EA announces SimCity will get an offline mode, FINALLY!!!

[Zaune]

Then what do they do for the sequel? Right off the bat, they kill my character in a cutscene.

Only temporarily.

[Grumman]

Then what do they do for the sequel? Right off the bat, they kill my character in a cutscene.

Only temporarily.

I am aware. I wouldn't hate it if Shepard was merely almost killed and recovered by Cerberus. Then either let Shepard react appropriately to Cerberus's involvement (I'd personally go with "Thank you for saving my life. For that, I won't shoot anyone who isn't standing between me and the door.") or have Liara remove the control chip that Cerberus really did put in your head, at which point Shepard immediately stops being a Cerberus apologist and lets you start reacting appropriately.

[Metahive]

How sad a day it must be that a game totally unsuited for multiplayer gets a single player mode attached to it as a special feature about a year after launch.

[Purple]

Then what do they do for the sequel? Right off the bat, they kill my character in a cutscene.

Only temporarily.

I am aware. I wouldn't hate it if Shepard was merely almost killed and recovered by Cerberus. Then either let Shepard react appropriately to Cerberus's involvement (I'd personally go with "Thank you for saving my life. For that, I won't shoot anyone who isn't standing between me and the door.") or have Liara remove the control chip that Cerberus really did put in your head, at which point Shepard immediately stops being a Cerberus apologist and lets you start reacting appropriately.

I am not sure I agree with you there. At least in my case the more I plaid the game the less I could reasonably object to Cerberus. I mean, it's not like they are actively doing evil or have done any evil that can not be reasonably explained away with what is provided in the game. And there are plenty of options (at least on the paragon side) that make it abundantly clear that it's a marriage of convenience at best and not a partnership.

After all, when hell is at the door and the only ones who will listen to you, let alone give you a ship and crew are Cerberus. And they turn out to actually be quite helpful and not evil it's kind of hard to not take their offer.

[Grumman]

I am aware. I wouldn't hate it if Shepard was merely almost killed and recovered by Cerberus. Then either let Shepard react appropriately to Cerberus's involvement (I'd personally go with "Thank you for saving my life. For that, I won't shoot anyone who isn't standing between me and the door.") or have Liara remove the control chip that Cerberus really did put in your head, at which point Shepard immediately stops being a Cerberus apologist and lets you start reacting appropriately.

I am not sure I agree with you there. At least in my case the more I plaid the game the less I could reasonably object to Cerberus. I mean, it's not like they are actively doing evil or have done any evil that can not be reasonably explained away with what is provided in the game. And there are plenty of options (at least on the paragon side) that make it abundantly clear that it's a marriage of convenience at best and not a partnership.

TIM betrays you twice during the Horizon mission alone. He's been poisoning your friends against you by telling people that you're working with terrorists, and he lured the Collectors into attacking a human colony because he didn't want to wait for them to act.

[Purple]

TIM betrays you twice during the Horizon mission alone. He's been poisoning your friends against you by telling people that you're working with terrorists,

Well you are. It's a marriage of convenience as I said. Although I don't remember him ever poisoning others against you aside from the part where characters do it on their own once they see you in a Cerberus uniform...

and he lured the Collectors into attacking a human colony because he didn't want to wait for them to act.

Honestly I did not find that all that objectionable. After all as a strategic move it makes perfect sense to attempt and trap your enemy rather than waiting for them to strike when you are unprepared. Either way you lose the colony. Better to do it on your terms and try to win something out of it than just let death go to waste.

[Grumman]

TIM betrays you twice during the Horizon mission alone. He's been poisoning your friends against you by telling people that you're working with terrorists,

Well you are. It's a marriage of convenience as I said. Although I don't remember him ever poisoning others against you aside from the part where characters do it on their own once they see you in a Cerberus uniform...

I'm fairly certain he did. As for the second part, that's trivially easy for Shepard to explain: "I don't know what they did with my old clothes when they rescued me, so it was either a Cerberus uniform or I come here buck naked."

and he lured the Collectors into attacking a human colony because he didn't want to wait for them to act.

