Yahtzee Croshaw’s quasi-definitive review of ‘SimCity’

Speaking of awesome web series, here’s Zero Punctuation’s Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw on the superbly polished turd that is the new SimCity ^{[WARNING: Crude language & humor ahead]}:

Transcript: (click the [+/-] to open/close →)

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Electronic Arts. Arts. Arrrts. If there was ever a name that illustrated a need for some kind of verbal equivalent of Social Services to come and forcibly take words away if they’re being misused … Then again, they do mainly go by EA these days, so maybe they’ve quietly changed their name to Extruding Arseholes so as not to offend reality. My point is that if there was ever a time when artistry was important enough to the company to be eponymous, then that is not a time in which we are currently living. Now, they just talk about money and being a dick about things. Perhaps EA now stands for Expel All. (Your money. From your wallet. So that we can have it. And be a dick about it.)

Yes, I am quite bitter, because I had to install Origin to play SimCity, EA’s overpriced, I’m-going-to-make-my-own-clubhouse-just-for-all-my-friends-and-its-gonna-have-cake-and-Subbuteo-and-it’s-gonna-be-so-much-better digital distribution system, and putting that on my computer felt like leaving a child of my own in the Jonestown daycare center. I felt dirty afterwards. I had to take a Steam bath. That’s where you load up Steam and download a bunch of indie games to scrub yourself with.

So, I gave SimCity about a week before I started it up, because as we all remember, once EA had everyone’s money, they had to start making up for the “being a dick” part of the mission statement and dick everyone around with connection issues. Because SimCity has to be played online now, for the sake of some features nobody fucking asked for, and also because EA assumed that we’re all dicks who steal games, so they have to dick us first, preemptively-like.

I’d like to quote now from a statement made by Maxis, which I will read in an insulting, dismissive voice: “SimCity is made to be played online, and if you can’t get a stable connection, you’re not having a good experience.” I agree with that last part: I certainly am not having a good experience as I sit and wait for an update to download every dicking time I start a session. By this point, I imagine a cute little finger-puppet on the end of EA’s many slick, black tentacles hovering earnestly behind my shoulder. “No, it’s all right, it will be fun! You can play alongside other people and what a jolly lot of fun you’ll all have!”

Okay. So on a desolate plot of land, I placed the foundations for the emerging city of Dogbollock, USA.

“Oh, no-no-no!” went the little finger-puppet, leaning over and typing a row of asterisks. “Can’t call your city that! That would be ever so beastly!”

Why not? It is a fun name. I would be having more fun as the mayor of a city called Dogbollock. I’m hoping to set up a Department of Dogbollock Beautification.

“Oh, but other players will see it! A small, innocent child might see it and suddenly know that bollocks exist.”

This “online play makes things more fun” assertion has sort of fallen at the first hurdle, hasn’t it? So, what benefit is there to being next to other cities that other people are running? Well, if they’ve got an excess of facilities, you can buy some of them. Choo-choo, all aboard the fun train! Suppose we should be grateful they didn’t charge fucking micropayments for it. Buying facilities from other cities was a SimCity 3000 feature, so maybe being able to do it between player cities is a natural development. I wouldn’t say it was worth dicking the entire user base for. Oh, but who doesn’t have a constant Internet connection these days? Poor people, who could only fantasize about holding a position of power and influence? Why would they want to play a God game?

I’ll say this for EA: They are full of innovative ideas. As we’ve just discussed, they have innovative new ideas on what the word ‘fun’ means. And they’re breaking new ground with the definition of ‘sequel’, too. I always thought it meant “game with more stuff in it”, but that just shows how archaic my thinking is. The area given for each city seems a bit small, which I suspect may be intended to incentivize sharing facilities with your neighbors, which I think is one of the ways HIV can get transmitted. You also can’t edit the terrain before founding the city like you could in SimCity 4, and you can’t import characters from The Sims anymore, either.

So, tell me, little finger-puppet: Assuming that multiplayer elements are about as enticing to me as the sight of a dog sniffing another dog’s bum (an easy thing to assume, because they are), are there any new features that SimCity can offer me?

“Well, there’s a poo map!”

…

I bet your pardon?

“We got a special map that lets you see all the poo falling in big piles under people’s houses! Then, you can build an outlet pipe and watch all the poo speed away on a wee-wee one-way system!”

…

FUCKING SOLD!

So for a while, I played along, grew my city, waited for the hourly cash inflow so I could build whatever I was being nagged for the loudest at the time, occasionally switching to the poo map and watching it, mesmerized, for about an hour. But then, I was informed that a meteorite^[sic] strike was incoming and I should prepare for fires. Okay, prepare how? I don’t directly control the fire service; am I supposed to just, what, print off some leaflets? WHOOPS – too late, bombs away. Within minutes, my city was an inferno.

