ILL Tonkso

So, this is kind of a post from 3 fronts: 1: Ok, I am drunk, sorry. It's Saturday Night, well Sunday Morning, whatever. 2: I realised I have 3,999 posts, and now my OCD is going mental and I can't sleep. This needs rectifying, 3: I started modding Banished over at www.banishedmods.com

Yikes!! I was just checking out how the community has evolved, not coming back as a modder, sorry :s Love the response though :s

How much does everyone miss me, I mean really? God I can be narcissistic sometimes.

Ok, it has been a while since I played the Eurogamer build. I have noticed that a lot of what I said was missing, is no longer missing. The game has improved, drastically. Still not sure if I will buy (I need to upgrade first anyway) until the game has had time to mature though. There is still a way to go until it reaches the level of depth that Sim City 4 Vanilla offered. I also want to clarify again, I am not one of those boring 'I HATE EA!!' types, they gave us 4, remember? I would love to have a chat with the devs over a beer one day Or skype Hint hint I am still working at Portsmouth University on the Games Research and Development stuff (Pigs will be out soon, by the way) and I would love to build up some contact between Maxis and the University. People have asked me to do a proper review one day too, when I play it properly, I will. I was a little unfair last time!

Wow, ok this got a little too serious. Please bare in mind that I did play an early build. I played the game at the London Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court. I wanted to get a good feel for the game, see how it played, see how in depth the gameplay experience was, all in a relatively short window (10 min). I would like to clarify at this point that I am not necessarily saying Sim City 2013 is a bad game, what I AM saying however is that it is not the game this community is looking for. Over the years, we have built up from an already quite complex game to something truly magnificant, though for the purposes of this 'review'* it is prudent to compare to the boxed product, not the community modded product we all know and love today. One of the great things about the Sim City series has always been the control you are given over how financial resources are distrbuted and raised. When starting a fresh new city in Sim City 4, many choose to lower the funding for city utlities to cover only what they need and maximise their income. In Sim City 2013 I was unable to find this feature and was instead presented with the option to either shut down my Power Station, or turn it back on. If this feature is indeed present in 2013, it wasn't anywhere where I could find it clearly and intuitively. Another major issue I had, was the size of the city I was given, and the lack of terraforming to boot. Long time fans of the series have prided themselves with creating sprawling metropolises, connected by a network of Roads, Railways, Highways, Subways and even Ferries. The city sizes offered by 2013 don't seem to offer this potential, though this could be rectified with a 'region' set up, such as that in Sim City 4. The lack of terraforming however presents an issue as players - as in the real world - have always found it necessary to sometimes bend the land around their will; cuttings for railways, land reclaimation for docks, etc. The departure from the grid is welcome, on the roads tool you are presented with the option for freeform roads or straight roads. If you wish to build on a grid pattern, you can, if you wish to follow the contours of the land, you can. Zoning hugs the roads much more efficiently than in Cities XL, though this was occasionally prone to bugs, possibly due to the nature of the early build. The inclusion of Trams is nice, the community is particularly proud of its 'Ground Light Rail' mod and this demonstrates that someone at Maxis is paying attention. There were some graphical glitches here, but again this is likely attributed to the early build. At the moment, I am not sold on it. Gameplay wise many of my criticisms can be resolved - more control over the allocation of finances (micromanagement), the implementation of SC4 style 'region' play - though many will likely remain unresolved. One thing that has come up time and time again is the necessity of a connection to Origin, as someone with an Internet connection that likes to drop out every few hours, this could lead to frustration and is known to be an unpopular feature in contemporary titles besides. Alas, I will not be buying at retail price (maybe on a Steam Sale?), but if you get a chance to try it, do so. Much of this community will stick to 4 I imagine, though some of you may like it.

