls are too tiny, and the display of the time multiplier is covered up by the little clock, making it impossible to see what multiplier you're at half the time.

The info icons to the right, if you click on one that has a lot of elements to it, then click one, it gets bigger, covering up the elements to the top and bottom of it, making it hard to click on them subsequently.

I feel like I'm in the beta, actually.  The above bugs, I didn't even have to go looking for them; they found me.

In terms of the game, it really appears the single player is hugely gimped in favor of the MMO part.  No buses, trams, or trains.  The trading part is the most blatant.  You only have the one guy, his prices are through the roof, and 90% of the time, he doesn't want to trade anyway.  Would it have killed them to have several AI's, insuring you could get the resources you need?  As it stands, if you don't have oil, you may as well forget about manufacturing.

While we're at it, why do I have to go to the trade screen to see the resources I need?  For a game that basically tells me how to play it, couldn't there be a message, 'you need electricity'?  The first inkiling of that is the icons over the buildings.  At any rate, for scarce goods, it doesn't matter, since the AI won't trade.  Finally, in the trade screen, I have -1 of electricity, say.  What do I need to build to get it up to 0?  The description of the power plant: 'produces some electricity'.  That's a big help.

Needs several patches, but mainly, needs to bring the offline game more in line with the MMO part, so I don't feel like I bought half a game.

[Soviet779 1]

Lame 

[ifurkend 0]

> The middle mouse wheel rotate is way too sensitive. The slightest motion sends it spinning uncontrollably. Nobody in beta commented on this? If somebody finds an .ini with this setting, please let me know.

Complained many times during the beta. Maybe the mouses in MC have extremely low wheel sensitivity.

[deanco 0]

Any questions potential buyers might have, I'll be hanging out here for the next hour or so, feel free to ask.

[Brandon8181 0]

I sent a message to Cities XL /Monte Cristo about do they in the future have any thought what so ever in their head about POSSIBLY adding mass transportation to single player mode, and got no respone from them. Go figure.

Thanks for the review Deanco, really appreciate it

Good luck, Cities XL.

[deanco 0]

The gimping goes even further. In education, for example, there is the elementary school, the high school, and the university, according to the website. In my game, I only see 2 of the 3, university isn't there.

I have a free week of the online thing, I'm gonna login, start making a city, and play spot the difference.

[Brandon8181 0]

Deanco,

When playing the game did you notice that any buildings were developing side by side, or really close together?

I had heard from the beta and demo that there didn't seem to be enough buildings and they were developing close together or even right next to each other in most cases.

Did you experience this at all?

Thanks,

Brandon

[8elhaj 0]

Originally posted by: deanco

The gimping goes even further. In education, for example, there is the elementary school, the high school, and the university, according to the website. In my game, I only see 2 of the 3, university isn't there.

I have a free week of the online thing, I'm gonna login, start making a city, and play spot the difference.quote>

You have to unlock it.

Also for the other post: you can play the game offline once activated without conection. Just put your login and password and it will give you the option of playing Solo Mode without even a conection on the computer.

p.s:Can you please guys dont make a "review" untill you are sure of what you guys are saying.

[Livin in Sim 83]

[michael63000 0]

Monte Cristo stole my money

[Brandon8181 0]

Michael63000,

What happened?

Brandon

[michael63000 0]

They did not send me a key or CD yet

[Brandon8181 0]

Did you do the digital download?  I can't believe you haven't gotten you key yet.

Did you email their customer support?

Brandon

[michael63000 0]

no, i did box copy. should i email them? i'm so sad

I ordered it a day before the release and they said on forums, they give key today and no key, not even the CD shipped.

[Brandon8181 0]

Yes, I would e-mail them for sure, and atleast see what they have to say.

I'm sure they have some kind of explination.  I really doubt that they "took your money" on purpose.

I'm sure they would be glad to help you.

Good luck with everything.   I hope your able to get it addressed.

Brandon

[deanco 0]

It's not a review of the game, as I said in the title.

Brandon, I'm not sure exactly what you're asking. If you're talking about graphical gliches, I haven't seen any. Laying out zones, even irregular ones, seems to work OK.

[Shanie 0]

You have to give them a couple days on shipping and handling. You should have went digital download if you wanted it today (on Steam). They've been processing orders the last 5 days.

[Brandon8181 0]

Deanco,

Sorry,

I may not have been clear...

But, what I was asking, do you see the same type of building developing right next to each other.

