The Sims Medieval - Reviews

skavenhorde

Little BRO Rat
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A few more reviews for you.
The first one is from TenTonHammer. They gave a score on each part of the game, but not an overall score.
Gameplay: 95/100
Graphics: 85/100
Sound: 85/100
Value: 95/100
Lasting Appeal: 85/100
Their Pros and Cons:

Pros and Cons

PROS

* A new twist on Sims-style gameplay ramps up the fun and eliminates much of the tedium.
* The game is easy to learn and will be familiar to anyone who has played The Sims, but the deep mechanics still provide some challenge.
* Lots of options! Create a cultured and refined kingdom or a warlike and greedy one--it’s your call.
* Plenty to do. It’ll be a long time before a player runs out of quests or Ambitions.
* Dire chinchillas. ‘Nuff said.

CONS

* Quests not exactly deep or compelling where story is concerned. They’re mostly light and humorous.
* Some ambient sounds are annoying.
* Pathing problems and gameplay glitches are fewer than in other Sims titles, but they still exist.
Game Guys - A-
Where Sims games are typically a direction-less sandbox, Medieval tidies things up a bit by making the game mission-driven. Also, instead of creating blank-slate sims to "live" and work in the area the game has players create class-defined sims such as a knight, priests and the kingdom's reigning monarch. The player, too, has a role to fill: the ever-present Watcher. In other words the player is the deity that all of the sims worship and/or fear.
More information.
 
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Where is this line among cons:
- many quests are buggy and you get stuck (although you can quit quests).
 
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My biggest question, do you control the characters as the move about on the screen? I like exploration, so if you're only reading about what happened to the character offscreen, then it's not for me. I need to be involved more than a "watcher".
 
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You control one character but if a few are available then you can switch control by clicking on their portrait. How many characters you will be able to control and which ones are those depends on the quest you accept.

But I stumbled upon 2 quest stopper bugs and I will not continue playing till it's patched. Yes, quest quitting won't stop you from progress further in the game, but I hate when I can't solve a quest because of a bug.
 
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Where is this line among cons:
- many quests are buggy and you get stuck (although you can quit quests).

They didn't list it as a con because bugs are no longer cons they're expected. I only buy a select few games on release anymore the rest I will wait for at least one patch. Its a shame the state some games are released in nowadays. It's no longer just a pc thing anymore now that consoles have high speed internet console gamers get to share in the fun too. Sad.
 
Well that's a surprise - I expected this game to be dead on arrival.
 
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My biggest question, do you control the characters as the move about on the screen? I like exploration, so if you're only reading about what happened to the character offscreen, then it's not for me. I need to be involved more than a "watcher".

Yeah, you can control the current character where theyre going and what theyre doing. The entire map isnt that big, however so there's not a whole lot to "explore" when it all shakes out. There is an ai setting as well that will have them doing almost everything by themselves, then down a notch to "low" to just sleeping and eating to keep themselves alive, then all the way off to zero AI. I play on "low" setting, so if I'm controlling multiple characters and forget or dont notice that one is about to fall over dead, they'll eat or go home and go to bed.

If you have the AI all the way up, they do nonsensical things according to their traits like get into fights with barely any health.
 
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I find it quite entertaining. So far now quest bugs here. Some quests are not so easy to understand what to do though; I guess some who complain about bugs just didn't really get it right. ;)
 
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I havent encountered any bugs either.

I know what you were saying was in jest about some people not "getting it right" and thinking a quest is bugged when they cant solve it, but I can see that happening on quite a few quests. For instance, youre told that you have to search for an item or talk to someone down at the docks - would you consider going on the docked ship itself when the only option available for the ship is to "sail out to sea"? Would you look in a run-of-the-mill bush that is normally just a regular old herb generator that youve visited a thousand times for a quest item?

I did, and was quite surprised to find the quest items that I needed were indeed there. I find it refreshing actually, that everything is not entirely spoon fed. A search for a quest item doesnt necessarily mean youre automatically going to see a sparkly object beckoning to you smack dab in the middle of the area you were sent to. You might have to work a little harder for it.

I'm not doubting there's bugs, new releases tend to be infested. I do think there's also some things not so obvious in the game that would throw people who are used to being handed quest items for a loop.
 
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Um… Right, two bugs of mine, can't remember the quests name but:

1. a quest for a merchant hero, you need to bring several meat types to a cook, the third type of meet although you choose the option to give it to the cook, he never gets it, instead he's doing some cooking on the first floor then gets down (probably to sleep or something) then gets back into the cooking loop you can't break by any means.

2. a quest where you need to determine if the ruler is real one or an imposter, I've played it with wizard hero, the ruler (who is actually your 1st hero) goes into woods and never gets out - and you need to give him fake gold (which you created successfully) and ask him a question to check if he's real or an imposter - but you can't interact with him at all since he's stuck in the forest for weeks, yea, I've slept for weeks and he never got out of there

I've solved IIRC 5 quests and in those two I got stuck. That's too big percentage for my taste!
As I've said, I won't continue with the game till the patch 1.2 gets released.


[EDIT]
Well, seems I'm not the only one who got the second bug, it's reported at EA forums, and a player found out how to avoid the bug, but it's still a crap since I don't want to make the same choices he did:
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/5517277.page
 
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From:
http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/5532591.page

Hello,

A patch has been released that addresses the majority of the stability issues experienced by some users. If you are still experiencing stability problems or crashes please follow the instructions in the link below. We’d like to send a thank you to the community for providing feedback. Your responses were key in addressing these issues.

http://forum.ea.com/eaforum/posts/list/5525317.page

The Sims Medieval Team

Thank god. :)
Ok, I'm gonna apply this one then restart the game and keep you posted if *old* problems are fixed.
 
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Sorry for the doublepost... Anyway I didn't get enough time to retry both bugged quests under the new patch (RL busy), but in any case...

My hopes are now high since I've found a possible solution in a case a NPC gets stuck somewhere again. I don't like it, I admit, but I want to solve those bugged quests. If that involves something like this, I'll use it:
http://www.modthesims.info/showpost.php?p=3479016&postcount=6
 
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