Tag Archives: Windows

A review of the new SimCity… #TheGreatSimCityFailOf2013

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S54_MountainHigh_6aOPINIONS AND REVIEW: SimCity was released to the North American public on March 5, 2013. It was one of the most anticipated video games for 2013.

Firstly, I’m not exactly a big video game fan. The only video games I’ve every enjoyed for longer than a month are Roller Coaster Tycoon 3 and, well… that’s it. But, I thought that I might enjoy SimCity… I really like the idea of creating a city online, so that’s what attracted me to SimCity.

DOWNLOADING SIMCITY

Downloading SimCity was an absolutely horrible experience.

After buying SimCity, you need to download it and install it, which is to be expected . But because SimCity is distributed by Electronic Arts, you encounter a lot of problems… EA assumes that you are guilty until proven innocent, and because of this they make you run through a lot of hoops just to play their games. One of these hoops is a program called Origin.

Origin is a service run by EA (Electronic Arts), where you can buy games. But, in order to play them you must be connected to the internet (so anyone with Dial-up or slow internet cannot play this game). Those of you tech-savvy people may have already noticed a problem with this. Because they make it so that you must always be connected to the internet, they need to have enough servers for the hundreds of thousands of people who are all downloading the game (maybe even millions of people… the figures are still unknown). There are not enough servers for all of these people, so the experience in general is horribly slow, even if you have Google’s Gigabit Fiber internet, the download speeds for this game is horrible!

Trying my best to download SimCity. (Kyle Stewart/Magnae Famae)

Trying my best to download SimCity. (Kyle Stewart/Magnae Famae)

I also had a problem with the servers, for some reason the game would be stuck at a certain percentage, and I would need to restart the download in order for it to continue, and then stop. It stopped at 10%, I restarted. 13%, I needed to restart. 20%, than I needed to restart. 24%, than I needed to restart. Et cetera, et cetera. Magnae Famae contacted SimCity and we were told: “We are currently looking into this, we are working as fast as we can.” At this point, I’m not even sure if I will be able to do a review.

#firstworldproblems

Looking at the SimCity twitter feed, you can see an endless list of problems with downloading the game, and servers that are down. Electronic Arts needs to change this horrible way of releasing games, that treats the consumer like criminals.

I did eventually get SimCity loaded… let’s start playing! Or at least try…

TUTORIAL CITY

I was able to play the beta, so I know what to expect in this SimCity. I am still forced to do the tutorial.

They give you a pre-made city (more like a town, actually) called Summer Shoals. What happens in this city?

Nothing.

There are supposed to be some pop ups, suggesting ideas, and showing you things to do (I know this, because I played the beta). All that you can do is look around. Yay… $60 well-spent. I contacted SimCity regarding this issue, with no response… I gave EA my money, now they can go take someone else’s.

I loaded the city a few times, going on different servers until, for some reason or another, it just skipped over the tutorial.

PLAYING SIMCITY

Also not working.

It is safe to say that so far my experience with SimCity was not fun, but was frustrating, and felt like #AWasteOf60Bucks… I thought that maybe after finally getting through all of the hoops, and actually playing the game, maybe it would be better. Maybe I would be able to get over this initial reaction and forgive Electronic Arts.

Nope, nope, not at all.

S54_TrafficJam_4aI started by trying to create my own region (a set of cities in a close area), for just myself to play with. Of course, I get the error “Unable to claim this city.” So I tried other cities in the regions, than other regions, than other servers. None of these attempts worked. EA just didn’t want me to play my game.

 I than tried to join a public region. This also didn’t work for a while, but eventually it did. I joined, and was enjoying it for a while.

After leaving the game for a break, I came back and decided to try to create my own region again. It worked! Yes! I was ready to forgive EA for this horrible experience. But, it only got worse.

I was really enjoying creating my cities. I started by focusing in on one city in sandbox mode, than I moved to focus in on another city in the same region. This was when it started going downhill… again.

Crashing.

S54_Downtown_7aAfter about 5 minutes of playing in that 2nd city, the game crashed (not my computer, the game. This means that it is a server error). I tried it again, and it crashed. Again, and it crashed. Once more, and it crashed. Every time I completely lost my city.

