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Short, Buggy --- Bad!

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 8 / 8
Date: July 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a very frustrating game, and once you figure out how to deal with the more buggy aspects, it doesn't last very long.

To get it going at all, be prepared to fight with their copy protection system. It wouldn't let me into the game saying something about software emulation until I shut down absolutely everything that was running on the computer before starting it. This means going into the task manager and killing processes like vptray.exe. I almost sent it back rather than going through this couple of hours fighting with it, but I perservered on the promises of the game.

Once you do get it going, there are two options for resolution, 1024x768 and 1280xNNN. If you use the higher resolution, the mouse is never hits what you're trying to click on, you have to move it around until you get it just at the right offset. This is particularly bad if you're trying to remove something, as you'll often end up removing things you want. This is better at 1024x768, but there's still a strange offset and you'll often find yourself clicking on something other than what you're aiming for.

The game is fairly fun once you get past these problems. But it only lasts maybe 20 hours at the most, and then there's nothing else to do. I guess you could replay it on the hard difficulty, but that's it!

Get this one when it's 1) fixed and 2) is in the bargain bin for ten or twenty bucks. It won't be long before it's there...

Don't Waste Your Money

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 5 / 6
Date: August 21, 2006
Author: Amazon User

It has pretty much all been said, let's just say it again 'cause I'm sure Firaxis/Firefly will plant positive reviews here. The game takes ages to load, the voice acting is silly (British? Australian? Herman's Hermits?), the progression is totally linear (ie the game fails to become more complicated at higher levels), the graphics date to 2002, and the citizen 'fetching' system is completely random and opaque. Sit and watch for awhile: your huts will change size every thirty seconds.

Most importantly, boo Sid, boo. You could've produced this bad Caesar3 ripoff and called it anything, but you called it "CivCity", and even put a tiny Civilopedia in it. Haven't you got enough money? The Civ Series is brilliant. Don't cash it in.

Repetative and flawed city builder.

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 4 / 5
Date: July 28, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is billed as a collaboration between Firaxis and Firefly, but for the most part the signs of this are skin deep. Firaxis is only present with a Civlopedia and Smiley Faces, nothing more.

Bad controls, lackluster graphics, and fairly mundane gameplay are bad enough, but this game suffers from some pretty serious bugs and gameplay issues. The combat won't satisfy warriors, the lack of depth won't satisfy veterans, and the difficult mechanics will annoy newbies. In close, this game fails to please anyone to any great degree and is a poor showing by Firefly.

Horrible

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 3 / 8
Date: April 06, 2007
Author: Amazon User

I bought this game because it looked interesting. It was on clearance for $10 bucks so I figured "good buy" but it was the opposite, I should have known that it was on clearance for a reason...I cant play it on my computer. I have a 2 yr old laptop that can play every other game I own, but this one makes it overheat and black out... I have only played for 5 minutes but from that five minutes it didnt seem too special. Nothing like Civ...

Buggy and lacking depth.

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 57 / 64
Date: July 27, 2006
Author: Amazon User

This is a good attempt at a game that sadly misses due to obviously being rushed to market. There are several game breaking bugs, for example the cursor ingame is skewed and doesn't match its location on the map. Meaning it is difficult to target. The graphics aren't very good, yet the performance is pretty poor on fairly powerful machines.

Furthermore, this game has a very poor interface with big console like buttons, and a clumsey build interface. The economic system in the game is completely lacking, with little indepth data on the inner workings of your city.

Medieval Lords, a low budget title from Monte Cristo is a far far better city building game than this. Ultimately, this is a dissappointing game that could have been much better if a bit more care was taken during development.

Guilty by Association

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 21 / 23
Date: September 01, 2006
Author: Amazon User

The Civ name has been tarnished. Analogously, one thing I have been learning is that just because Sid Meier's name is on a product, it doesn't mean the product is good.

In the case of CivCity: Rome, unfortunately, it doesn't just come in at "modestly good" - it comes in at "dismally poor." I've tried hard not to let this influence my beliefs about Civilization in general, but after Civ4 came out, I am starting to believe that Firaxis Games and Sid Meier are on their way out. And now this...

I regret to inform that the great Civ titles were made a long time ago. The offerings of today have a simple pattern: the production was rushed and the title came out with major bugs; the games add unnecessary features designed to justify the overall cost; and the consumers are often abused with ridiculous expansion packs containing features that should OBVIOUSLY have been included in the original release - they take advantage of our love for the franchise.