But like a strong leader, I stayed level-headed and built twelve new fire stations, which seemed to eventually sort the problem out, and after bulldozing half the city in some sort of invisible mass grave, things swiftly returned to normal. “Well, on the bright side,” I thought, “I now have the most fireproof city in the universe, with the possible exception of Rapture.” Then, about an hour later, the game said, “Hey, a house burned down! Why haven’t you improved the fire services, spaz?” And I wondered about this until I noticed nine of the city’s fire engined arranged in a conga line on the far side of town. I think there may be something wrong with the AI. This might also explain why my town was briefly terrorized by a rampaging criminal whose house turned out to be directly opposite the police station.

Specifics are kind of moot, though, ’cause I don’t see what this game has over, say, SimCity 4, which is cheaper, and deeper, and available on a download service that doesn’t make my hard drive dry-heave. It’s just the online features, la-dee-cunting-da. “Oh, but everyone else seems to like them,” has been the gist of EA and Maxis’s company line on this issue. “It’s not our fault you don’t know how to have fun.” Listen to me, EA: Not every introvert is longing for the day that Zooey-fucking-Deschanel kicks their door down and forcibly drags them to a roller rink. I know how to have fun. It involves feeling like I’ve achieved something with a sense of independence. It does not involve gangs of punks from some asshole’s gambling town coming over to kick all my bus stops over.

Can I suggest that perhaps you only ever hear from people who like online features because such people are extroverts, and it is only extroverts who think anyone gives a shit about their stupid opinions? And before you say anything, my opinions are actually very clever.

CREDITS: “Can barely run a fucking bath: BEN “YAHTZEE” CROSHAW

“Also I thought Dogbollock would’ve been a good name because the name on the local sports team would have been a total no-brainer”

“There are parts of Brisbane in dire need of a public poo map”

Until or unless they fix the crippling server issues, allow cities larger than mountaintop villages and – has this been said yet? – add a freaking offline mode (or I find a crack/patch that does all this for them), I’m choosing to double down on SimCity 4 while holding my breath for the next iteration. (Unless EA/Maxis kicks the bucket first, and with the way things are shaping up for them lately, that wouldn’t come as much of a shock.)

When you need to see a movie just to believe how bad it is

Note: (07/20/10 12:50 PM) – It’s being rumored that Tommy Wiseau, the filmmaker/actor behind (and in) this film, has forced the Nostalgia Critic and ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com to take down their negative reviews of his shitfest film. Thankfully, the dark forces of censorship seem to have hit an obstacle in this case, as the video itself still plays normally at the time of writing this. So, enjoy, while you can.

Note #2: (07/20/10 7:50 PM) – Yup, it’s official. Check out the NC’s take on the Tommy Wiseau Show! (Note: Not actually starring Tommy Wiseau.)

Note #3: (07/20/10 7:55 PM) – I have reposted this at this current time. This post was originally published on Tuesday, July 14, 2010, at 2:14 PM.

I just had to share this with y’all. Having just sat through what has got to be the single most brain-damaging episode of the Nostalgia Critic yet, I am now compelled to give you his latest review, featuring none other than the colossal, pyorrheic blast from the ass that is … The Room [2003].

I can’t decide which quantifier fits best for this shitfest – bad … or disturbing. And I mean that on whatever number of levels you wish.

Tags: The Room • Nostalgia Critic • film reviews • bad movies • Tommy Wiseau

Daily Blend: Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Joan Farr Heffington (R-KS)

Ha! It may look like piss-poor filmmaker and actor Tommy Wiseau had forced the Nostalgia Critic and ThatGuyWithTheGlasses.com to pull their reviews of Wiseau’s so-bad-you-gotta-see-it-to-believe-it cult film The Room, but I still have the working video right here! Censorship FAIL, douchebag.

• Anther one for the US Theocratic Party: Joan Farr Heffington (R) ^[pictured] is running for governor of Kansas with a platform that includes requiring that there be a “Biblical and Constitutional reason” for any new laws and “allow[ing] teaching of Christianity vs. evolution in schools”. Well, can’t say she’s sneaky about it.
  (via Pharyngula)

• What’s the point in having a big, fancy medical machine if you don’t get to play around with it?
  (via Pharyngula)

• PZ Myers tries to play smug, beats Phil Plait 2-3 with his Bacon number, realizes he’s linked to Ben Stein. FAIL (and irony Win).

• But Global Warming is a hoax and the Earth is actually cooling! Oh, wait …
  (via The Daily Grail)

• Introducing the Washington Post’s latest undercover investigation into Top Secret America, how how far this country has descended into anti-terrorist hysteria since 9/11.

• Hmm …
  (via @todayspolitics)

• The UN officially accredits the US-based International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission for “consultation status”.

