Category: Gaming

I can’t blog about Defiance

Posted on by Nimgimli

I keep meaning to write up a big fat blog post about Defiance, but every time I think about doing so, I realize I could instead spend that time playing, so that’s what I do. That’s the mark of a game that’s an excellent fit for me; I play it every time I get a free moment.

You can find plenty of things to complain about in this game. It’s still fairly buggy, the UI is kind of awful (maybe less so if you’re using a controller, but I’m not 100% convinced of that) and it overall lacks polish. In spite of all that, I’m head over heel in love with it, at least for this week. (You know me and my gaming ADD.)

On the bright side, they’ve had a decent launch week on the PC. Decent, not super. Servers still come down too often for emergency patches and stuff, but to the best of my knowledge the PC servers haven’t had any extended outages or outrageous queue times. I guess the Xbox 360 version hasn’t fared as well, though.

But playing the game is a hell of a lot of fun and you always have many options. You can follow the main questline or the episode questline (and I assume we’re getting a new episode quest once a week one the show starts up on April 15th). You can do side quests. You can explore in an attempt to complete Pursuits or to learn about the lore and backstory of the game (Pursuits also give EGO levels). You can race vehicles. You can roam around taking on random spawns alone. You can jump into ArkFalls and join a mass of players taking on huge encounters. You can do structured PvP or open world PvP. [Disclaimer: I haven’t actually tried the PvP…hopefully it’s all up and working!] You can join with friends to do co-op instances. You can do solo instance challenges. You can complete Contracts to earn favor with one faction or another. Taking a page from Guild Wars 2, almost everything you do in Defiance earns you some kind of boon.

(This one looks best in HD.)

The problem is that almost none of this (except completing quests) is obvious when you first start playing. Well, the main quest and side quests are pretty obvious, but a lot of this stuff is tucked into the Goals system and the game never points you at that as a source of things to do. It should. In the same way it never really tells you to check out the Intel system for more about the world (a lot of lore is fed to you via audio transmissions).

Here’s an audio log example. Not one of the best, but I chose it because it has no spoilers in it:

A couple of warnings: Defiance is a shooter, not an RPG. You don’t have stats and you do need to be able to aim. In theory you could set yourself up as a kind of healer but I’m not sure there’s enough there to make that a rewarding career path. Basically you really need to want to shoot stuff to get much out of the game. It’s also still rough. If bugs, server crashes and a lack of polish is going to drive you nuts, give this one a pass for now.

As an MMO there’s a lot we expect that isn’t there: banks, a mail system, an auction house. “Levels” are here in the form of an EGO Rating and that’s mostly just there to gate content. Some weapons require a minimum EGO Rating, and as your rating goes up you unlock inventory slots, loadout slots and things like that. You do ‘rank up’ in weapons and vehicles; when you do you’ll get a minor adjustment. Extra boost time in vehicles, slightly less ‘bloom’ (bullet spread) with weapons…things like that. Nothing all that over-powering. There are only 4 skills and you can only equip 1 at a time. There are lots of passive ‘perks’ to earn, though.

Honestly it’s hard for me to quantify what I love about Defiance, but I’ll try. I love that I can jump in and play for 10 minutes and feel like I got something done, but if I have 3 hours I don’t get bored. I love how I can help (or be helped by) people without forming a Group. I love that it’s a shooter that is casual enough to be fun for me…someone not a serious shooter fan. And I feel like I’m pretty good at it (I’m perhaps delusional…but the important thing is I FEEL good about my progress, rather than feeling frustrated). I love that I can get involved in a gloriously chaotic Arkfall event with 50 other players…or go off all by myself and see what I can accomplish on my own. When I get tired of shooting, I try the races. If I get tired of those too, I just go and explore. I’m always feeling like I have more to do than I have time for, which is, to me, a good thing.

Anyway I wasn’t going to blog about Defiance and now I’ve gone on and on and I could be playing so.. off I go to play!

Played Rift lately?

Posted on by Nimgimli

I’m super excited for the launch of Defiance on Tuesday, but that excitement put me in a kind of gaming no-man’s land this weekend. I felt like playing an MMO but knew that come Tuesday I’d be moving to Defiance in a major way. I just needed a short-term diversion.

Rift sprang to mind, probably because I’ve been spending so much time on Trion pages and watching Trion webcasts on Twitch. I haven’t played Rift in a good long while but my strongest recollection is a constant struggle with inventory space. My highest level character has his bags and bank packed full of veteran reward potions and appearance gear, and crafting-related stuff that I’m too stubborn to just sell off to NPCs (stuff is so low level that it won’t move on the auction house).