One of the very few benefits of running the game on a server (like SimCity does), is that you get off-site back-ups. Theoretically, the game is backed up on the server, so it doesn’t take up any space on my computer (except for the program’s space), and also the server is likely more reliable than my computer. Key word: Likely.

The servers are horrible.

So every time the game crashed, I lost my game. It completely forgot that I ever played it.

Sadly, this is a common issue. There are endless forum pages talking about this issue on the official SimCity forums (and this forum just launched yesterday). I have been watching this forum page, which currently has over 14 pages of discussion over this issue (EA has yet to respond to this forum with a fix).

I contacted SimCity and Electronic Arts for comment, and they have not.

CONCLUSION… THUS FAR

duskcityHeading into this, I was expecting a few issues. But this is absolutely insane. I am so disappointed in EA and Maxis for releasing this game. I can only imagine how horribly overloaded the servers will continue to be as the release of SimCity continues in other countries around the world (In particular Europe, which is having its release on March 8).

I decided to publish this review early, in order to try to save anyone from buying this horrible product, that is essentially robbing $60 from each person (and if you buy the Deluxe version it is even worse, at $80).

They did two beta tests, and said openly that they had fixed the issues reported in the beta (which is obviously not true, as I notice many of the primary issues with the beta still in the final release).

I am going to give SimCity a 2/5 stars. Why 2 instead of 1, because when I did play the game (for that short 30 minutes of actual gameplay), I really did enjoy it. This game has great potential, and I hope to be able to release an update later giving a better review, however I am skeptical at this point.

WHY DID SIMCITY HAVE SUCH GREAT REVIEWS IN ADVANCED?

extra_01I believe that the primary errors are with the servers and Origin. The game itself, looks great. But because EA believes that you are guilty until proven innocent, they force us to use these servers to prevent any possible chance of piracy (however, it has been endlessly proven that these tactics don’t work, but actually make it worse).

When the people who had advanced copies of the game to review were playing the game, no one else (or very few others) were playing. They had no server issues. I just don’t see how EA will ever be able to avoid server issues with such a big game. I don’t think that we will have the technology for many years to be able to support hundreds of thousands of people playing a game (which is a lot of work for computers to run). And because of this, I believe that EA has eliminated any chances of possible success. And eventually, the servers will cost too much for EA to run, and they will be closed, and we will have all lost our money to EA.

For the time being, do not buy this game. I will update this post with further information as time goes on.

You can see all of the Twitter responses from the SimCity twitter feed here. You can also see their typical response to go to the forums, and never get a response from an EA rep.

DID YOU BUY SIMCITY? WHAT DID YOU THINK?

Images and Video via: SimCity
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Kyle's Windows 8 (Photo Credit: Kyle Stewart/Magnae Famae)

8 Pros and Cons for Windows 8

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Kyle’s Windows 8 (Photo Credit: Kyle Stewart/Magnae Famae)

I recently downloaded Windows 8. Below, I have listed 8 pros, and 8 cons from my experience thus far with Windows 8.

Your experience with Windows 8 will be different of course. I hope that you don’t have as many installation problems as I did.

8 Pros for 8

  1. New! New! I love new things…
  2. It is at a great price of $39.99, compared to previous versions of Windows (Windows 7 costed over $100).
  3. Pro/Con: Your Microsoft Account is merged with Windows (for myself, this is a con).
  4. Speed… I’m finding Windows 8 to be much faster!
  5. Microsoft Office 2013 (Get the Preview for free) is awesome!
  6. The Start Screen just looks cool, maybe it’s a fad… maybe not.
  7. The boot is incredibly fast, clocking in at 5 seconds.
  8. The apps are great for the most part, all enjoying the new ‘metro’ design language.

The amazing Netflix app for Windows 8 (Photo Credit: Kyle Stewart/Magnae Famae)

8 Cons for 8

  1. I had so many installation problems with Windows 8. I spent hours on Twitter with their support account, and hours more on their phone support. In the end it worked.
  2. This is a massive file. 2GB. If you have a slow internet connection, DO NOT buy the digital download.
  3. Once Microsoft Office 2013 is available, it will cost $99/year. I am not looking forward to that.
  4. The Charms features are difficult to figure out at first.
  5. Is it just me, or are some pre-installed apps taking a really long time to load? Windows Store, for example.
  6. Setting everything up again. Trying to remember all of your passwords (You are using different passwords, right?) is not fun.
  7. Apps are far and few between. The ones that exist are great, but it is a limited selection.
  8. Internet Explorer is still the default browser and is still horrible.

