Sim City 5

[rjord]

I purchased it a couple of hours ago........ installed it without any issue and it went and picked up the latest updates.

 

It found a server straight away and have had no issues with this game. Yes the developer messed up with the server issue but they are working on the issue and anyone still having issues should have this resolved soon. 

 

It is a fun game and I have not experienced any of the negative issues going around at the moment. 

 

You are building your city, everything is going well and suddenly you look at your screen and half your city is in flames due to a disaster. This is not like prior simcity games... for example if you do not react to the fire engulfing your city it will spread and you can say bye bye city.

 

 

Roy

[gizmosellsbunnys]

EA sucks, want to prevent theft, do what steam does and the issues not paying for the game why should I pay for product requires being online to use it, but something else will take the place of sim city. 

[EngineRoom]

 

I also wouldn't call this a single player game. Although you're not literally playing WITH someone, you cannot build as successfully a city without using your neighbor cities for various resources. 

 

Absolutely correct. I think a lot of people don't really understand this.

 

The game allows you to build cities in one of about a dozen regions. Each region can have anything from three to eleven cities. The cities within a region can interact with eachother, buying or selling things like water, coal, oil, or even emergency services coverage. Your sims can commute between cities for work. The cities can take advantage of the geography, for example one city might have an abundance of oil or coal but be short of water. They can trade that oil or coal to neighbouring cities and bring water in. A city with several colleges or universities might produce a very well educated workforce, which could commute to work in a neighbouring city with lots of high tech industry. You can specialise cities along any number of various lines, such as mining, tourism, commercial, etc. Cities can also collaborate on "great works" which are joint projects like building an international airport or a giant solar power farm.

 

The idea is each player takes control of a city in a region and then interacts with the other cities to develop together. That's where the online element comes in. It is possible to play a closed game where a single player controls all the cities, but I'd imagine trying to juggle several cities at once is quite a tall order.

 

It's a fun game.

[EngineRoom]

EA sucks, want to prevent theft, do what steam does and the issues not paying for the game why should I pay for product requires being online to use it, but something else will take the place of sim city. 

 

Pretty much all the Steam games get pirated. Steam and EA have two very different attitudes towards piracy. Steam's is far more sensible, I'll grant you that. By going online only they're not making it impossible to pirate, they're just making it too difficult for the casual pirate.

 

As I explained above, whilst Sim City is not expressly a multiplayer game, it is meant to be played online with others.

[turner112]

Guys -

 

First, let me say that I wish all games in which I'm interested were reviewed here, like this.... much lower hyperbole level and generally a more even-headed approach. (Hey, flight pun. Moving on..)

 

I was really looking forward to this (as were my 13-yo daughter and 11-yo son) but the DRM backlash made me lose all interest until resolved. I am also a little disappointed in what I'm reading about limited city size.

 

It's still way more expensive than I think it should be  - I get the impression EA is trying to recover dev costs very quickly.

 

That said, the notes here about the DRM / Server issues being "fixed" (or at least significantly improved" are welcome news.

[EngineRoom]

The price... yes it is steep but then put it in perspective... It costs me £70 to fill the petrol tank in my very modest car. The anniversary restaurant meal I had with my wife last month cost £50 and wasn't particularly good. A Pizza Hut takeaway for a movie night indoors costs about £25-30. A trip to the cinema with my niece and nephew will weigh in at around £30. A new Blu-Ray release will cost £20. The montly big grocery shop hits about £200 and doesn't even fill the fridge and cupboards of a small kitchen.

 

If nothing else it's just the increasingly corporate EA capitalising on an extremely famous, successful, popular and long established franchise. Make of that what you will.

 

Price, DRM and server issues aside it is a fun game, and I suppose that's the most important thing at the end of the day when you're talking about a game.

 

You'll get a lot more mileage out of this than any of the £45 Call of Duty releases or their (many) clones.

[g_precentralis]

I guess its all about life priorities. I would give 60 euros for any kind of social activity (restaurant, cinema, party with gf and/or friends), but someone else would buy as many games as can which is fine (without any intention to call them antisocial, game addicted or so).

