wyvrn
06-26-2000, 11:27 AM
I recently bought Star Trek Armada and Sim City 3000 Unlimited. I wanted to try Armada because I love a good strategy game and the Star Trek theme intrigued me. I loved the original Sim City, as well as Sim 2000 too. But I am dissapointed. First I played Armada, and while the graphics and sound are good, the gameplay is severely lacking. The game has 4 races, Federation, Borg, Klingons, and Romulans. But there is no clear difference between any of them. Each one has several ships that have a main weapon, and a few other special weapons that can be researched. About the only other upgrade is adding officers to your starbase. Other than that, it is just a question of who builds faster and can rush the most. With all of the ships being very similar capability-wise, I find very little strategy here. And the games are over too quickly for my tastes. This game so does not even compate to the best RTS I have ever played, Starcraft.
SimCity 3000 is just frustratingly hard. No matter how hard I try, my city always has low land values and grows too slowly. I played its two predecessors and finally achieved a grand level, but with this one it feels like the makers substituted ridiculously high standards for smart strategy and wise decision making. There does not exist one clear solution to building a great city, much less a choice of options.
What I am getting to is this: game designers today are focusing on fancy graphics and sound, and not on the quality of the product. I am still playing Starcraft and SimCity 2000 with much more enjoyment than their successors. It is because games of a few years ago did not rely on the surface layer to attract buyers, but on the rich experience of actually playing the game and becoming part of it. I used to be able to just pick out a game at the store and come home and enjoy it in some way, but now it looks like I will have to purchase 5 different ones to find the one I like. Maybe its a good thing I do not enjoy playing games as much anymore, and I can spend that time on more important things. But I am going to miss the great gaming experiences I used to have with the gaming classics.
SimCity 3000 is just frustratingly hard. No matter how hard I try, my city always has low land values and grows too slowly. I played its two predecessors and finally achieved a grand level, but with this one it feels like the makers substituted ridiculously high standards for smart strategy and wise decision making. There does not exist one clear solution to building a great city, much less a choice of options.
What I am getting to is this: game designers today are focusing on fancy graphics and sound, and not on the quality of the product. I am still playing Starcraft and SimCity 2000 with much more enjoyment than their successors. It is because games of a few years ago did not rely on the surface layer to attract buyers, but on the rich experience of actually playing the game and becoming part of it. I used to be able to just pick out a game at the store and come home and enjoy it in some way, but now it looks like I will have to purchase 5 different ones to find the one I like. Maybe its a good thing I do not enjoy playing games as much anymore, and I can spend that time on more important things. But I am going to miss the great gaming experiences I used to have with the gaming classics.