SimCity Finally Comes Out On Mac But Does Anybody Care?

SimCity is finally out on Mac and you know what, at the time of writing, it’s been out for a little while. I was waiting for SimCity on Mac for a long time, but I just missed the whole release date in the sea of more tangible, exciting and inevitable game releases.

SimCity was finally released on Mac on 29th August 2013, after nearly a year of constant delays and botched deadlines. SimCity has been on PC for well over a year and while I can appreciate that the Mac platform is not the primarily gaming platform for home computers, I can’t help but feel a little bit sore after EA’s Mac release. Of course, in my eyes SimCity has suffered the ultimate demise; I quite simply forgot it existed.

Now, I know what you are probably thinking, the Mac isn’t necessarily for gaming (at least not compared to PC) and you shouldn’t expect any big releases to release at the same time, if at all. But this is not why I am annoyed about SimCity. I am annoyed because EA promised something, and they didn’t deliver. They didn’t even deliver the second time. As I looked for new info on the Mac version, I constantly felt that it was more likely that it would be cancelled, than finally get a real release date.

I don’t have the exact quote, but EA put the delay of SimCity for Mac down to performance issues stating that they wanted to get it running as best as possible. Well apparently, there are reports that the Mac release has been just as troublesome as the PC one. Yes, the PC release is well-documented as one of the worst video game releases of recent memory. Servers didn’t work, systems didn’t run, always-online was tarnished.

But somehow I still believed in the game. SimCity is a wonderful series, a deeply intricate simulation game that balances creativity and strategy. Create what you want, as long as everyone has flushing toilets. The new graphics looked great and fit the style of the series perfectly. The thing is I feel like I really don’t care anymore. Not about SimCity so much as about this game. I remember when SimCity for Mac was coming out in June and I downloaded Origin and set up my account, only to find a few days before release, that it had been delayed till August 29th. That is a good way to sum up the whole sorry mess. Because when I went on to research this article, I found that I had forgot my Origin password. It all seems a lot more trouble than it’s worth.

What do you think about the delayed and then delayed again Mac release of SimCity? Make some noise in the comments below…

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GTA V Official Map Leaks Online?

A purported map complete with legend for Grand Theft Auto V has been doing the rounds online, showing a vast amount of countryside for gamers to explore when the game releases next week.

The image first appeared on Reddit after being uploaded by user GeENie, who claims he caught a glimpse of the game’s guide after GTA V began arriving at stores earlier this week.

Perhaps the most revealing aspect of the supposedly leaked map is the legend, which reveals a variety of locations, some known, others unconfirmed – until now.

The key shows such locations as a strip club, which had already been confirmed by previous screenshots and trailers, as well as a golf course and hospital.

Map Legend reveals a Cinema as a potential new destination.

However, the legend also makes reference to a cinema, darts venue and flight school, features which were up until this point only speculated.

As for the map itself, a mountain appears to dominate the landscape, which is surprisingly rural.

Los Santos County and Blaine County are huge, while the suburbs pale into comparison way at the bottom of the map.

Transport-wise, there appears to be a highway running around the circumference of the playable area, complete with train lines, an airport and what looks to be a cable car system.

Of course, there is still a chance that this is a fake, but it’s certainly piqued out interests even further ahead on next Tuesday’s fervently anticipated release date.

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5 MORE Video Game Characters Who Really Deserve A Holiday

Some video game characters have it easy. I mean, really easy. While others are out risking their lives on an hourly basis, these layabouts are busy out there chilling on an island with a fancy talking water jetpack (Super Mario Sunshine) or counting their infinite lives (Lego games) or sniffing other dogs bums (Nintendogs). This is not an article for them, this is an article dedicated to the hard sloggers who really deserve some downtime.

About a week ago, I wrote ‘5 Video Game Characters Who Really Deserve A Holiday’ which sent some famous characters (including Solid Snake and Joel and Ellie) off on an all-expenses paid trip to another game. And now that I’ve got thinking, and found some disastrous omissions, I think it’s about time to make 5 more characters the happiest little bundles of pixel in the game-verse. It’s time to sit back with your seat placed upright and your tray tables folded away, as we look at 5 MORE Video Game Characters Who Really Deserve A Holiday.

5. Chibi-Robo (Chibi-Robo)

In a little cult classic for the Nintendo Gamecube, a small, cute, metallic robot named Chibi-Robo lives in a massive house with a family of equally massive humans and some particularly menacing pets. While this seems to be the set-up for a lovely, cutesy kids game, there are some rather depressing undertones. Little Chibi-Robo is essentially a slave to the family, cleaning up after them and scrubbing around with his trusty toothbrush. He even takes it upon himself to solve some of the family’s problems, keeping the mother and father from arguing and destroying maniacal spiders that would scare the children. Does little Chibi ever get a thank you? No, he never even gets an acknowledgement of his existence.