 

What do you think of Windows 8? Leave your review in the comments.

Kyle Stewart will be publishing his final review before next Tuesday, on Magnae Famae.

The Lenovo Headquarters in Beijing

Lenovo closing in on HP in the Windows market

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The Lenovo Headquarters in Beijing

Lenovo, the large Chinese PC manufacturer, is now closing in on the iconic HP in their largest market.

The Globe and Mail is reporting that Lenovo now has 14.9% of the PC Market, while HP has 15.5% (IDC report). Lenovo beat professional estimates with a 30% rise in quarterly profits on August 16th, that means that Lenovo pulled in about $8 billion. This is good news for Lenovo, as the PC Market has been slowing down rapidly with the rise of mobile devices.

“China’s macro economy has shown some uncertainty because of real-estate bubble controls and weak exports. But from a long-term point of view, I’m still very optimistic,”

-Yang Yuanqing; CEO at Lenovo

Since 2005, Lenovo has been making ThinkPads, after they acquired IBM’s Personal Computer division.

The Lenovo laptops are well liked for their well-made keyboards, by technology reviewers.

Steve Ballmer at CES 2012(Image via The Associated Press)

RUMOR: Microsoft may be releasing a Windows Tablet on June 18th

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Steve Ballmer at CES 2012(Image via The Associated Press)

Microsoft recently announced that they had a major announcement that will be taking place in Redmond, Washington tomorrow. The rumors are pointing towards a Microsoft Tablet. The major rumor is that this tablet will be…

A BARNES & NOBLE TABLET

On April 30th, 2012 Microsoft announced a partnership with Barnes & Noble, a popular American book retailer.

This could make it an Amazon Kindle Competitor, a market that Barnes & Noble and Amazon have been head-to-head at. Mary Jo Foley has reported that if this were true, it would likely be running Windows Phone, not Microsoft’s upcoming Windows 8 Tablet OS. She goes on to say that it may be running Apollo, the next version of Windows Phone that is too be released by Microsoft.

Keynote in Redmond on June 18th.

We will need to wait, for the keynote to know exactly what this “major announcement” is. Engadget has put it perfectly…

“We’ll find out Monday — hopefully, whatever the firm announces will last longer than the Zune.”

 

Not-So-FAQ: What to do when Keyboard and mouse don’t work

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You know what sucks? When your keyboard AND mouse don’t work. To fix this, you will need to hope that you have a restore state you can put windows in. Now, if you do, but it’s old. It’s OK the only stuff you will lose is any software you installed since that time you created a restore point for your computer. You will keep all of your documents. If you are reading this now, and everything is working fine… you may want to create a restore point. So we will cover two things in this how-to.

  1. How to create a  Restore Point.
  2. How to Restore your computer.
Now, for this situation when your mouse and keyboard don’t work you will need you restore your computer.
HOW TO CREATE A RESTORE POINT
  1. Go to the start menu and right click Computer.
  2. Click on Properties.
  3. On the left click on System Protection.
  4. Click on the Create Button.
HOW TO RESTORE YOUR COMPUTER
  1. System Restore 091306 001

    Image by Matt Brett via Flickr

    Start your computer, quickly press f8, or whatever the computer screen says to get into computer options, do this before the windows logo appears.

  2. Go to the Advanced Boot Options Screen.
  3. Use the arrow keys to get to Repair your computer.
  4. Click on the the System Restore button, and the rest is self-explanatory.
The keyboard and mouse should work in this mode, because it is highly likely that this is a problem with windows, not the computer.

How-to make programs start when Windows opens

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Is there a program that you wish would just start up while you computer starts up? Well, here we are to show you how to do this.

Image representing Windows as depicted in Crun...

Image via CrunchBase

  1. Copy the program you want to have open at Windows’ start up
  2. Open Start Menu and then click on All Programs
  3. Right-click the startup folder and then click open
  4. Paste the program you want to have open at the start up (Copr and Paste any other programs you want to open at startup
  5. Next time you boot your computer they should open.
Note: This is only for the Windows account that you are using to do this, not for the whole computer.