Honestly I did not find that all that objectionable. After all as a strategic move it makes perfect sense to attempt and trap your enemy rather than waiting for them to strike when you are unprepared. Either way you lose the colony. Better to do it on your terms and try to win something out of it than just let death go to waste.

That would be a reasonable argument coming from anyone except Cerberus. "The ends justify the means" might be the Renegade motto, but it only works if the ends are good. Cerberus's ends aren't good - the stink of their failure is smeared across the entire galaxy in the first game. Paragon Shepard might respect someone for trying to do the right thing but failing, but if you do the wrong thing and fail like Cerberus does, Renegade Shepard is just going to shoot you.

[Purple]

I'm fairly certain he did. As for the second part, that's trivially easy for Shepard to explain: "I don't know what they did with my old clothes when they rescued me, so it was either a Cerberus uniform or I come here buck naked."

It was a metaphor for him showing up followed by a bunch of Cerberus related people on a Cerberus ship...

That would be a reasonable argument coming from anyone except Cerberus. "The ends justify the means" might be the Renegade motto, but it only works if the ends are good. Cerberus's ends aren't good - the stink of their failure is smeared across the entire galaxy in the first game.

I would not go so far to claim it's anything like that. I's just simple military strategy. You make it sound as if sacrificing a few civilians to defeat an enemy is morally reprehensible rather than simply a minor sacrifice in a major conflict. I mean, come on. Even when playing what was a basically pure paragon plaything I could not argue with that move. (I tend to RP my playthroughs in such games)

Paragon Shepard might respect someone for trying to do the right thing but failing, but if you do the wrong thing and fail like Cerberus does, Renegade Shepard is just going to shoot you.

That's the thing thou, it didn't fail. It succeeded in acquiring intelligence on the enemy that could otherwise not be acquired at the minor cost of a few civilian casualties.

[Grumman]

I'm fairly certain he did. As for the second part, that's trivially easy for Shepard to explain: "I don't know what they did with my old clothes when they rescued me, so it was either a Cerberus uniform or I come here buck naked."

It was a metaphor for him showing up followed by a bunch of Cerberus related people on a Cerberus ship...

That's still easily explained: unless Shepard has an FTL drive in her other pair of pants, she had to hitch a ride with Cerberus to get off the Cerberus base.

Even when playing what was a basically pure paragon plaything I could not argue with that move. (I tend to RP my playthroughs in such games)

I would argue with that move, paragon or renegade, because as far as Shepard is aware everything Cerberus touches turns to shit. Frankly, Shepard's lucky they brought her back to life with the right number of appendages.

[Purple]

That's still easily explained: unless Shepard has an FTL drive in her other pair of pants, she had to hitch a ride with Cerberus to get off the Cerberus base.

Which is going to be really harder and harder to explain to every next companion you pick up riding on the same ship. And no, you do not get the option of another ship given that no one other than Cerberus wants to help you in the mission at hand.

I would argue with that move, paragon or renegade, because as far as Shepard is aware everything Cerberus touches turns to shit. Frankly, Shepard's lucky they brought her back to life with the right number of appendages.

And how exactly did the situation "turn to shit"? It was a perfect tactical success and lead directly to resolution of the main plot which arguably could not be achieved otherwise. Again, I see absolutely nothing morally objectionable about sacrificing some people to win a war. You are basically saying that if you sacrifice a platoon to defeat a division the mission is failed because those troops used for bait died.

We may need to start using spoilers soon.

[Tribble]

Stardestroyer forums is the only place I know where a city-simulation game ends up being compared to a third-person shooter...

Which is why I love u guys

[Vendetta]

At least when they bolted a multiplayer component onto their single player TPS/RPG series they did a decent job of it....

[xthetenth]

Shepard has just experienced one of the worst and most humiliating defeats in their entire life. Joker chooses that moment to crack a poorly-thought out joke about it, causing even a Paragon Shepard to go ballistic.

Yeah, Shepard was bitter that he lost to someone's mary sue self insert character* because the cutscene said so as well....

I mean it's not like ME ever had a good bossfight, but none of the others actually ignored the gameplay mechanics of the rest of the game like Mr. "I can sit in the open regenerating shields and I am invincible whilst doing so because fuck you".