Chibi needs a holiday where he can finally stop cleaning up after everyone and really learn the value of robots. He also needs to stop being a push over and start to stand up to people. Due to the fact, the lovely little robot never complains, I imagine he has some pent up aggression it would be good to get out. Hmm, yes okay Chibi, I have just the place for you.

Recommended Holiday Destination: Transformers: Fall of Cybertron

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Before GTA V: 5 Most Infuriating Ways To Die In Grand Theft Auto

The occasional death of the player character is an accepted inevitability in most action games given the involvement of guns and other forms of weaponry.

The Grand Theft Auto series is no different, as the player’s character is likely to meet his maker on a number of occasions throughout the games as his controller navigates missions that involve high-speed car chases, explosions, extensive gunfights and conflict with heavily armed law enforcement personnel.

Aside from these, however, the series has featured several ways of dying that range from frustrating to downright ridiculous, and what follows is a quick and fun rundown of five of the most irritating things that can result in an instant mission failure and a trip to the local hospital that results in the loss of accumulated weapons.

Hopefully, few or even none of these will be present in the upcoming Grand Theft Auto V, which is now just a month away from release.

5. Starvation

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas added a whole host of new concepts to the series, some of them good, such as bicycles, gambling and base jumping, and some of them bad.

One of the more questionable additions was a hunger system, in which players must eat food on a semi-regular basis to ensure that their character doesn’t begin to lose their body fat, muscle mass and finally health in turn.

There is little more infuriating than beginning a lengthy mission only to informed some time after commencement that you will soon die and fail as a result of malnutrition. On some missions, this can be remedied with a trip to the nearest fast food establishment, but on ones in the middle of nowhere or where the leaving of a vehicle is forbidden (such as the lengthy ambulance or firefighter subquests), it’s likely to result in a pad being thrown at the wall.

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GTA V: 10 Awesome Online Features You Won’t Believe

The hype train for Rockstar’s GTA V continues to travel full-pelt as yet another trailer was released yesterday, revealing the previously under-wraps multiplayer element, known simply as GTA Online.

Needless to say, the Twittersphere exploded promptly afterwards, and though we hadn’t thought it possible, our expectations for this game have now been raised to even more impossible levels. If nothing else, this unveiling made it clear that GTA V really is striving to be the most ambitious and life-sapping video game ever made.

If the game can live up to the hype both online and off, it is destined to sit among the all-time greats, and from what we were shown yesterday, the odds are certainly in Rockstar’s favour. We already know that GTA Online will allow up to 16 players to play together, and now, here are 10 new, awesome features we know…

10. It Can Be Seamlessly Accessed

The goal with GTA V’s online offering appears to be to create a persistent world that exists within the aesthetic of Los Santos, though is very much its own beast, separate from the story and characters of the single-player campaign.

Still, Rockstar is ensuring that we can seamlessly flip between the two, as players will be able to select their “fourth character” by way of the switch wheel used to swap between characters locally. Swapping to your created online character will initiate the online mode and presumably match you with 15 other players (or friends, if you so wish).

While many games boast clunky multiplayer components that suffer from cumbersome menus and networking problems, hopefully a direct integration of the two – while still offering a distinctly different experience – will result in a smoother, slicker means of navigation, and less frustration on the part of the player.

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12 Most Difficult Gaming Moments Of 2013

Warner Bros. Games Montr al

It’s frequently said that video games are getting easier in a quest to appeal to an increasingly more “casual” crowd, but these 12 games had something to say about that. It’s fair to say that games generally are getting easier and shorter, but that’s not to say that all games are beyond giving us a run for our money and making us occasionally slam the controller down in frustration.

These 12 moments, whether crazy boss battles, insanely difficult new modes, or weird difficulty spikes that came out of nowhere, had us manically asking for help on message boards, banding together with other exhausted gamers to find a solution.

In one case, the developers even admitted that said section of the game was too difficult and patched it to curb the level of challenge, but most developers held steadfast that if you wanted to progress through the game, you had to earn your stripes. These sections may have made us mad as hell at the time, but looking back, the feeling of accomplishment when you made it through (assuming you did) can’t be denied.

As usual, feel free to add any other challenging 2013 gaming moments in the comments, and if you managed to breeze through these sections, let me know!