Windows 7 must-have freeware

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Tips and tricks There are thousands of freeware application available for Windows 7.  But it’s hard to know which ones are safe, and great!

  1. Fences was rated 4/5.

    Fences (Stardock) Fences ia free application that can sort your desktop apps into folders for easy access! It is an amazing app, that should be built-in to Windows 7, if you ask me. You can download the free version here. (yourfaq tested and approved) Our yourfaq rating for Fences is 4/5.

  2. Windows Live Mail (Microsoft) This program is one that I use every time I open my computer (I like it so much that I added it to the startup procedure). It has a beautiful interface, and especially great if you have more than one email account, and want to view it all in one place. Almost all emails are compatible with Live Mail. Our yourfaq rating for Windows Live Mail is 4.5/5. You can download it for free, as well as all the free Windows Live Essentials here. (yourfaq tested and approved)
  3. Picasa (Google) Picasa is a beautiful program to view and edit your photos. It is one of the best free photo editors I’ve ever used on Windows.  It has a great Face Recognition system. One of the best, if you ask me. Our yourfaq rating for Picasa is 4/5. You can download Picasa here. (yourfaq tested and approved)
  4. Snipping Tool (Microsoft) One of my favourite built-in Windows apps is Snipping Tool, it comes with Windows 7 and Vista, and has an easy to use interface, as well as editor. It is the best screenshot tools I have used for Windows so far. If you didn’t realize you had this app, just look it up under All Programs, it should be under Accessories. Our yourfaq rating for Snipping Tool is 4.5/5.
  5. iTunes (Apple) Microsoft has an OK music player, but iTunes conquers it all. Even if you don’t have an iPod, iPad or iPhone this is a great app to have to play and buy music. As well as podcasts, movies, music videos and audiobooks. The Mac version is much better and has less bugs, but the Windows app is still beautiful. Our yourfaq rating is 4.5/5. You can download iTunes here. (yourfaq tested and approved)

  6. Google Chrome was rated 5/5.

    Google Chrome (Google) Microsoft’s Internet Explorer is getting better, but not half as fast or safe as Chrome. Ask anyone that uses Chrome! Even Firefox and Safari are no comparison to Chrome. With Chrome, Flash is “sand boxed” and that helps out poor Adobe Flash a lot. Also, Google Chrome automatically updates itself, it is updated a lot, but you never know is updating! You may have seen you had version 15.0.02, and then look at it later and find you have version 16! Please! Please, stop using IE. Our yourfaq rating is 5/5. You can download Google Chrome here.(yourfaq tested and approved)

  7. VLC Media Player (VideoLAN) iTunes may have audio down. But video, that belongs to VLC. It is compatible with almost everything! Now, it may not be the most beautiful media player, but it sure is the best! Downloaded a strange movie file? Try to open it with VLC… I’ll bet you it works! Our yourfaq rating is 4.9/5. You can download VLC Media Player here.

  8. Microsoft Security Essentials was rated 5/5.

    Microsoft Security Essentials (Microsoft) Windows is great at getting viruses. But, Microsoft has come out with a way to combat them! Microsoft Security Essentials is the Antivirus you’ll need for Windows! It isn’t the best antivirus (There are better paid solutions, like ESET NOD 32), but it certainly is the best free antivirus! Our yourfaq rating is 5/5. You can download Microsoft Security Essentials here. (yourfaq tested and approved)

  9. LibreOffice (The Document Foundation) If you don’t want to get a paid Productivity Suite (like Microsoft Office), then LibreOffice is right up in first place under Freeware. It is a great Productivity Suite to use. Our yourfaq rating is 3.5/5. You can download LibreOffice here. (yourfaq tested and approved)
  10. CNET TechTracker (CNET) TechTracker, is a program designed to help you keep all of your programs up to date. There currently is a free version, and a Pro version, but CNET plans to cut the Pro version soon. Our yourfaq rating is 4/5. You can download CNET TechTracker here. (yourfaq tested and approved)
Hopefully those free apps can help your Windows 7 experience at least a little bit. Many of these apps have a Windows Vista and Mac version, so explore their websites to see if you can get the app even without a Windows 7 PC.
More Tips and Tricks to come! Leave a comment below with your favourite Windows 7 freeware, and maybe it might be included in a revised version of this! Also leave a comment with your ideas for some Tips and Tricks.