• Maryland Air National Guard staff sergeant Anthony Graber is the one who had a cop pull a gun on him at a mere traffic top and then had his parents’ home ransacked and his property seized. Of course, means he’s also the one who’s facing up to 16 years in jail for videotaping original cop illegally pulling a gun on him in the first place.
  (via @todayspolitics)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Tags: Joan Farr Heffington • Kansas • theocrats • machines • fruit • food • PZ Myers • Phil Plait • Kevin Bacon • Bacon number • Ben Stein • funny • Global Warming • global temperatures • Washington Post • Top Secret America • USA • anti-terrorism • Sarah Palin • cartoons • United Nations • UN • Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission • Anthony Graber • police

Belated Discovery: Nostalgia Critic (he remembers it so we don’t have to)

You know, for someone who prides himself on being an general Internet geek, I’m constantly pointed in the direction of stuff that I arguably should have heard of and fallen in love with ages ago. So, hence the prefix to this post’s title, I’m starting a new sporadic series, Belated Discoveries (or short for “stuff I can’t believe I never knew about before but now that I do I love it and I’m gonna pimp like a whore”). Today’s Discovery is something that was pointed to me by my friend Gene a few days ago and that I’ve been positively hooked on ever since: the Nostalgia Critic. (And really, just the whole crew at That Guy With the Glasses.) He makes the Angry Video Game Nerd sound unfunny. (Though frankly, to me, he is, mostly.)

Here’s a representative sample: the Care Bears Movie review.

The gun bit almost had me in tears.

Daily Blend: Thursday, April 15, 2010

I’m not big on poetry, but this one always leaves me thinking:

Nature’s first green is gold
Her hardest hue to hold
Her early leaf’s a flower,
But only so an hour
Then leaf subsides to leaf
So Eden sank to grief
So dawn goes down to day
Nothing gold can stay
“Nothing Gold Can Stay”, Robert Frost, Yale Review, October 1923

• Three cops in Prince George, Maryland under criminal investigation for beating an innocent university student for no reason, then lying that he attacked them first on their reports. Except that, once more, surveillance camera footage reveals their bullshitting.
  (via Dispatches From the Culture Wars)

• Finally, a religious plan that actually should serve as an example for others. I’m all for this sort of system.
  (via @religionnews)

• Yahtzee Croshaw at Zero Punctuation reviews Red Steel 2.

• Woman injured by falling from her Wii Fit board turned into insatiable sex addict. No, this isn’t some sort of erotic fantasy.
  (via @VeritasKnight)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Daily Blend: 03/18/10 – Now new & improved

Slightly updated format makes for less tediousness. And now, the main event … random links!

• A couple of days ago, Vox Day released a new column at the WorldNutDaily where he claims to take apart some of the “New Atheists”’ strongest commonly used arguments. (See a little preliminary write-up I made, here.) I haven’t read it, and nor do I have any interest in doing so, but Ed Brayton took apart the hilariously silly introduction at his blog, deriding Vox’s use of silly ad hominems and remarkably pathetic criticism, such as where he basically called Christopher Hitchens “gay!”, which makes one wonder if he isn’t mentally stuck at 14 years old. (No offense to emotionally mature 14-year-olds intended.) See Vox’s characteristically vituperative and empty retort, here. If he really thinks Ed somehow didn’t know that it was the introduction he was taking apart, then he’s even more of a projecting dingus than I thought.

• Historians lash out against the Texas State Board of Education for its appalling history revisionism, indicating that perhaps the wingnuts took their denialism of reality just a bit too far this time.
  (via @washingtonpost)

• Satirical Obama Facebook page, part 2. Follow updates and announcements on Facebook. Wish they had a Twitter feed.
  (via The Agitator)

• “Help! I’m being repressed!” I wonder how I never came across this before. Funny as hell.
  (via Respectful Insolence)

• Yahtzee Croshaw at Zero Punctuation reviews Heavy Rain.

• The Top Ten anti-gay activists caught being totally … gay. Rank them yourself!
  (via @todayspolitics)

As always, if you have any story suggestions, feel free to send them in.

Yahtzee doesn’t like the Old Testament God’s view on sex

Oh, how I love Zero Punctuation, from the brilliantly twisted machiavellian mind of Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw. And quotes like these symbolize why:

The Divine Comedy really does paint God as little bit “two choir boys short of a [?] racket”, if all that Old Testament business didn’t already tip you off. ‘Hey!’ says God. ‘I’ve made it so it feels really, really good to stick certain body parts together and jiggle them around, and hardwired your brain to want to do it pretty much 24/7 between the ages of 13 and 70. But if you actually do it without a special permission slip from the Church, then I’m going to light you on fire.’ And that’s just in Purgatory.

That’s some good blasphemy. And it works even better with the video. Speaking of which, watch it, here. [Warning: mild NSFW language]

Admit it – now you’re hooked, too.