Zero Punctuation: Sim City Societies

Vaupell

New member
Jan 23, 2008
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Good review, and i agree no satisfation in this game "at all!!"

if you are going to play simcity i still recommend simcity 4,
and none else. Rest of them have a lack of "satisfaction and feel of acomplishment"

cheers.
 

Spartan117.halo

New member
Jan 24, 2008
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Thankyou! Yahtzee!!!

You communicated clearly the same frustration I had with this game. I feel better now that people know how bad this game is.

Thankgod I got the game free
 

SilentHunter7

New member
Nov 21, 2007
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There hasn't been a real SimCity since SimCity 3000: Unlimited. SC4 felt unfinished, buggy, and with too many features that look tacked-on; typical EA game.

And Societies is a joke that is a SimCity in name only.
 

Alphazero

New member
Nov 28, 2007
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SimCity appeals to the types that build and rebuild their train sets obsessively while secretly plotting to put on the Stay-Puft Marshmellow Man outfit and lay waste to the insect sized inhabitants.

By which I mean to say, I quite like it. Remove all the roads, see what happens, add some of them back, put in a bus stop, wait, use the cheat code for more money, put in another bus stop, see buses driving on the road, smile quietly to yourself while feeling you've accomplished something.

It's a great game for Those Who Like to Fiddle.

That's SimCity 4, though. This one, I'll pass and wait for Spore.
 

Sylocat

Sci-Fi & Shakespeare
Nov 13, 2007
2,122
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There are, in the whole of the ZP library, a few parts of a few videos that leave me in stitches literally every time I watch them. Try as I may, no matter how many times I watch the review or how well I've memorized it, there are still a few specified seconds, in the hour plus of the ZP lineup, that I literally cannot sit through with a straight face. Among them lie such gems as the introduction to Gareth Gobulcoque, the "Fagballs" jibe at Link, the "sat there picking his nose" line in the Halo 3 review... just a few little points in there that always get me every single time. And now I think I can add the "target practice" line in this one to the list. :D

NSiky said:
Edit: So far he's (justifiably) had a dig at Americans, the Japanese, the French, Australians and Anime lovers (who, let's be honest, are on a planet of their own). Thankfully, because Yahtzee's also British, I get impunity from mockery AND I understand jokes which other people won't. Well done on being a Brit, Yahtzee!
You apparantly missed last week where he called the British SAS "a bunch of morally questionable psychotic thugs."
 

Wyatt

New member
Feb 14, 2008
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Garfgarog said:
There's also quite a difference between the opinion on the actions of fictional Americans in a video game compared to a comment about an actual group of people.
well now pard you cant have this both ways. see its like this, either hes insulting 'actual groups of people' with his reviews , and i can assure you that there is an actual group of United States Marines and not a one of us that have seen his reviews (and hes loved by all that i know) were offended in the least (check out his COD 4 review time stamp 1:42 - 1:48 where he ends his comments about Marines with the statment 'you know just like in real life' clearly if i was at all inlcined to whine like a 3 year old with a pissy diaper i could take offence at), or hes just expressing an opinion about a fictional group of people , example 'US Marines in a game' or 'manga reading pedos' that are obviously infesting his game of sim societies.

its one way or another.


he didnt say all manga was about kiddy diddlin what he said was that in his city there was a library full of manga that was about kiddy diddlin used to train pedos. and if i recall correct YOUR name didnt come up once. in fact i didnt see or hear him mention any names at all he just pointed out the group of pedos in training that read manga in his game city


but i think at this point the REAL humor is that your still trying to defend kiddy diddlin cartoons as something casual and normal and take offence from the jokes about them by a game reviewer.
 

Cowabungaa

New member
Feb 10, 2008
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Btw, what he says about Nazi Germany, is actually true. That wás how Nazi Germany started ;) The Germans were all emo after WO1, Hitler gave them their "old glory" back by spewing out propaganda about the superiority from the German (Arian) race. The people loved the bombastic and spectacular parades, loved the bombastic art display's and the new impressive building Hitler build all for the propaganda.
Anyway, I think they kind of demolished the Simcity formula, or at least discarded it. Still waiting for a really good follow-up from Simcity 3000 (4...well...nah).
 

Pyrokinesis

New member
Dec 3, 2007
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OMFG.... Heavy medic ending was the funniest and TRUEST thing i have ever seen. Hilarious, and true...
 

