Some SimCity reviews

[Wilkono 2]

I found thes reviews online that chronicle some of the issues that reviewers and players alike are having with their SimCity game. Quoted below:

 

"the preview code we've been playing has been keen on crashing with irritating regularity, and when it isn't asking whether or not we'd like to quit due to the game's instability, it fluctuates between frame rates of seven to seventy-five."

 

"it's hard not to think of the game as an expansion pack with some pretty new models and spangly graphical effects"

 

"And speaking of glitches, I ran into a bug while saving files. If I quit the game and selected the "Yes, Iwant to save my city" option, I was never able to open those files again, leaving my poor cities of St. Liu-y and Freakmont to languish in the ghetto of file corruption"

 

Link here and here

 

Yes - these are reviews for SimCity 4. I thought some perspective would be appropriate, amongst all the Simcity 2013 bashing. Legitimate complaints aside, frustration seems to still be boiling over from the initial server problems that plagued the release. Since then, my Simcity 2013 game has been running fantastically. No crashes, no lost cities.

 

But even if these things were present in my game, it wouldn't be the first time. I sought out these reviews as I remember, clearly, the initial problems with Simcity 4's financial model, income fluctuations and the extreme difficulty - not to mention that the graphics were behind the time, but still heavy on system resources. It was utterly riddled with bugs which were all patched. The community over the past ten years has done a great deal to further optimise the game, but only relying on the official Maxis patches, I was quite satisfied with my SimCity 4 game in the long term.

 

If I had any message, it would be that a measure of patience might be appropriate - the many bugs that are being repoted to Maxis currently will most likely be removed in future patches. It's already been patched six times (I think?) since release, mostly major downloads. While Simcity 4 seems to be the benchmark for expectations at the moment, it started off as a messy, buggy, resource hungry monster that mirrors many of the same issues that are present in Simcity 2013.

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

Actually, people are experiencing with their cities being deleted from servers.  It sounds like you've gotten lucky so far.

 

Personally, I'd love to see this game turn into the true successor to SimCity 4, but that will take a lot of time at the least.  Its online nature means it will never be as modifiable.  I just don't think it has staying power.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

When I bought SC4 back in 2003, I remember starting a thread about being addicted and not getting sleep. I was able to open the package, insert the disc in my cd drive, install and play. I remember one night I started playing at 11pm and had to peel myself off at 7:30 the next evening. I didn't use any custom content until many months later when I finally got the nerve to learn how to do it and hunt down dependencies. It had it's issues but none that were irreparable due to core game design. You cannot compare SC13 to SC4 as an argument as though there was no difference. There is a huge difference here.

[Indiana Joe 1,750]

When I bought SC4 back in 2003, I remember starting a thread about being addicted and not getting sleep. I was able to open the package, insert the disc in my cd drive, install and play. I remember one night I started playing at 11pm and had to peel myself off at 7:30 the next evening. I didn't use any custom content until many months later when I finally got the nerve to learn how to do it and hunt down dependencies. It had it's issues but none that were irreparable due to core game design. You cannot compare SC13 to SC4 as an argument as though there was no difference. There is a huge difference here.

 

To be fair, those who have actually been able to stay connected to the servers have their own all-nighter claims already.  It doesn't seem like a particularly bad strategy game; I don't think it will be a flop.  The real question is, will we see a massive community still around for it in 10 years like with SC4?

[stringerbell 9]

I think the all-nighters for SC13 are a result of people wanting to get as much play time in while the thing is actually working for a continuous period of time, rather than actually being completely enthralled with the game.

 

That is certainly the case for me, and now that I have actually been able to play for a decent amount of time I'm finding the game so incredibly limiting that I'm already feeling like Ive seen and done all I want to in this game.

[Mr_Maison 2,426]

But SC4 did not have a massive backlash with cries for refunds. I'm not saying I didn't have my frustrations dealing with the "no job zots" in the beginning. To be honest it took me a long time to learn how to get my cities stable and budgets in the black. There was something I had to learn that was already in place. Even though SC4 has a huge following ten years later, it is a following of individual "mayors" who like to make their individual worlds. And we come to various sites like this one to share. SC4 is so versatile when it comes to being creative and I think that gives it a big advantage to having a long life span. For those who are having fun....cool. Glad they are not feeling cheated but I would for once like to see those who been playing SC4 get that next gen version of the SC we know. It's not impossible.