So I decided to create a new character to be a mule, and that’s what led me to a bunch of surprises. None of these changes are new (as far as I know) but if you’ve been away as long as I have they’ll probably be new to you too.

build_windowFirst big change… when creating a character you still pick an archetype (Warrior, Cleric, Mage, or Rogue) but after that you’re offered a selection of builds. Now before anyone freaks out, you still CAN pick and choose the souls you want if you care to, and advanced players will probably want to do so. But as a virtual newbie (it’d been so long since I created a character) who didn’t want to spend a lot of time reading build guides, I loved this feature. I’d chosen a warrior, and then choose “Pathfinder” which is a support role based primarily on Beastmaster (54 points) and Paragon (22 points) with Riftblade as the 3rd soul (with no points). If you enlarge this screenshot you can see an example of the info you’re given on the various builds.

As you level up and earn skill points you can just auto-spend them to follow the template of the build you’ve chosen, or you can decide to make your own choices. Again, it’s a brilliant system that makes getting into the game super-easy for newcomers (I didn’t have to fret that I was gimping my character) but which gets out of the way for more serious players.

Once I got past character creation and hopped into the tutorial zone I got another huge surprise. The tutorial bit (before you get to that first rift) has been super-streamlined. All the sidequests have been eliminated, as has any and all backtracking. You’ll zip through the tutorial zone so fast your head will spin. Maybe too quickly for a newcomer, to be honest. I can’t help but think a new player will wonder what all these monsters and features are for since you just run past them (most have been made non-aggro). As a returning player though, I was really happy to get to the ‘real’ game very quickly. And I think I was level 6 or 7 by the time I was done (which took me 20 minutes maybe, and would’ve been faster if I hadn’t been stopping to tweak my UI and running around wondering how I was missing so many of the old quests.)

Once I got to present day Telara it seemed like most (but maybe not all) quests were intact, but still some streamlining has been done. There’s a new feature where you can turn in some quests without returning to the quest giver, which cuts down on back-tracking. There’s also a pop-up window telling you about all the buffs you have as a subscriber. Rift has an ‘endless trial’ that lets you play to level 20 for free; I’m assuming these ‘subscriber buffs’ end at 20.

By the end of a casual evening of playing, I’d gotten my ‘mule’ to level 9, and if I’d been focusing instead of stopping to chat with Angela or popping over to read email I’m sure I could’ve gotten a lot farther. I’m guessing that whole sped-up leveling will taper off at 20 (where the free trial ends) but we’ll see.

As for my mule, well, the joke is on me. The character had a mailbox full of Veteran and other rewards that essentially filled her inventory right up. So she’ll have to keep working for now until she gathers materials for my crafter to use to make some bigger bags. That’s my excuse anyway… actually she’s just pretty fun to play.

Defiance, transmedia and DLC

Posted on by Nimgimli

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post title Defiance and I are having our first fight. You can go read it if you’re got time to kill but the gist of it was that I was concerned about their announcement of DLC for the game, and here’s why:

My logic was that if a big part of Defiance is the ‘transmedia’ aspects (in which events in the game and events in the tv show will intermingle in some way) then, assuming the transmedia ‘updates’ were packed into the DLC, we’d all need the DLC to get the full game experience, and so if that’s the case why not just charge a sub fee and be done with it.

Anyway, I reached out to Trion to get the straight dope on what’s going on here. It took a few weeks for them to get back to me, and the news is brief, but good. Here’s a quote of everything they were willing to share:

“Crossover stuff is NOT part of paid DLC. As a matter of fact there is a good amount of content updates that are not paid DLC dependent.”

So there you have it. You can buy the game, watch the show, enjoy the transmedia aspects, and not feel pressured to buy the DLC.

Personally I’m thinking I’ll buy it anyway since I enjoy the game so much, but it’s nice not to feel like I ‘have’ to buy it in order to get the full experience.

Daedalic gets turn-based and gritty with Blackguards

Posted on by Nimgimli

blackguard_logoDaedalic is probably best know for their adventure game Deponia (a genre we’ve already established that I suck at) so I haven’t been paying them much heed, but today a press release came over the transom that got my attention.

