@LesserAngel @EmphaZima This mass delay of reviews across the board does make you wonder. This happened with Battlefield 3 (another EA game) as well. Up until now I would always give EA the benefit of the doubt and play devil's advocate with anti-EA people. I think those days are over. I love Simcity as I grew up playing it too. However, I cannot get over the small city sizes. They are about the size of a shoebox. I am hoping this is more of a technical reason for doing this and not an attempt by EA to imitate cityville or other facebook games.
What's with the holdup on the review gamespot? (I know it's not just you). Are you waiting for EA to unscrew their servers so you can give a more accurate review? If this is the case then it's funny because I know you guys don't wait for Day 1 patches to kick in to review other technically broken games. We're holding our bated breaths for this review. Meanwhile the reports from the gaming masses are enough to not get me to purchase the game.
With the new pirate and high seas theme I'm hoping to be able to club some seals to boost my revenue. I also hope aerial beaver assassination makes a return. Will Captain Stabbin' be making an appearance as well?
@jagcivtec @EmphaZima Nothing wrong with the latter! Don't get me wrong I do love the ninja and East Asian culture. Unlike other folks I would rather see the next AC go to that part of the world for a different feel. I love history and some of the most interesting history I've ever studied was East Asian history.
Slow down. Fix the game. Polish the game. The general gaming public will not completely black out on the Assassins Creed series if you go more than an entire year without releasing an AC game. AC3 could have been epic if you had taken the time to do what I just mentioned. Oversaturation has ruined many a great thing. Please don't ruin this series.
@X-RS @EmphaZima In the full article Cliff mentions that the new consoles have to embrace the fuller spectrum of current gaming. Consoles have to better facilitate modding, indy game development, etc in order to reopen the market for cheaper games and creativity. As you can see from a lot of these posts people aren't impulsively buying $60 games anymore. The writing on the wall is Steam-like marketing with sales and digital downloads that encourage impulse buying. I'm thinking the current standard $60 a game economic model is becoming archaic. Rather than stamp out used games they should capitalize on what makes used games in such high demand in the first place: cheaper prices, trade-in options. It took some time for the music industry to learn this. Rather than think you are going to stop illegal downloading altogether instead embrace and exploit the convenience it provides.
Funny gamespot put the video about games being dumbed down in the story. I agree, mainstream games in recent times are not just easy, they are STUPIDLY easy, which leads me to say that the turmoil in gaming right now is the industry as a whole collectively turning its back on its core audience in an attempt to attract the casual fan. Dumbing down games, an over-saturation of watered down sequels, releasing technically unfinished games, a full-court press campaign to squash the used game market, divisively endless debates on political correctness, intelligence-insulting DLC marketing, and turning games into big budget Hollywood blockbuster duds that are all flash and no substance are all aspects that are making the gaming natives very restless. When an industry turns its back on its core, it's a recipe for disaster. The casual fan will eventually get tired of the shiny object and put it down and move on to something else. After that all you're left with is your core, but if you've ostracized them you have nothing left.
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