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FIFA 14: Top 7 Tips & Tricks

Since its release on September 27, FIFA 14 has gone on to become one of this year’s biggest-selling video games.

That’s no mean feat, either, considering it has had to contend with the insanely popular Grand Theft Auto V in the UK sales charts over the last two months, even toppling Rockstar’s title at one stage.

And, with the release of FIFA 14 on the next generation consoles – PlayStation 4 and Xbox One – coming at the end of this month, sales are expected to sky-rocket further still.

Sales figures to one side, EA’s long-running franchise is just as good on the field as it is off it, offering players one of the most realistic football simulations on the market.

’14, the latest release, is arguably the best in the series so far, bringing new features to the table such as the ‘Ignite Engine’, which affects a variety of things, from goal-scoring to collision detection.

It’s also, some say, more difficult to master than any iteration that has come before it, due to its slowed down pace and sluggish feel.

We tend to agree with these assertions, and there is a steep learning curve to navigate.

However, fortunately for you, here, we lend a helping hand by going through the Top 7 Tips & Tricks for FIFA 14.

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GTA V Online: 5 Ways To Spend Your $500,000

Ka-ching!

Today, Rockstar Games boosted everyone’s online Grand Theft Auto V bank account by releasing the previously-promised $500,000 as way of apology for the horrendous bugs that blighted Online’s release last month.

Anyone who played GTA Online in October will receive the compensatory package and players should start seeing the funds going in from today.

Rockstar expect the cash to have been doled out across its whole fanbase by the end of play tomorrow (Friday), and wrote on their blog asking for fans to be patient if they haven’t seen a boost to their bank accounts yet.

The in-game payment, which has been dubbed by the publishers as a “stimulus package”, is Rockstar’s way of offering something of an olive branch to those who experienced difficulties logging into the servers during the troubled first two weeks of Online’s release.

And, with everyone’s bank balance starting to look just that little bit healthier, fans can begin thinking what exactly they’re going to spend their new-found heap of cash on.

With money no longer an object, gamers can start treating themselves to some luxurious and decadent products, and here, we take a look at 5 Ways To Spend Your $500,000.

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PS4: 5 Things We Learned From Sony’s Ultimate User Guide

The next-generation of gaming is on the horizon. It’s hard to believe it but we are just 2 weeks away from Sony’s Perfect Day; the exciting North American launch of their highly hyped Playstation 4 console.

As someone who grew up primarily with the Playstation 1 (I was far too young and innocent to take any game seriously on my Sega Genesis and SNES) I couldn’t be more excited. I am just itching to pick up my console and mess around with it, and to of course write my thoughts here and review some heavy hitting titles like Killzone: Shadow Fall and Knack.

We still have to grind out those final 2 weeks though, and while great games like Assassin’s Creed IV are keeping us occupied, Sony is also releasing some juicy nuggets (or walls of text) of information. I’m referring to the official Playstation 4 ultimate user guide!

I’m not joking around when I say that this thing may as well be a novel. And while a great deal of it is common sense or uninteresting technical jargon, there are surprising details in it. This article will condense that information into key areas.

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GTA V: 9 Awesome Commercials You Might’ve Missed

I probably shouldn’t admit this before expecting you to read an article I am writing about the game, but here goes. I have never played a Grand Theft Auto game before GTA V in my life. Honestly I never had any desire to. Between watching my friends do nothing (or the same exact thing) for two hours in any given urban location I was pretty much sold on the fact that the series just wasn’t for me and I would be an Elder Scrolls man till the day I died or my thumbs fell off.

Then Rockstar released the first trailer for GTA V and I experienced an instant change of heart.

You knew immediately from the first time you saw it that this was a game you had to play, that it was going to take the GTA franchise to the next level by leaps and bounds. Rockstar games would release several more trailers and videos in the months before the game’s release. If you missed any then you missed out. Here’s a chance to view them all in their phenomenal glory.

9. GTA V: 2nd Official Trailer

If you still were not a fan of the Grand Theft Auto games like me after watching the GTA V trailer perhaps you needed more convincing. That’s okay, you are exactly the person Rockstar made the second trailer for.

What truly got me about GTA V’s second trailer was just how incredibly cinematic it is. The video, like the first, contains no gameplay, but manages to grab your attention by giving solid introductions to the game’s three protagonists. It’s like watching a preview for a movie coming out next month that you have got to see. The music is great, the locations are awesome, and the characters look and sound perfect. Who says video games cannot be made into good movies? If this were a movie based on this trailer alone I would go see it.

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