They’ve announced a new turn-based fantasy game, Blackguards. You put turn-based and fantasy in the same sentence and I start to slobber, so this is an easy sell for me. Want to get me even more amped? Tell me it’s about a band of anti-heroes; your character is a convicted murderer, for starters. Any other fans of Glen Cook’s The Black Company novels? Then you know how awesome it can be to play bad guys trying to do good.

Blackguards is scheduled for a 2013 release but for now all we have is a blurb and a few concept art pieces so I’ll cut this one short. Just noting it so I can remember to keep track of it.

Here’re a few snippets from the press release I was sent:

TakateFramed in a significantly darker story than you usually find in Daedalic games, the player will walk in the boots of a convicted murderer as he travels through Aventuria’s wild south. On this journey the protagonist is accompanied by companions of varying loyalty: scoundrels and thieves like the half-elf Niam (and her latent drug addiction) or the lecherous wizard Zurbaran.

Blackguards features hordes of lethal creatures and other enemies waiting to be taken care of on more than 170 unique battlemaps. A number of major and minor quests ensure exciting and diverse gameplay through the campaign.

As can be expected in all Daedalic titles, Blackguards focuses on strong storytelling, now combined with action-packed gameplay and tactical, turn-based combat. Blackguards delivers more than 40 hours of adventure in Aventuria.

About the Game

What happens when the only hope of a threatened world lies not with heroes in shining armor but in the hands of a band of misfits and criminals? Blackguards – the new turn-based RPG by Daedalic Entertainment – explores this very question. The player takes on the role of a convicted murderer, who with the help of a team of more-than-questionable characters, must save the world from a dark menace. During the wild chase throughout the South of Aventuria, the world of The Dark Eye, there is more to fight than vicious creatures – Naurimchapter by chapter, a story full of intrigue and surprising twists unfolds. But when life and death are in the player’s hands, how far will they go to reach their goals?

The first turn-based RPG by Daedalic Entertainment unites the studio’s high standard of a suspenseful storytelling and unique characters with gripping battles in elaborately crafted 3D-environments. In taxing campaigns the player takes part in a dark story full of doubt, betrayal and loss.

Whether the player chooses to go into battle as a mighty warrior, a clever wizard or a skillful hunter, the first battle isn’t far away. Over 170 individually crafted battle maps full of interactive objects and strategically complex situations lead the player to exotic locations and put them through deadly trials.

Concept_Achaz

Ouya and the Angry Gamer Mob

Posted on by Nimgimli

ouya_androidI have to admit I’m getting a little tired of hearing from Ouya‘s Julie Uhrman. I think she’s in danger of over-exposing herself and Ouya, if she hasn’t already. Luckily it’s only 8 days until Kickstarterer’s Ouya units ship and then we see for ourselves how good (or bad) the device is.

The Angry Gamer Mob hates Ouya. Why? No one knows…the AGM follows no recognizable logic. The Mob hates big publishers and Ouya was a successful Kickstarter campaign. Maybe that’s why? But AMG loves Indies (except if one becomes popular then they often turn on it) and Ouya is all about being open to any developer, no matter how small, and without a lot of hoop jumping.

Maybe The Angry Gamer Mob hates the Ouya because it’s based on the Tegra 3 and that chip is soon to be superseded by the Tegra 4. AGM says Ouya is not powerful enough. Yet the Mob loves games like Retro City Rampage, Super Meat Boy and Scott Pilgrim; all 8-bit inspired titles that can run on modest hardware. [Another mystery: how did these games manage to get popular without drawing the ire of the Angry Gamer Mob?]

Uhrman said, a while back, that Ouya would follow an ‘yearly upgrade’ schedule. She saw that statement being taken very literally and quickly amended her statement. Now she says an upgrade cycle similar to smart phones. The Angry Gamer Mob HATES this… Ouya is a console and consoles are supposed to have 5 year life cycles as a minimum. One Angry Gamer did advanced math about this: PS3 launched in 2006 for $500 and is still working here in 2013. If the Ouya had launched then it would have cost us $800 by now (8 years at $100/year) so the Ouya is actually more expensive than the PS3!

This is how the Mob Mind works. They twist facts in order to fuel their own anger.

No one wants a new Playstation or Xbox every year because from console to console infrastructure changes and (often) old libraries become obsolete. But Ouya is an Android device. The iPhone gets upgraded every year but a)you don’t have to buy the new model every year and b)you don’t have to start with an empty software library every time you do buy. Sure after a few generations you’ll see iOS programs designed to take advantage of newer features and so they won’t run on your older hardware and that’ll be the case here too, but I find it strange that a system that’s not been an issue for smartphone makers (and we’re generally spending $200 and locking ourselves into 2 year contracts there) should be such a big deal for Ouya.