Simcity 5 is a very good game no doubt, but I do not have to play it now, I can wait for sale. :smile:

[peppy197]

I managed to get into a server and create a really nice city/town. Its a really awesome game, it seems they have fixed the server connectivity issue(s). 

 

There are 1,535 1 star reviews on Amazon against 53 5 star reviews. Really goes to show just how bad the errors are/were.

 

True enough

 

Thanks for the heads up about this

 

Never seen ratings this REAL BAD, an EPIC FAILURE !!

 

 

 

You can see that the 5* gained 13 votes against a whopping 1200 1* votes since you read it.

 

'Even the few 5-star reviews that exist are meant sarcastically to amuse and entertain'

 

allen

[Lowflyer]

Guys -

 

First, let me say that I wish all games in which I'm interested were reviewed here, like this.... much lower hyperbole level and generally a more even-headed approach. (Hey, flight pun. Moving on..)

 

I agree. Maybe AVSIM could set up a casual games section for those of us who sometimes likes to lower ourselves beneath the "serious simmer" level. :rolleyes:

[z06z33]

Give it a week or two someone will have hacked it to be able to play offline

[nateanderson]

I have owned all the SimCity versions and I think my kids had all the Sims versions and expansions, but am waiting to see what happens with this one. I don't understand the need to be online for single player. Why not have a process by which a city, after being built offline, can be "incorporated" into the SimCity world if the player desires? Options would be limited, but that would be the choice of the player. This would let the sim work in situations where there is no decent internet connection, such as a long layover in an airport without good wifi (which is most of them).

 

The DRM issue is going to be an ongoing issue. Even FSX requires online activation. Piracy is a problem, but destroying the experience for honest users is hardly a solution. Steam games can be hacked more easily than SimCity 5 but COD BO2 still sold 1 billion dollars in 15 days. Walmart loses some profit to shoplifting, but they haven't resorted to clipping a monitor to each person who walks in the store. One of the lies about piracy is the amount of revenue lost which is claimed by the software companies. Actually, many of the pirates wouldn't have bought the game even if the DRM was bulletproof. Either they don't have the money or they're more interested in hacking than playing. To count all those as "lost sales" is simply a false assumption.

 

Another problem with DRM is that the game activation, play and content is safe only as long as the software company exists and maintains its servers. We who use FSX have discussed this a lot in regard to activation and weather. Will MS still be providing this service in five years when I rebuild my computer? By then my FSX will be 12 years old and MS has earned exactly $69.99 from me when I bought FSX the day it was released. Fortunately MS has been a stable company, but even they have pulled the plug on new DLC for Flight, leaving a lot of people with broken dreams. Another issue with EA DRM is that for the money received for a single software sale, they will have to maintain the data of every player who ever plays SimCity 5 for an indefinite period. That means monthly server bills, without additional revenue. Software game companies go belly up every month. What then? Ultimately it seems that software requiring a server will eventually require a fee.

 

I haven't yet decided about SimCity 5. But it will be interesting to see how these issues sort themselves out in the long run.

 

Ben

[EngineRoom]

True enough

 

Thanks for the heads up about this

 

Never seen ratings this REAL BAD, an EPIC FAILURE !!

 

simcity.jpg

 

You can see that the 5* gained 13 votes against a whopping 1200 1* votes since you read it.

 

'Even the few 5-star reviews that exist are meant sarcastically to amuse and entertain'

 

allen

 

Want to take a guess at how many people who "reviewed" it actually own the game?

[g_precentralis]

Can you review at amazon if you do not buy a product you want to review?

[Talek]

Most stupid AI i"ve ever seen .....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=g418BSF6XBQ#!

[Guest]

Bought the game this afternoon (on dvd), came home, installed it, was immediately able to play it. Big fun. No problems. DRM? I don't care. Being online permanently isn't a problem nowadays. I don't care too much for the multiplayer part but I can have big fun on my own protected region without anyone else bothering me. It's a fun little game to play when you've got nothing better to do. Looks nice too. Love how you can zoom in and check everything out. Nice sounds also. Yes, fun game.