For an example: Do you see 2 industries that are the exact same developing right next to each other

Or 2 houses that look exactly the same developing right next to each other.

Thanks,

Brandon

[michael63000 0]

Is that good if two industries or buildings are developing next to each other the same type?

[sparky66 0]

Originally posted by: michael63000

Is that good if two industries or buildings are developing next to each other are the same type?quote>

depends how you look at it. i live in the UK and the houses along my road are all 1930's semi detached houses all built to the same basic design plus a few bungalows and detached houses of a similar style. they were all built with minor detail variations e.g. different design of bay windows, some built without bay windows, different bricks, colous etc. but are basically the same.

also, often when a developer buys a plot of land big enough for a couple of houses they will be built to the same design to save money.

[deanco 0]

Yes, you do see that, but the effect is not ugly. An effort was made to randomize it, and it works. You don't see, for example, 6 houses in a block that have the same design, they mix it up.

[mmmfloorpie 0]

I only heard about this game 3 days ago and when I did, my head literally exploded. I am a huge Sim City fan and am starting to think that EA is never going to make a Sim City 5. Therefore, Cities XL has really stoked my interest. As a result, I pre ordered from a local store here and I also bought a new video card just to play this game. I should say that right now I am unemployed and don't have alot of money to spend, so the money that I have already put into this game marks a pretty significant investment. In the past 3 days, my excitement has turned to disappointment to outrage. I am super po'd that the single player version of this game is so incomplete. Mass transit should NOT be extra, it should be included in the game! I could really care less about the online portion of the game. That is where Monte Cristo REALLY screwed up. These games have NEVER been about multiplayer MMO garbage. They are about SINGLEPLAYER! You lock yourself in your room for a month and painstakeningly sit there and perfect your city. The more intricate and nuanced that the sim is, the better. I don't want a game that is "dumbed down" for casual players or that is focused on the online portion. I want a complicated game that has lots of options and takes weeks (if not months) to complete.

One of my questions is, do the buildings build themselves? In all true Sim City games, there is the RCI indicator and buildings build randomly. In some of the trailers, all of the buildings just pop out of the ground at once. Is there no "construction" phase? Are the buildings placed there by the player? Please fill me in.

I hate to this, but I'm seriously considering cancelling my order. I don't WANT to play online and I really resent how MC is forcing us to play online by locking features and making us pay for them twice.

[gabry85 2]

^^^ My advice: if you're not sure about the game right now, cancel your order immediately. Take your time and read the blogs and as many threads as you can here at ST. Then make a decision. If you're sure it's worth your money, buy it.

No offense, but one shouldn't buy a game in a blink of an eye because of a few pictures... especially if they're running out of money.

Hope this helps.

[mmmfloorpie 0]

Originally posted by: gabry85

^^^ My advice: if you're not sure about the game right now, cancel your order immediately. Take your time and read the blogs and as many threads as you can here at ST. Then make a decision. If you're sure it's worth your money, buy it.

No offense, but one shouldn't buy a game in a blink of an eye because of a few pictures... especially if they're running out of money.

Hope this helps.

quote>

No offence, but I'm not an idiot. I consider myself to be a pretty savy person and I pick and choose which games I buy. My favourite type of game is the "sim" type and I despise anything involving killing aliens or being a WW2 soldier and killing Nazi-zombies... I watched every trailer for the game and generalized reception was pretty positive. What made me come to this forum was I noticed that there was all this talk about how easy roads are to build and NOWHERE was there any discussion about building mass transit. I wanted to confirm that there was in fact mass transit. Well, I was able to confirm that there is mass transit but only in multiplayer... That really angered me as I've noticed it has angered many here...

The very first thing that made me stop and think was the "planet offer" of how you have to pay for multiplayer and "patches". I HATE when companies charge for multiplayer but I'm not at all interested in multiplayer so what did I care? What really confused me was that patches were restricted to the online portion of the game. Like, if the game ships with a bug, we have to pay to update it? That I didn't get.

It really sucks for the fans of city builders... EA has totally abandoned the genre and even if they came out with a Sim City 5, I have a feeling that it would be a striped down, bare bones version that would largely be aimed at children. Sim City 4 was a good game, but it wasn't "polished" as much as a game should be. So you can forgive me if I got a little excited about it...

Last year, I got burned badly on Spore. I bought it the day it came out, played it for 48 hours and haven't touched it since. The gameplay was SO shallow that I beat the entire thing in a few hours. This is how EA makes sims nowadays and it looks like it's the way Monte Cristo wants to make games this way as well.