I don’t know if Ouya will succeed or not. I was intrigued enough to put down $100 on the Kickstarter campaign. The Angry Gamer Mob acts as if $100 is half a year’s salary or something. $100 is enough to take your family to dinner at a modest restaurant once, or buy not quite 2 AAA games at launch. It’s not big money. If Ouya fizzles after 6 months and I have fun with it until then, I’ll be content.

What I certainly am not is angry about the existence of the device. But the Angry Gamer Mob is furious about it. Baffling. If you don’t like it… don’t buy it! Seems pretty simple to me.

It’s the end of gaming as we know it, and I feel fine

Posted on by Nimgimli

This post is based on intuition and feelings. I’m feeling pretty confident that I’m right but I have neither the time nor the energy to dig up citations. So consider it a rant.

I can’t help escape the feeling that gaming (whatever you imagine gaming as an entity to be) is charging full-bore into a brick wall and it’s going to crash pretty soon. I’m not sure what will result from this crash but I’m confident there’ll be some kind of rebirth.

So what’s driving this imminent disaster? Is it the corporate soul suckers at {insert major publisher name}? Nope. It’s the gaming mob, slathering for blood and reveling in whatever hurt they can find. And what drives the mob? So called ‘game journalists’ who hop from PR disaster to PR disaster, beating dead horses until they’re unrecognizable and gleefully chortling at the huge numbers of comments they get from outraged gamers.

In a perfect world, there’d be no PR disasters for them to hop to, but you may have noticed this world isn’t perfect. But there’s a different between reporting and wallowing. SimCity is an obvious recent example; I’m still seeing new posts about how “there’s no calculations being done in the cloud” or whatever. Yes, we heard you the first 3 times you wrote a post about this. Of course gamers come back in force decrying EA and praying for its downfall. So the blood sucking journos keep writing the same post to get more ad impressions.

I could rant about this all day. We hate EA. We hate Ubisoft. We hate Activision (though to be fair Bobby Kotick has been doing a lot better about not sticking his foot in his mouth lately and with our short attention span many of us have forgotten that we hate Ubisoft). In short we hate all the big publishers (Note: Valve is a huge retailer but not a very big publisher). But it’s OK, we have the Indies! And that’s true, we do…but if ALL we had were the indies how long would it take for you to get tired of chip-tunes and faux-8-bit graphics? I love the Indies but they don’t have the $$ to make a game on the scale of a Dishonored or a Borderlands 2.

So anyway yeah, I could rant about this all day but I won’t because I’ve decided something: I just don’t care anymore.

If gaming collapses under the vitriol of the fans, I’ll go back to reading books and watching sci-fi films without missing a beat. Though in truth I have SUCH a huge backlog of games now that if I never bought another one I’d still be playing for years.

And I’m finding that the less I talk about games on social networks, and the fewer gaming site posts I read, the more fun I have actually playing the games I have. Again, SimCity is a great example, but so is Fire Emblem. I LOVE that game but at one point I started reading boards and hearing about what a sell out Nintendo is because DLC is too expensive and thinly disguised pay to win and… at that point I shut the browser window. Ignorance, it turns out, is bliss.

Playing games in a vacuum turns out to be more more enjoyable than arguing about games with my friends.

But why do we even argue? Fanboyism to some extent. But also I think we want the games we love to do well so that they’ll be supported for a long time with patches, DLC, expansion packs and sequels. I’ve played and really enjoyed Defiance but my friends (some of them) shit all over it. Oakstout said something like “If I could teach my dog to play MMOs, Defiance would be the last game I let him play.” Which I’m pretty sure is an insult. And the game hasn’t even launched. Why talk about the game and give voices like that a platform to be heard (I appreciate the hypocrisy of my sharing that story here)? I want Defiance to do great so that I keep getting new content.

This weekend is PAX East and sadly we won’t be able to attend this year. But based on my experiences of the last 2 PAX Easts, the weekend will find tens of thousands of gamers gathering together and having a blast. Where is that angry mob we see online? Do those people just not attend PAX? I don’t think that’s the case…I think people who take the time to comment on gaming sites are exactly the people who’d devote a weekend to a show about gaming.