I got to play it today, I have to be honest, I didn't like it. WAY too simple, way too restricting. Copied and pasted from my Work/Uni facebook group. Names and pics of others removed. 34 minutes ago · Daniel R Tonks Firstly, I feel like how die hard C&C fans must have felt. Just to let you know what to expect from this... I opened up the game, the first thing I noticed was that the map was bloody small, I mean seriously small. The game map does not get much larger. If you want to build a sprawling Metropolis (very possible in 4), forget it. I zoned a few buildings, standard SC gameplay right there, no grid which is something the community has wanted for a while. I noticed I was losing money so I clicked on my Power Station to lower its funding. In SC when you have a new city, it's good practice to lower utility funding to provide only what your city needs as otherwise you are just burning money... I was provided with the option to turn the Power Station on or off... no micromanagement in Sim City!? Surely not! Zones overlapped, the things like fire stations and town halls took up too much space. You can't build a dense compact city in this game, you seem limited to US Midwest. The modding community can get around this though. You had the option to add bits to buildings which was a nice touch, credit where credit is due. They added the option to build Tram Tracks on your roads (but only big roads and no off-street running like the community modded into SC4). Whilst limited it was nice to have, though the tram tracks didn't match up visually at junctions, offset by a metre or so. A minor irritation I suppose but sloppy. Overall, I ended up telling people they were wrong to play it. I became 'that' guy. 34 minutes ago · Daniel R Tonks Essentially, EA have taken a massive, in depth game where the community has demonstrated time and time again in the 9 years since Sim City 4's release that they want to build massive, sprawling metropolises and micromanage the $%&^! out of them... then turned it toy town Sims extension. 32 minutes ago · Edited · Daniel R Tonks Now I know many of you are reading this and thinking 'Dan, get a life', but when a game manages to maintain an active community of this magnitude (a community I play a huge role in might I add) 9 years after the games release, I cannot understand how EA can get it so wrong. They have aimed this at The Sims crowd, completely ignoring the crowd which got Maxis where it is in the first place. Total abuse of a franchise to milk as much as they can out of another. This is Sim City, a geeks city builder, not The Sims. Rant over. Skyrim time. 29 minutes ago · How does it honestly play in a non ultra hobbyist way? I'm a casual player and I think societies was painfully $%&^!. Meta-critically, what do you think it would get? 25 minutes ago · "Firstly, I feel like how die hard C&C fans must have felt." YOU'LL NEVER KNOW OUR PAIN!!!!!!!! 24 minutes ago · I've waited for really niche simulators which have been ruined by spastic publishers. 22 minutes ago · Can you still zone, build schools and raise taxes for the poor? Or do you have to place individual buildings and roads? 21 minutes ago · Wait wasn't Sim city going to be a facebook game? 20 minutes ago · That's already out 19 minutes ago · Is it bad to the point where 4 modded is more worthwhile or is this game just a disappointment considering the improvements that could have been made??? 11 minutes ago · Daniel R Tonks You can zone, but it doesn't always work quite right with the curved road system (this will probably be fixed to be fair). The taxes/micromanagement system seemed to be missing/extensively cut down. Sim City with Mods (and a Computer that can cope with that large a plugins folder) is infinitely better if you make sure you don't unbalance it. about a minute ago · Like

Wow I was lame 6 years ago. I also didn't understand grammar or spellcheck.

Argentina need to back off. NOBODY needs another War. The Falkland inhabitants are the indigineous population. There were no 'natives' before them, they are the natives. Argentina has constantly accused the UK of colonialism when it is Argentina who wish to colonise the islands against the islanders will. I have to gripe with Argentina, that would be a foolish and knee-jerk attitude to have. However, I do think their government is absolutely disgusting in its attitude towards the Falkland islanders. My Dad recently visited the Falklands (as a Veteran of the War) and some of the stories he heard are absolutely shocking. Soldiers defecating in childrens toyboxes, citizens marched to a makeshift detention camp in Port Stanley Community Centre if they caused trouble (which actually comes under the modern definition of Ethnic Cleansing). It is no wonder that the people want nothing to do with Argentina. The war itself was a mess, many of the ships the Argentine Navy had at the time were built by the British, one of them - a Type 42 - had been built only a year earlier! It is a shame really, before the 1980's the relationship between Argentina and the Falklands was very good. The millitary Junta of the time ruined that, Kercher has a golden opportunity to rebuild bridges by recognising the islanders right to self determination, but she wont.