Below you will find pages that utilize the taxonomy term “Cities-Xl”
2013 Video Games Report and Game of the Year
[caption id=“attachment_7243” align=“aligncenter” width=“604”] Civilization V - against Dave - Fighting Barbarians at the Gates - 2620 BC[/caption]
Civilization V (48.5 hrs): As is usually the case, spent a ton of time with Civilization this year. Played about 3.5 hours less than last year, but had way more fun by playing with Dan and Dave. Things have gone a little slower recently because we’ve all been away for the holidays, but I actually feel like there’s a good chance of us finishing the game. At least the one I have with Dave which is much further along.
May 2013 Video Games Report
During the month of May I continued to try and completed story-based games in my library.
[caption id=“attachment_6370” align=“aligncenter” width=“480”] Quantum Conundrum Science Ball[/caption]
Quantum Conundrum (3 hrs) - I started playing the game early this year. I really, really enjoy this game, but the imprecision of the moves really bugs me. I’ve been playing it with a keyboard and mouse, does anyone know if it plays better with a control? I keep dying because I go too far in my jumps and it’s annoying when I’ve figured out the puzzle but keep dying because of platforming issues. In other words, when I play Sudoku I don’t fail because my pen lands in the wrong box when I try to write a number. The thrill of the game is solving the puzzles. I enjoy teasers and, while I admit I sometimes have to use a guide to solve the puzzle, I always try really hard to see if I’ve considered all the possible ways to use the game’s elements to solve the puzzle. I don’t know if the game is evenly balanced, but I think there are three halls and I’ve finished one of them. But I spent around 30 minutes of of the three hours this month trying to get through a puzzle I’d solved but I kept falling to my death. So I put completion of the game on hold to play other games. I may not ever finish this one. We’ll see.
April 2013 Video Games Report
[caption id=“attachment_6081” align=“aligncenter” width=“480”] Cities XL - Trio - buildings up close[/caption]
In addition to the game I played this month, I’ve decided from now on to include a running total of the top games to see if/how they change with time. For example, when I wasn’t paying attention, Saints Row: The Third made the Top 7. (Which, raptr, is a weird number. Usually these things are multiples of five)
Cities XL Followup: I've Become Addicted
[caption id=“attachment_5996” align=“aligncenter” width=“480”] Elites have some NICE houses in Cities XL[/caption]
I am really, really enjoying building up my city. There are new zoning densities that open up as you get more and more populous. For a while I was using a strategy similar to what’s going on in my in-law’s neighborhood - raze the single family homes to build apartments. Then later raze those to build sky-rises. But then I abandoned that for suburban sprawl since the map was so huge. As most people (I think) do in these city simulation games, I started off with an area similar to what happens in real life. In order to keep taxes low, you don’t want long roads separating your citizens from their jobs. So the first residential area is kinda dingy and exists near some really dirty industrial manufacturing. So I decided to build a nicer part of town, with more parks and cleaner air, across the river. However, they still needed to get to work, so traffic started building up on the bridge. So I had to make another and another and…..
In the Wake of SimCity Fiasco Another Look at CitiesXL
[caption id=“attachment_5961” align=“aligncenter” width=“480”] My Cities XL Region - 1 city with 75 thousand residents[/caption]
I first played Cities XL in May of 2011. I last played a year ago in April 2012. At the time I said I couldn’t wait until Sim City came out. However, we know what a fiasco that has become. So, discouraged about playing Sim City I decided to load up Cities XL. This is the first one - not 2011, 2012, or Deluxe. The graphics are pretty amazing and rival anything in the current Sim City.
2012 Video Games Report and Game of the Year
First of all, a quick reminder that my Game of the Year doesn’t necessarily have to come out in 2012. Because I don’t have the time to dedicate to video games, the price premium of buying it new rarely makes sense to me. So my Game of the Year will be my favorite game that I played in 2012.
As I compiled my list I realized that I played a lot less games in 2012. I may not have played a lot less hours (I haven’t bothered comparing the totals with 2011), but I definitely had a lot less variety. A lot of that has to do with the birth of my daughter this year. Only as the year has gone on have I been able to carve out some time here and there to play story-based games. In addition, I resumed pursuing my master’s degree in the fall, right around the time I was able to have a bit more time to myself. I didn’t have any gameplay at all in March, September or October.
April Video Games
Got a little bit of time to play games while waiting to do midnight feeds. I’ve already spoken about these games a bunch of times, so it’s going to be a short post.
Civilization V (2 hrs)
Team Fortress 2 (2 hrs)
Cities XL (1 hr) - fun, but I can’t wait for Sim City 5 to come out!
Peggle Deluxe (1 hr)
2011 in Video Games (and my 2011 Game of the Year)
[caption id=“attachment_5240” align=“alignleft” width=“150” caption=“Team Fortress 2”] [/caption]
Civilization V (75 hrs) - What can I say about this game that I haven’t said already? This is the series that made “One More More Turn…” famous and it still works today. If I were to start a game tonight, I would not go to bed at a reasonable time.
May Video Games
I forgot to check for the May video game play times before it was too deep into June, so I lost my FFX playtime. The others are pretty accurate.
Final Fantasy X - finished the game. Review here.
Portal 2 (3 hrs) - finished multi-player game with Dan. That game is AWESOME. I was only bummed that the puzzles never truly got hard. There were only 3 (max!) that left Dan and I scratching out heads for a long time. Perhaps they wanted to make sure everyone finished the story events and so they didn’t make it hard. Or maybe they had as hard a thinking with four portals as we did when we were first getting used to it. I can’t wait for the DLC as I hope we get some more challenges. Heck, we didn’t even have any white gel in the multi-player games.