* PS hope you read the books so you have a clue who that is.

He's probably the single worst handling of an overpowered Mary Sue in any game ever and actively ruined every part of the game he was in. I particularly liked how blatant the railroading of Shepard became and how when the game decided I lost he stopped taking damage from Widow headshots. That was awesome. It was worse than a tabletop game where the GM is scrambling to declare that you didn't kill an "important" NPC.

ME3 was literally only good for multiplayer because they couldn't ruin it with massive amounts of horrible writing.

[The Vortex Empire]

Shepard has just experienced one of the worst and most humiliating defeats in their entire life. Joker chooses that moment to crack a poorly-thought out joke about it, causing even a Paragon Shepard to go ballistic.

Yeah, Shepard was bitter that he lost to someone's mary sue self insert character* because the cutscene said so as well....

I mean it's not like ME ever had a good bossfight, but none of the others actually ignored the gameplay mechanics of the rest of the game like Mr. "I can sit in the open regenerating shields and I am invincible whilst doing so because fuck you".



* PS hope you read the books so you have a clue who that is.

He's probably the single worst handling of an overpowered Mary Sue in any game ever and actively ruined every part of the game he was in. I particularly liked how blatant the railroading of Shepard became and how when the game decided I lost he stopped taking damage from Widow headshots. That was awesome. It was worse than a tabletop game where the GM is scrambling to declare that you didn't kill an "important" NPC.

ME3 was literally only good for multiplayer because they couldn't ruin it with massive amounts of horrible writing.

I especially liked that cutscene where Shepard and his party stand there and do nothing while Thane fights Leng, followed by Thane, a supposedly well trained assassin, stopping shooting at a man with a sword and deciding charging towards him was a better idea. Talk about a contrived way to kill him.

[xthetenth]

If a character doesn't so much move as transition between poses for the camera, he's a terrible character and should be tossed into the nearest sun.

ME3 managed to even make killing him not fun with a terrible QTE. Good job!

I have a feeling the multi didn't get nearly as much "oversight" though, because it's actually one of the better horde modes I've seen. Good pacing, good variety of challenge and nice variety of player options to keep it fresh.

[Joviwan]

And the support team behind it did pretty yeoman's work with keeping up with gameplay and balance. For like the first 6 months they had tweaks every single weak for balance changes, and new weapons/class kits rolled out every two or three months for a year. The worst part about the multiplayer is the unlock system.

The best part is playing a biotic space potato teaming up with a warhammer wielding krogan and a Geth Juggernaut.

[Vendetta]

I especially liked that cutscene where Shepard and his party stand there and do nothing while Thane fights Leng, followed by Thane, a supposedly well trained assassin, stopping shooting at a man with a sword and deciding charging towards him was a better idea. Talk about a contrived way to kill him.

Man, gun's not gonna work on a space ninja. I mean he's got super space ninja reflexes and shit.

[Joviwan]

The ninja frog punch penetrates the shield?

[fgalkin]

ME2 was a boring corridor shooter (uh oh, I'm using "review buzzwords!") f

And ME1 wasn't? Not only was it a corridor shooter, it was the exact same corridor, over and over. At least ME2 had more than three level layouts for sidequests, not to mention planets that actually looked good. The story....eh. But I did like some of the new characters. In fact, almost all of them, except for the DLC ones.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[General Zod]

ME2 was a boring corridor shooter (uh oh, I'm using "review buzzwords!") f

And ME1 wasn't? Not only was it a corridor shooter, it was the exact same corridor, over and over. At least ME2 had more than three level layouts for sidequests, not to mention planets that actually looked good. The story....eh. But I did like some of the new characters. In fact, almost all of them, except for the DLC ones.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Kasumi was fairly entertaining as a character, she just needed more in the way of fleshing-out. Zaeed was just kind of awful altogether.

