Social Games: CityVille on Facebook

Zynga has just released yet another Facebook browser-based simulation game titled "CityVille". Though I have only played it for a few hours I already have a much better impression of this game than I do of their recent "FrontierVille". Before I dig into my first impressions, it should be said that I enjoy their Farmville, CafeWorld and Mafia Wars games. But FrontierVille (and YoVille before it) was a massive disappointment - I found the homesteads cute and enjoyed the general style of the gameplay but found it to be so horribly balanced that it is unplayable.

It should first be said that I am a person who takes Facebook relatively seriously. I only extend and accept friendship invitations from people I actually know. Therefore, I have only a few hundred friends, of whom only a small handful play these type of social games. Since having a large number of friends playing the same games provides an advantage, this makes my progression in games slow but reasonable. With a bit of patience, I manage to eventually "unlock" new content and complete objectives by increasing my level. However, FrontierVille's unlock mechanism is based on the number of neighbors each player possesses, not their level. Whereas a player's level is constantly increasing, offering the rewards to those willing to wait for them, the number of neighbors caps very early for me. It was just my bad luck that not even half a dozen friends found FrontierVille interesting. This means that virtually all game content, from simple buildings and crops to complex quests are not open to me without spending enormous amounts of game cash (purchased with real dollars). All Zynga games offer special items for people willing to pay - this is a common practice for free-to-play content. However, where their previous titles offered vanity items and advantages to those buying game cash FrontierVille's poor design made it necessary to use game cash to purchase the basic skills and items needed to play the game.

CityVille is faring better after a short time playing - though I don't have enough neighbors to enable the train station and start a shipping business, I have been able to build my town up reasonably well. With patience I am staffing my community buildings with my friends, which allows me to increase my population and with it my variety of businesses. Even the expansions are more flexible - whereas my cafe and farm are perpetually stuck at their current sizes due to lack of neighbors, I can purchase expansions with money and documents sent by friends. This means as long as I have one or two friends playing and a bit of patience, I will be able to grow my town geographically. I'm pleased to see this trend, since FrontierVille was so frustrating and even CafeWorld is becoming bogged down under a ridiculous amount of content that favors people who purchase game cash. It will be nice to have a new diversion while I browse the web and watch television.

Playstation 3 - Home Feature and Updates

I finally took the time to set up my Playstation Home account just to humor myself, and I had a bit of fun popping around to different locations in search of free content. I had a lot more fun than I expected, since it reminded me so heavily of Second Life of which I am not a fan. That being said, there's not a lot of point to the feature. It would be neat if you could actually collect decorations or trophies as you complete different game titles, but there don't seem to be tie-ins. I was also a bit disappointed in the graphics - Mii's on the Wii are adorable, but Sony opted for a more "realistic" representation and it's not very good when compared to other human simuations such as the Sims.

I'll need to spend some more time goofing around with the feature to actually be able to comment intelligently, but it just doesn't seem like there is much there. It's not a practical feature, just something showy and superfluous. The other updated features are very useful. It's now possible to use Netflix without the CD - after a quick install the program appears in the list of video options. It boots up quickly and also has an improved, redesigned interface. Hulu Plus is also available, though I only use the basic service and can't comment on the paid service.

The functions I use the most on my Playstation are the music and video file capabilities. I use a large external drive as the backbone of my home network and for media storage. My PS3 makes it easy to navigate through my video files, but the support for music is not very impressive. I'd still love to see this feature fleshed out to include more (and better) visualizations and more functions. One of my biggest complaints is that music files are referenced by their file names, and not by their modified properties. This makes navigating the files in any mode other than by artist and folder ridiculously messy.

Social Games: Farmville on Facebook

I held out for quite some time, resisting the invites to Facebook games. But looking to fill the void left by the Aion beta, I finally caved in this week and decided to give Farmville a whirl.

It's not bad for a simple web game: cute graphics, simple interface, and plenty of options. By selecting crops, you can set your farm to produce daily or hourly - whichever method suits your web browsing time best. I sense a new addiction for me - it will be nice to have a diversion for downtime at work!