🚀 go-pugleaf

st...@fulcrum.oz.au (Steve Taylor) writes:

>My 2 cents: don't try SimAnt - it's a good simulation but a bad game. SimEarth
>is impressive, but has never given me much of a feeling of control over the
>game. SimCity is the best of the Sim... series, just because it doesn't try
>to do too much. Populous is another old favourite - real time but fairly slow,
>a fair bit of room for strategy - you and the other player each play a god,
>and try to make the world safe for your believers, and unsafe for infidels.

To be fair, Maxis does not market their products as games but as
simulations.  The 'game' aspects of the products are peripheral at best.
The challenge is to explore and experiment, not necessarily to win.
Expect SimCity 2000 to be on the same level of complexity as SimEarth and
SimAnt.


>And do try civilisation - I've tried all of the "run a planet" games I could
>find, and civilisation is the best so far. Unusually for a computer game, the
>computer opponent is very competent - I get sick of games where the opponent
>is an idiot, but wins by being fast, or by outnumbering you.

It's certainly better than most in that aspect, but there are some unfair
restrictions in it as well.  The human player is forced to be eternally
passive concerning interaction with the other civilization leaders.  For
instance, you can't approach one and demand tribute or technologies out of
the blue, though they'll do it constantly to you.  You really can't ask
anything of them for the most part (there are instances where you have
options, but they're few in number).  And sometimes it does do the "be fast
and outnumber you" thing but not nearly as bad as some games I've seen.
It could just be that the computer is so efficient that it gives you the
impression that it couldn't possibly do what it did in half the time it
took you to do the same thing.

-- 
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--(David Vessell)--(Bradley University Computing Services)-(da...@bradley.edu)--