[PainRack]

Civ 5 is very similar to SimCity 5 - all they had to do with improve and refine upon the elements of the previous installment, and they could have had a fantastic game. Instead they tried to "revolutionize" everything, and IMO it didn't work out. It's still a decent game, but I prefer Civ 3 or Civ 4 any day

I think one of the designers of the game could sum up my feelings far better than I could: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/JonShafe ... _Civ_5.php

huh.... You're kidding me, right? The base game wasn't superior to Civ 4 sure after the expansions......... but it was more balanced than Civ 4 base.
At least, combat didn't devolve into big ass stacks of doom. Civ 3 also had the spearman of doom that Civ 5 ignored.

G&K introduction of religion and other mechanics wasn't that spectular, but Brave New World..... well honestly, its the first time I fell in love with Civ since Civ II.

Maybe its new game syndrome, since I only got BNW just recently but the game is now...... just amazing. Yes, I agree that diplomacy has its problems and Civ IV had some superior moments there. And happiness imposed a hard cap on city settlements, and war mongering made it worse.

But religion? Its no longer a game of chasing the tech tree and then spreading it for diplomatic gains. There's now a strategic element behind it, variety, choice and a need to balance what you want out of religion. Its impact on diplomacy is now much more varied and important for so many reasons, from diplomatic to cultural victory.

The culture element, especially cultural victory is now so much more satisfying. I'm seeking a cultural victory now as Morocco, my first attempt to do so and it has been...... frustrating as well as so enjoyable at the same time. It wasn't intended to be one until I realised I was facing off against Korea..... and then it became a cultural game chase, especially since I was facing off against France as well.

And cultural policies! No longer civics but policies to plan and tailor your game advantages. Freedom. Order. Autocracy. It just gave so much more variety and strategic depth, especially since wonders are locked. And its impact on diplomacy and other aspects of the game just make it feel much more fun as you try to balance game choices. Its not a question of balancing plus and minuses like the civics(although I loved the echos to Alpha Centauri) but so much more. Do you chase liberty or tradition? Do you play off Piety and the creation of holy sites to create a cultural victory? Or a diplomatic victory? Or just use it to gain war winning advantages? Its just so much more flexible.

And the last is of course Great Person. Now, Civ4 essentially had GP as a winning tactic. There was no trade off in seeking them. In Civ 5, it was harder to get GP and there's trade off involved. Do you use your Great Artist to get a Golden Age or get more culture/tourism? The tourism might not be critical, but culture protects you against so many problems and tourism gives you some key advantages.




(Hmmm....... I should make a Let's play:D)

[PainRack]

So after almost a YEAR since the release date, we are getting at LAST, what people have been calling for since day one, AND something that EVERY other SimCity game has had since the original release.
The thing I most got out of this story was that this will be in Update 10. TEN Thats almost one update a Month since the game came out. Is that normal? Or another sign of how fucked up the game was?

Actually, with the patches...... the game has become 'playable'.


Simcity fun is....... still there even in its broken form and now with traffic no longer impossible(merely frustrating), its different now. The problem with the game is that Simtown made it heavily restricted, promised too much on regional game play but didn't deliver, and yet, regional play with multiple cities was needed to get the 'full' Sim experience......... and the region is FUBAR and well, ultimately, the game doesn't deliver what it promised.


Its actually 'fun' to play for a while and I think offline play with the ability to save and experiment will actually make the game actually fun. Its just that the game didn't deliver what they promised it would.

[Flagg]

WTF guys? How in gods green asshole did a thread about SimCity 5 turn into a fucking Mass Effect spoiler fest with no fucking spoiler tags whatsoever?

[Grumman]

WTF guys? How in gods green asshole did a thread about SimCity 5 turn into a fucking Mass Effect spoiler fest with no fucking spoiler tags whatsoever?

Which part is the spoiler, the non sequitur from the opening cutscene, or the fact that the C-list terrorists from the first game are incompetent dicks?

[Flagg]

WTF guys? How in gods green asshole did a thread about SimCity 5 turn into a fucking Mass Effect spoiler fest with no fucking spoiler tags whatsoever?

Which part is the spoiler, the non sequitur from the opening cutscene, or the fact that the C-list terrorists from the first game are incompetent dicks?

Character deaths, major plot points, you know, shit people who are playing the games might not want to know. There is a no spoilers rule in this forum you know. Especially when the spoilers are to a game the fucking thread has nothing to do with.