The Sims Medieval2011-04-12 11:01 GMT
I was a fairly avid fan of the original Sims game. Between when the game originally came out, and losing my activation code when I moved to Australia, I probably racked up more hours building killer houses and mistreating my Sims than most people would or probably should.
When Sims 2 came out however I was uninterested. In my mind, aside from adding a few more items, which they continuously did through expansions, Sims 1 didn’t need any improvement. The idea of more soap-opera type quests seemed stupid and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to spend any more time than I already did customising the look of my Sim. I stuck with Sims 1.
When I heard about Sims Medieval though my interest was reignited. Run a whole Sim kingdom? Have Sim monarchs and heroes? Sent them out on quests to trade or battle with other kingdoms? It sounded completely awesome and, with Dr Turk in the trailer, who would suspect otherwise?
Unfortunately things in Sims Medieval are a lot slower paced than I had expected. You start off in a pre-built, pre-furnished castle, presumably to allow you to get straight into the new gameplay tutorial, and you are given a few extremely menial tasks, especially considering you are now playing as the Monarch. But you muddle through, picking wildflowers, gathering wood, mining for rock, arresting a trouble maker in the town, and chatting up a bard in your throne room (yes that is actually a quest).
Finally however, you finish the tutorial level, after getting enough stuff together to build a second building in your kingdom. You have heaps of choice; Cathedral, Smithy, Tavern, Barracks, even a Wizard's Tower. I decided to build a Market, which meant having a Merchant for my next "hero", and placing the market and his house. Select Market, position building… wait, what?
Another pre-built, pre-furnished property.
You then spend another twenty minutes picking the right chin and nose for your new hero, only to discover when you’re done that it’s just back to the menial tasks. Write a law, listen to some of your people whining, feed the Sarlacc pit beast, discuss your kingdom with peasants, presumably until the point at which you gather enough resources to enable you to build another pre-designed property and make another unnecessarily well customised hero for your kingdom.
By this point I had put a couple of hours into the game (including updates), and you kind of expect to be in the action by now. If this were portal I’d already have the fully working portal gun in my hand and have got bored creating infinite falling loops. If this were World of Warcraft I’d already be at my race’s capital city having done my first class quest and discovered the exciting effects of game beer. And if this were Dead Space I'd already be horribly scarred for life.
Perhaps this is where my lack of an attention span separates me from the majority of gamers, many of whom will, and have, loved this new addition to the Sims portfolio. But for me, I was about done already. I had installed the game expecting to be able to build my own kingdom the way I wanted it, and send my Sims off to do exciting and probably daft things. But with none of the awesome building creation and all these boring little tasks to do it didn’t feel like my kingdom at all, and certainly was lacking in fun.
If you have a lot of time to spend on this game, you’ll probably be able to get more out of it than me. Later on you are able to start trading or go to war with the neighbouring kingdoms, and once you have more buildings up and running the interactions will probably start to be a lot more engaging.
However if you’re looking for just a bit of ye olde fun for a few hours I recommend reloading Sims 1, building the most elaborate castle you can using the rosebud cheat, and then creating all the characters from Blackadder II and watching them eventually set fire to themselves. Which is what always seemed to happen in my games. No idea why.
6/10
When Sims 2 came out however I was uninterested. In my mind, aside from adding a few more items, which they continuously did through expansions, Sims 1 didn’t need any improvement. The idea of more soap-opera type quests seemed stupid and, quite frankly, I didn’t want to spend any more time than I already did customising the look of my Sim. I stuck with Sims 1.
When I heard about Sims Medieval though my interest was reignited. Run a whole Sim kingdom? Have Sim monarchs and heroes? Sent them out on quests to trade or battle with other kingdoms? It sounded completely awesome and, with Dr Turk in the trailer, who would suspect otherwise?
Unfortunately things in Sims Medieval are a lot slower paced than I had expected. You start off in a pre-built, pre-furnished castle, presumably to allow you to get straight into the new gameplay tutorial, and you are given a few extremely menial tasks, especially considering you are now playing as the Monarch. But you muddle through, picking wildflowers, gathering wood, mining for rock, arresting a trouble maker in the town, and chatting up a bard in your throne room (yes that is actually a quest).
Finally however, you finish the tutorial level, after getting enough stuff together to build a second building in your kingdom. You have heaps of choice; Cathedral, Smithy, Tavern, Barracks, even a Wizard's Tower. I decided to build a Market, which meant having a Merchant for my next "hero", and placing the market and his house. Select Market, position building… wait, what?
Another pre-built, pre-furnished property.
You then spend another twenty minutes picking the right chin and nose for your new hero, only to discover when you’re done that it’s just back to the menial tasks. Write a law, listen to some of your people whining, feed the Sarlacc pit beast, discuss your kingdom with peasants, presumably until the point at which you gather enough resources to enable you to build another pre-designed property and make another unnecessarily well customised hero for your kingdom.By this point I had put a couple of hours into the game (including updates), and you kind of expect to be in the action by now. If this were portal I’d already have the fully working portal gun in my hand and have got bored creating infinite falling loops. If this were World of Warcraft I’d already be at my race’s capital city having done my first class quest and discovered the exciting effects of game beer. And if this were Dead Space I'd already be horribly scarred for life.
Perhaps this is where my lack of an attention span separates me from the majority of gamers, many of whom will, and have, loved this new addition to the Sims portfolio. But for me, I was about done already. I had installed the game expecting to be able to build my own kingdom the way I wanted it, and send my Sims off to do exciting and probably daft things. But with none of the awesome building creation and all these boring little tasks to do it didn’t feel like my kingdom at all, and certainly was lacking in fun.
If you have a lot of time to spend on this game, you’ll probably be able to get more out of it than me. Later on you are able to start trading or go to war with the neighbouring kingdoms, and once you have more buildings up and running the interactions will probably start to be a lot more engaging.
However if you’re looking for just a bit of ye olde fun for a few hours I recommend reloading Sims 1, building the most elaborate castle you can using the rosebud cheat, and then creating all the characters from Blackadder II and watching them eventually set fire to themselves. Which is what always seemed to happen in my games. No idea why.
6/10