Here's the depressing truth: it's time to put Sim City in deep freeze and move on to something else for a while. The Ars review had 'time doesn't heal all wounds' in its headline. But I think it does—or at least could help remedy the massive frustration this game has created.
To be clear, I love the new Sim City. I've already sunk more time into it than I did all of Skyrim. (And I played the shit out of that game.) But the more I've played, the more deeply irritated I've become. The launch-week disruptions weren't so bad—I personally still felt 'lucky' to be able to play at all. Queuing to log in and, hell, even losing my first region because I couldn't get back into my original server didn't seem so bad while I was still learning the new systems.
But 60-hours on, it's a different story. I've gotten the 'your city isn't processing properly' bug that essentially freezes your progress in a region numerous times. And some of the so-called non-essential features disabled by the developers are actually essential. I'm thinking, in particular, of Cheetah mode. In short bursts not having this is fine, but on long play-throughs the lack of fast-forward really messes with the flow of the game. (On the twisted positive side, I've had plenty of time to do the laundry and dishes while I let the simulation run...)
This was alluded to on the cast last week, but waiting is an underrated virtue in gaming. Loving the Walking Dead comics, I downloaded Telltale episode 1 on the day it was available on the App Store. I fired it up but didn't really get into it. (This wasn't a technical problem so much as my own failure to actually spend enough time with the game.) Eventually, around the time episode 5 was gearing to come out, I tried again. And totally loved it. In other words I am glad I waited, putting it aside until it was a better game (in that case more complete anyways). The same has happened to me for WoW, Far Cry 3, and numerous other games.
That's why I'll be playing something else for a while...