Unfortunately, all the money is put into first person shooters nowadays... I guess it's back to SimFarm for me!

Oh, BTW I cancelled my order. Sorry MC.

[deanco 0]

Originally posted by: mmmfloorpie

One of my questions is, do the buildings build themselves? In all true Sim City games, there is the RCI indicator and buildings build randomly. In some of the trailers, all of the buildings just pop out of the ground at once. Is there no "construction" phase? Are the buildings placed there by the player? Please fill me in.quote>

I'll answer anyway...

Yes, the buildings pop up, like Sim City zoning.  What's more, they never evolve.  If it's Unqualified Low Density, it will stay that way, the buildings never get 'nicer'.  What's worse, they never devolve into slums either.  For buildings that are in trouble, instead of slums, it appears you get a black soot texture over the basic building, and of course you have an icon over it, saying it's not growing or whatever.  The icon, while nice that it indicates there's a problem, sort of breaks immersion, as it's really the only thing that mars the bird's eye view from looking like a real city from afar.

[mmmfloorpie 0]

Originally posted by: deanco

Originally posted by: mmmfloorpie

One of my questions is, do the buildings build themselves? In all true Sim City games, there is the RCI indicator and buildings build randomly. In some of the trailers, all of the buildings just pop out of the ground at once. Is there no "construction" phase? Are the buildings placed there by the player? Please fill me in.quote>

I'll answer anyway...

Yes, the buildings pop up, like Sim City zoning.  What's more, they never evolve.  If it's Unqualified Low Density, it will stay that way, the buildings never get 'nicer'.  What's worse, they never devolve into slums either.  For buildings that are in trouble, instead of slums, it appears you get a black soot texture over the basic building, and of course you have an icon over it, saying it's not growing or whatever.  The icon, while nice that it indicates there's a problem, sort of breaks immersion, as it's really the only thing that mars the bird's eye view from looking like a real city from afar.quote>

So no gentrification is possible!?

I always thought it was silly that the buildings change so much in previous sims... Like if a 100 story sky scraper is built, it should probably NEVER disappear... And it should take years to build, not seconds.

But, the smaller density buildings should be able to change more... But if a building changes into a better building, then that building should be locked... If the neighbourhood turns into a ghetto, then the look of the building should be dirty and gross... Sim City 4 was like this. The buildings wouldn't disappear as much, they'd just turn black.

[IonWind 3]

My hands on impressions on single player? I haven't got any so far. I start from the beginning:

I pre-ordered the game after I had lurked in the CU/CXL forums for a year and a half. I was really, really hyped at some point until PO raised its ugly head and overrun the single player concept. I became more and more worried that the game might finally end up somewhere really far from what I (and as it seems, many other hard-core city builder fanatics) had hoped for.

The demo wasn't encouraging but I still preordered though I still wasn't sure if I wanted the game - I wanted to give this game a chance at least.

I saw some hope when I read the manual, under the single-player features: "This content is not final. More will be added to during future updates and upgrades." I had time to read the manual since I got the game on Oct. 6th while MC launched the game as they had promised, around Oct. 8th and 9th for everybody - Also for those who had preordered. I somehow got the idea that pre-ordering means that you get the game before those who didn't preorder and you could also pre-play it. But no.

So. I still haven't got anything except for the scent of a newly opened game box. When I try to launch the game there's the message from MC that I'll have to download an update. The launcher tries to download but it soon fails. I know the problem might be at my end too but I'd be happy if there would be some more information than just "Download failed."

So far the pluses and minuses on the whole gaming experience:

+ The newly opened game case scent

+ One promising prhase on the manual

- Pre-order didn't equal to pre-play

- Download failed

Sigh.

[stevens_uk 0]

All of this negativity makes me wish I hadn't bought the game

I am extremely disapointed by the fact we wont have mass tansit and if u do have to go online to play Single player mode im going to be a bit screwed in that respect.

And as futile as this may sound I'm guttered the game wont have sound effects, like the sound of the urban city etc, just makes the game for me.

Either way the game is on it's way to me, will give it a shot for myself (that's if I can play on it at home without a internet connection)

[Attila464 2]

If only MC had taken a hint or 2 from their beta forums

[LordOscar 0]

Originally posted by: stevens_uk

(that's if I can play on it at home without a internet connection)quote>

You can't. French players have confirmed today you need to connect to your online account each time you want to play, even in solo mode.