Wyatt

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Feb 14, 2008
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i played sim city on the intendo to death, i still boot up sim city 3000 now and then. this is a classic example of games that dont need 'new and inovative' ways to do things. what it did/does need is simply more depth to the crap it allready had.

the fun part about any sim city game was trying to manipulate your people. THAT should have been the focus of all new games right from the start. the fun does NOT come from building shit it comes from how your people respond to what you do. the focus on the game is your 'god head' not the number or size or color of buildings you toss up. when societies change the game from the type of buildings you get being determined by how well you provided basic things in a given area to just letting you plunk down what ever building you wanted any place you wanted they took away a key feedback mechanic of the original games that made them fun. hell some of the best or atleast interesting times in Sim City 3000 is trying to figure out why your row of residential neighborhoods wont spawn tower but instead seems to be stuck in trailer trash hell, or why you cant get the sears towers in your down town and instead get stuck with uncle ahabs slurp-n-go.

i can sum up why societys sucks in one go. it sucks because it stoped being about playing 'god' with your imaginary people and became about the city itself. the city was never what was importiant, it was allways the people you imagined to be in it that was. building the city was just a tool, THEE tool to interact with those lil blips. that changes when you get to make every single decision down to the color of the curtians in your housing projects. when you change the interaction feedback on a game like this from something visual to a graph on a spread sheet you ruin the game for most people. i dont want a bar graph to show me that people are unhappy (or happy for that matter) i want either slums in my city or high rises', i dont want a graph to tell me i have to much traffic i want my little roads stuffed to the scuppers with tiny little dots that are sposed to be cars. i want to SEE my decisions unfold before my eyes not change a set of numbers on a graph someplace change.

i want to SEE a riot break out not just get a mesage about it in some news head line thinggy. the concept isnt hard to understand, in a game like this you create the play ground your 'people' come play in it, by WATCHING them you decide what to build next or what to take away. once you remove the watching them aspect and create a game where every single visual decision about what will happen is in YOUR hands the game stops becoming fun. i recall spendintg ages trying to get farms to spawn in sim city 3000 it was a blast and exciting when i got my first one. but if you remove that and just allow the player to plunk down that farm any time he choose wether or not anyone will actualy move in it just sucks.
 

KyoNoTenso

New member
Feb 16, 2008
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Yahtzee u truely Are one of the greatest game review's. Comparing a Game to Nazi germany i just found that so smart xD. one of ur best review i found. Keep Em' coming Good Job. LMAO at "fussy Plebs" remark
 

swatmajor1

Gimme 5 Minutes!
Jan 3, 2008
54
0
0
AS always, a review well done. And the Heavy/Medic short made me lmao and kinda teary (the sad kind) in one go. Nothing in life does that, except maybe watching a cripple using Micro$oft voice recognition in Word to "type" a report of 1000+ words.
 

Firia

New member
Sep 17, 2007
1,945
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Wyatt said:
i played sim city on the intendo to death, i still boot up sim city 3000 now and then. this is a classic example of games that dont need 'new and inovative' ways to do things. what it did/does need is simply more depth to the crap it allready had.

the fun part about any sim city game was trying to manipulate your people. THAT should have been the focus of all new games right from the start. the fun does NOT come from building shit it comes from how your people respond to what you do. the focus on the game is your 'god head' not the number or size or color of buildings you toss up. when societies change the game from the type of buildings you get being determined by how well you provided basic things in a given area to just letting you plunk down what ever building you wanted any place you wanted they took away a key feedback mechanic of the original games that made them fun. hell some of the best or atleast interesting times in Sim City 3000 is trying to figure out why your row of residential neighborhoods wont spawn tower but instead seems to be stuck in trailer trash hell, or why you cant get the sears towers in your down town and instead get stuck with uncle ahabs slurp-n-go.

i can sum up why societys sucks in one go. it sucks because it stoped being about playing 'god' with your imaginary people and became about the city itself. the city was never what was importiant, it was allways the people you imagined to be in it that was. building the city was just a tool, THEE tool to interact with those lil blips. that changes when you get to make every single decision down to the color of the curtians in your housing projects. when you change the interaction feedback on a game like this from something visual to a graph on a spread sheet you ruin the game for most people. i dont want a bar graph to show me that people are unhappy (or happy for that matter) i want either slums in my city or high rises', i dont want a graph to tell me i have to much traffic i want my little roads stuffed to the scuppers with tiny little dots that are sposed to be cars. i want to SEE my decisions unfold before my eyes not change a set of numbers on a graph someplace change.

i want to SEE a riot break out not just get a mesage about it in some news head line thinggy. the concept isnt hard to understand, in a game like this you create the play ground your 'people' come play in it, by WATCHING them you decide what to build next or what to take away. once you remove the watching them aspect and create a game where every single visual decision about what will happen is in YOUR hands the game stops becoming fun. i recall spendintg ages trying to get farms to spawn in sim city 3000 it was a blast and exciting when i got my first one. but if you remove that and just allow the player to plunk down that farm any time he choose wether or not anyone will actualy move in it just sucks.
Cheers to that. :) Spot on the whole way.
 

_daxter_

New member
Jan 12, 2008
48
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Hey guys,

what do you think? Should ZP review a game he really likes next time? Instead of trying to following the thrashing we all can try to follow supercretinesque praise of ZP's favorite title...