But y’know who isn’t there? Or at least doesn’t have a voice on the show floor? The gaming press. Instead of listening to the gaming press’s endless prattle about what’s wrong in gaming, the people at PAX are on the ground, seeing games, trying games, talking to other gamers in the presence of games, talking to game developers..just being there. And they remember something:

Games are supposed to be fun. No, correction: games ARE fun.

On the internet, we celebrate the failure of gaming companies and that just leads to a toxic environment. At PAX, we celebrate games and what we love about them.

From now on I’m going to focus on celebrating games. Unfortunately I don’t think that’s possible to do with others online. But that’s OK, all that time I save arguing, I’ll spend playing and enjoying the games I love. I’ll appreciate them while they’re still here because the gaming journalists will eventually roast the golden goose that is keeping them fed and housed.

Gaming will rise again and maybe the next time around we can focus more on the positive.

Game name of the year? Secret Ponchos

Posted on by Nimgimli

secretsonchos_outlaws_web
I just decided: the world needs more video games based on spaghetti westerns.

Secret Ponchos is a new console game from Switchblade Monkeys coming later this year. If you’re going to PAX East, they’ll be in Booth 1031.

If, like me, the universe has conspired to prevent you from being at PAX, you’ll have to content yourself with this trailer and the press release that follows.

Here’s the press release:

killer_wanted_sidebarThe Debut Game from Switchblade Monkeys – an Independent Team Comprised of Former Senior-Level Staff from Blizzard, Hasbro, Radical and More – Features Intense Gun-Slinging Action, Devastating Special Moves, Larger-Than-Life Characters and Loads of Style

Switchblade Monkeys is proud to announce Secret Ponchos, which blurs the line between gameplay genres and conventions and creates its own original feel for multiplayer combat that pits players against each other in intense Wild West battle. Scheduled for release on consoles later this year, a pre-alpha preview of Secret Ponchos will be playable in booth 1031 at PAX East in Boston, March 22 to 24.

Check out the debut trailer on YouTube.

Engage in one-on-one duels or all-out gunfights as one of several unique and customizable outlaws – each with his or her own strengths, weapon types, special moves and play styles – in a game that rewards tactical awareness, precision timing and player skill. Add in melee attacks, an original line-of-sight mechanic, cover fire, destructible cover objects and more, and Secret Ponchos is a game with exceptional depth.

When the team at Switchblade Monkeys began development of the game, they left behind the overtly corporate, money-driven world of commercial game development and set out to create something of a passion project between a group of friends. They studied elements from their favorite games, including team shooters, fighting games and isometric action-RPGs, as well as the style and flair of graphic novels and classic spaghetti westerns, to create a game they could call their own.

“Secret Ponchos was created by a new development philosophy,” said Yousuf Mapara, president and creative director at Switchblade Monkeys. “Instead of following a business-oriented studio model, we just set out make the game the way a group of friends gets together to form a rock band, and to see how far we can take it. If we make something we love, put our all into it every day and enjoy the creative process, hopefully we will make something others like, too.”

For more information, visit http://secretponchos.com.

So there’s this game I like called SimCity…

Posted on by Nimgimli

Old Smokey Woods
I’ve been waffling back and forth on this post for a couple of days now, because I know it’s going to get me into a pissing contest with someone who disagrees with me and I keep thinking “Do I need this aggravation?” But my sense of injustice is getting to me so here goes…

SimCity had an awful, awful launch. There’s no doubt about that. And the game still has bugs (totally unheard of for a new game, I know), in particular the issues with how traffic flows. I still think EA should have given people refunds when the servers were crushed for the first 4-5 days after launch, but they didn’t. I guess a free game is something but still… I felt a little bit like I was being held hostage when they refused to give refunds, even though I didn’t want one.

But all that was THEN and I’m hear to talk about NOW.

And in the NOW, I’m having a lot of fun playing the new SimCity.

Since the game requires an Internet connection… wait, let me get this off my chest first.

Any comments whining about the always-connected requirement will be immediately deleted — this wasn’t a bait and switch — EA & Maxis were very up front about the game needing an Internet connection. If you don’t like that requirement, then there are lots of other games to play. If you don’t like it and you still bought the game, then you’re a very silly person and I have no sympathy for you. I mean I wasn’t crazy about that aspect of the game but…

Since the game requires an Internet connection I’m playing in a region with friends. In this respect SimCity is like a lot of MMOs — sure you CAN solo but the game is meant to be played with friends and is much more fun that way. In an ideal world you’ll be playing with people that you socialize with outside of the game, so that you can swap stories and ask for favors easily, since this too adds to the fun. When a friend asked me to connect an abandoned city I’d taken over to a railroad spur, it was better than any ‘quest’ the game offers you.

