OT: Do Not Buy Alert

Atrocities · #1 January 23rd, 2003, 11:43 AM

For the love of god, please do not invest your money into SimCity 4. The game is unplayable on even the best P4 system. It lacks basic features and crashes often.

Regardless of your video card, processor, or memory the game simply begins to lagged and lock up horribly after about 20 minutes of game play.

The random events can not be turned off, and the game has them once every few months causing lock ups, lagges, and other irrating side effects.

The game was released, no surprise, in a buggy state and is in dire need of a patch.

EA and Maxis technical support is a joke beyond my ability to describe. I am telling you stay away from SimCity 4. Let them fix the bugs and make the game stable before you invest any money into it.

This opinion is shared by all reviewing sites, and has been repeatedly voiced by long time fans.

couslee · #2 January 23rd, 2003, 12:12 PM

I am not a simcity fan at all, but I know what you mean about crappy games. My condolences if you are talking about this one from personal experience. Some of the garbage these game companies put on the shelves, is enough to make a Royal Frigate turn pirate.

Did they have a demo? I have noticed lately that "no demo available" games are crap, and those that have a demo are fairly decent.

It's like Civ3. No demo. I DL a hacked Version, and if it was good I would have gone and bought the game. It wasn't, the hack got deleted as planned, and the my money went elsewhere.

The gamers have a lot more power than they realise sometimes. If NO ONE bought a demo-less game, they all would have demos. If they didn't buy subsequent games due to past rip-offs, the industry would start producing quality as the rips would be out of business. granted, that would take time before the effect would be noticable, but ya gotta start somewhere.

Mephisto · #3 January 23rd, 2003, 12:32 PM

I have no problem with Sim City 4, working just fine under W2k. However, it feels much the same as SC2 and SC3 for me.

Atrocities · #4 January 24th, 2003, 03:23 AM

You are lucky Mephisto. Very lucky indeed. I would be greatful if I could get it too run well under any OS.

Thermodyne · #5 January 24th, 2003, 03:29 AM

Sounds like a memory leak. Take a look at memory usage when the game starts to lag.

Instar · #6 January 24th, 2003, 07:27 AM

I feel bad for you man, I got SC4 the day it came out
Stable as a rock on my P4 1.8 GF4 Ti 4400. As always, you should get the latest drivers (but you probably already have)
If you are using an ATI card then you have to change some options, they are not all there for SC4

Instar · #7 January 24th, 2003, 07:30 AM

oh yeah Audigy 1 card in my machine with 512megs ram running WinXP
Your opinion of it being buggy is only for you Atrocities, believe me, I think SC4 kicks major *** and is under-rated. But based on your experiences, you cant say anything but bad stuff.
When I say rock solid, I mean NEVER crashes, and I have played enough to get about 250000 people in about 7 cities

Jmenschenfresser · #8 January 24th, 2003, 05:50 PM

My worst experience was Fallout 2. I could forgive bugs in such a complex game, but I can't forgive the sheer amount of terminal bugs. I played half way through the game and ended up with a save game that had a bug which wouldn't let me go any farther.

In a rage I pulled it from my computer and left it. I went back to it few years later and got the final patch for it. Still some minor bugs, but a much more enjoyable experience.

One of the reasons I rarely buy games when they first hit the shelves. A) Price, B) Bugs, and C) Later Versions usually come with more extras, i.e. Gold Versions.

Instar · #9 January 24th, 2003, 06:30 PM

well, growltigger, MM has made quite a few patches for SEIV.
The thing is, MM actually shipped a complete product instead of some crapware. I usually do not mind downloading a few patches, but only if the game is good in the first place.
Being a programmer (in training) myself, I cannot help but see both sides of the equation though. It is very hard to write 100% bug free (or 100% user friendly) but at the same time you cannot take forever to release software. Most of the time I bet it is the publisher breathing down the necks of the development team to rush a product out the door. EA, to their credit, does have a few good products, but Ive heard a lot of negative too. Part of me wishes that Maxis was never bought out by EA, but at the same time it gives Maxis more marketing capability and resources.

I was at first put off by the inability to turn disasters off. However, you can rest easy knowing that only the mayor can trigger the major disasters. I dont mind the fires too much, but I would rather have it handled automatically. Riots on the other hand only happen if you are a bad mayor.

Atrocities · #10 January 25th, 2003, 02:07 AM

I only said the game was unstable and that there have been many complaints by AMD owners. A few intel owners have had problems to. I envy you that you can play the game. I would love to be able to play the game as SC is one of the games in my top five games of all time. I still play SC3k, and was very excited about SC4. I went out and bought it the day it came out. At first I thought the problems were caused by my PC, all drivers up to date, and using a GeForce 4 Ti420 (64megs DDR) when I read a few game reviews. Gamespot.com described it best. And they pointed out that the game has stability problems. I want to play the game, but I also wanted to spare people the cost of buying it now and getting frustrated at it because it won't run properly. Once Maxis comes out with a patch that fixes the memory leaks and other issues, and the game runs, then I will recommend it to god himself.

Don't get me wrong Instar, I think the game looks great, and even though it is missing some features, such as the ability to turn off random events, I hate having to put out a fire every few months, the game has a lot to offer.

The graphics look fantastic, and the controls work much better than in SC3k.

The detail is awsome, and the sound is without equal. The game is a world apart better in many way to SC2k and 3k. (Both of those game kicked *** as well.)

When I complain about performance issues, its not to be mean or evil, its to that lagging issues are a common problem for many people. My specs are above the high end recommendations, but still I get lag and lock ups. There is nothing more frustrating then to wait twenty minutes for a zoom out to cycle. Or to move the mouse and several seconds later the map moves. Very frustrating to say the least.

I also must point out that the game has few starter regions, and the lack of starting difficulty level is missed. The game is hard, but playable.

The one thing that is unforgiveable is EA's technical support. Without a doubt, the worst I have ever experienced and that included Serria. At least I could email Serria.

[ January 24, 2003, 12:17: Message edited by: Atrocities ]