This pattern is so evident that the whole Sid Meier and Civ franchise is degenerating. It almost seems, especially with the release of CivCity: Rome, that we are once again expected to simply drop cash for new products based on our love for the old. But the developers are not living up to our expectations for producing great games!

Stay away from CivCity: Rome. Besides the obvious blunders associated with all the bugs, you will see that even the best patch cannot make the graphics look good, the narration and sound effects better, or the interface to work properly. The game is a dismal failure, and I am sorry to report that. It seems like Firefly Studios had an idea and got the license from Firaxis, but they just cheesed it.

Watching what Maxis (The Sims and SimCity franchises) and Firaxis (Civilization franchise) are doing to their most loyal fans is like watching your dad get drunk.

Sadly disappointed

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 11
Date: September 12, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I was really looking forward to this game, and I was prepared to overlook one or two things. Every game has it's own personality, right? I found instead this game actually doesn't have much of one at all.

I didn't mind the graphics. Not cutting edge sure, but not that bad either. A little muddy but a change from cartoony. It was hard to enjoy closeup views, however, when so many buildings lost their roof on zoom. No way to toggle that feature. The camera angles were frustrating and it was very difficult to pick anything out with the mouse accurately.

Not that there was much time to look at the scenery. Immigrants came. And came. And came. Whether there were houses and jobs available or not. As long as city happiness was high enough, which meant that everyone was happy. Which they were not. Because they had no houses or jobs.

To keep city happiness up was the only way to ensure a somewhat stable economy. Forget planning. Forget balancing resources with workshops and markets. It wasn't clear what the balance was in any case. It would take trial and error, and you didn't have the time. For you were building worshops like mad, trying to guess at how many citizens would be employed by each, and researching for temporary bumps to keep your city from being deserted in droves.

The best income boosts were not through sale of goods or trade. It was through research, maximising the tax base with the development of currency and so on. You hit those early on, and reached a certain population level, you made money. The rest of the time you spent trying to keep people from leaving. There was no stability in reaching any level.

It quickly became a game of keep up. There was no way to control immigration or set the pace of development. And for all the decorative options, more than the similar games out, you really didn't care in the end what your city looked like, because it just cost time. Money too, but that was really not the relevant issue. Unless people were unhappy. Then you could stick a few things, quickly, somewhere. You just can't enjoy a leisurely pace of planning, building and finishing it off with a nudge here and there and watching it run...you have to be constantly involved in the process, staying ahead of the curve. You don't have to worry about maintenance, such as city fires or engineers, but the cities cannot not be made self-sufficient or self-sustaining with this inherent instability built into the gameplay. Five or ten minutes away from the screen will bring most cities, if not all, to a screeching halt.

While I enjoyed the research options, and the ability to move homes I thought was a great innovation, not having the ability to control the flow of immigrants to the city and pegging success to city happiness makes this game a poor economic simulation and the gameplay ultimately very shallow and unsatisfying.

Wait for it to hit the discount bins

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: August 14, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Like the other reviews, I find this game a rip-off of Caesare III. (I didn't know there was a IV! Must look into that.) While the graphics are admirable, the gameplay wasn't challenging at all. It didn't take me any time at all to win, and I'm one of the worst game players ever. OTOH, it's a good afternoon waster if all you want to do is build and perfect your city in open play with no goals. Don't buy it now. Wait until it's cheap, like $9.95 or something.

rip off

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 9
Date: October 07, 2006
Author: Amazon User

I brought this after having played Caesar3 and loved it but wanted something with a bit more scope for controlling dynamics of a city - and I thought being a civcity game this would offer me the extension - WRONG - this is a bad rip off of Caesar3, sure, graphics are more advanced with the zoom in view but other than that I was playing the same game but with less involvement or control. This is a sit back and let it happen to you game - keep the people happy and build everything and they'll stay. Caesar IV - that's what you're wanting, it looks like everything this sets itself up to be that it isn't. Feel like I've wasted my money.

A bad knock-off

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 8 / 10
Date: October 31, 2006
Author: Amazon User

Hey, have you ever played Caesar II from the 1990s? Yeah, well this game is basically a knock-off of that game with better graphics. And quite frankly, Caesar II was more fun. I don't see how CivCity has any point. You build your city and nothing interesting ever happens. There is no progression to the game that keeps it fresh.

The makers intergrated technologies and wonders from the successful Civilization game series, but they are inconsequential in this game. These people should stick to what they are good at, the Civilization series, and leave city games to people who know how to do it.

I've heard that a new installment of the Caesar series is out now, Caesar IV, and I haven't tried it, but it has to be better than CivCity Rome. This game is boring, don't pay any money for it.

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