Anyway I’ve been pretty obsessed with SimCity this week. I play it right up until bedtime then I lay awake thinking about what I’ll be doing next. But I don’t mean for this post to be a review…

I mean this post to be a condemnation of the mob mentality of gamers.

Before SimCity launched there were quite a few very positive reviews from various outlets. Once the game launched and the servers crumbled under the weight of the customers, everyone started (rightfully) condemning EA for not having been better prepared. But now that the server issues are mostly fixed, that condemnation has stuck around. Suddenly all I’m seeing are posts about the flaws in the game, and if you comment on one of these posts saying you enjoy the game…well it’s like throwing a de-clawed kitten into a tank of hungry sharks. The mob turns on you and rips you apart. I speak from experience. You’ll be told how stupid your are, or you’ll be accused of being a Maxis ‘plant.’ If your opinion differs from that of the Mob, YOU are invalid.

It irks me. With the server issues cleared up this is essentially the same game that was so favorably reviewed. How could it have been a great game a few weeks ago but total dreck now? It can’t. Either the reviewers didn’t really play it critically before launch and now that the general populace is playing, we’re essentially exposing what a crappy review job they did, or they’re mad at EA (or just piling on) and so picking apart the game to find things to fault it for. Trashing SimCity now is an easy way to rake in the ad impressions, after all!

Please understand that if you’ve actually played SimCity and you honestly don’t like it, I have no beef with you. In fact I’m sorry that you didn’t have a chance to get into one of the beta (aka demo) weekends to try the game out before you bought it.

But if you’re one of these people who were super-psyched about the game based on reviews before release, and now you’re trolling comment streams talking about how much the game sucks and EA sucks and blah blah blah based on the gaming sites pulling a 180 and now slagging the game…here’s an idea: grow a damned backbone and try thinking for yourself for a change. If you can’t get first hand experience then just stay out of the comment threads because you can’t know what playing the game is like if you haven’t played it.

Now, let me try to leave on a more constructive note.

SimCity is called SimCity. It isn’t called SimCity 5. If you’ve played SimCity 1-4 and loved how they became increasingly complex over the years, you probably won’t like the new SimCity. This is a reboot more than it is a sequel and it plays more like a simulation of being a Mayor rather than a God-Game. You plan the city but you don’t have to drill down to the minutia of where to run power lines or water pipes. Much of that kind of thing is abstracted. This is part of why I like SimCity and didn’t like SimCity 4. By the time Maxis got to #4 the game felt like too much of a chore for me, in the same way I never liked The Sims back when you had to tell each little person to use the toilet or else they’d just piss on the floor. Must I do EVERYTHING around here!? 🙂

If you need to win, I’m not sure SimCity is a good fit for you. You can make a ‘winning’ city without using a lot of the tools at hand. For instance, the new curved roads tend to be more fun to use than efficient, in the same way stacking bricks is a lot more efficient than stacking bowling balls. But the curved roads can be fun to use. Also there is no “winning” condition so why box yourself in by min-maxing things?

Also as mentioned there are still bugs. Sometimes you have to work around them, or you can just choose to slam your head into the wall instead until you hate the game and your family and your dog. Your choice, but if you’re a wall slammer I suggest giving Maxis a few months to polish out the bugs. You’ll probably save some money too.

SimCity feels like it’s 65% game and 35% software toy. There’s definitely challenge here but there are also ways to circumvent the challenge or break your city due to bugs. You need to be flexible and have a certain sense of whimsy to really enjoy it, I think. Use features based on whether you think they’re fun or make your city cooler, rather than based on if they’re the most efficient way to play.

TL;DR:

1) There are plenty of people playing and enjoying the heck out of SimCity in spite of what you might think from reading gaming sites and their comments

2) If you haven’t play the game, you don’t know what you’re talking about so stop yammering in comments and making yourself look ignorant

3) The game requires an Internet connection. If you don’t like that, vote with your wallet and don’t buy it. Not liking it doesn’t make it OK to steal a cracked version. If you do that, you’re just a stinking scumbag. Plus you’ll miss out on:

4) Play online with friends…it’s much more fun that way