SimCity

Is it as good as or better than 4?

As in, is there actual reason in buying it?

Simcity 4 was really good. I hope this is, too.

I hope it doesn't require Origin to play.

You shouldn't honestly compare it to Simcity 4, the gameplay and goals have been somewhat changed. It focuses heavily on playing together in a region, preferably with other players and trading resources. It feels a lot like Settlers on a much grander scale.

Despite the change in gameplay I do think it's a very fun game, still very addicting. The beta allowes for 1 hour shards of gametime and those hours go much too fast.

Unfortunately it does require Origin to play, though in all honestly I have to say that Origin is slowly improving as well.

People still play the Sims?

Either get a browser that backs up your text field entries, or type up long stuff in Notepad and paste it in.

You best be trollin', son.

My hope is slightly waning. I'll probably still try it, but I'm sick of all this online intergration in my games.

I'm fed up with seeing games I'd really like to play, only to find out they're Origin-exclusive. I've heard bad things about it but can't verify how true some of those are. Isn't it true they slap a limit onto how often you can download games? If you've used it, how bad is the software?

Also, while they sometimes offer sales, they're not as cheap as Steam, nor do they seem to offer them very often. Kind of important when you're a cheapskate like me... Heh.

How much is the pre-order for Simcity to you all?

It's $99 in Australia. Isn't that hilarious?

That's very funny. I feel sorry for you guys.

They're driving us to buy retail because they have such huge profit margins here, which we've known forever but are now starting to get annoyed about. Apparently it's being investigated by an Official Body over here.

The funny part is that our dollar is stronger than the US. If we bought it as the US price it would cost us less.

It's for sale for 60 euros for the limited edition and 80 euros for the collectors edition.

As for Origin, it's a Steam wannabe in every sense. Can't blame EA for finally stepping into that field and trying to do what Valve has been doing without much protest for the last 10ish years. And as far as I know there is not a limit on the amount of times you can download your games. Even EA realizes that would be an awesome way to piss your customers off.

Origin works. I don't like to leave it running in the background like Steam when I'm done with it, but it works. It's just a question of how many DD platforms we'll need to have installed in a few years if other publishers decide to follow.

Having played the beta... I still don't know what to think. There are some design decisions that are really balling awesome, and something that are really painfully awful. It's a real mishmash of things I love and hate about it.

Incidentally, where the dick do you find your approval rating? I clicked on every graph, table, tab and window I could find and I just could not find it anywhere. It's the damn prerequisit of certain buildings.