I don’t really have strong opinions about the PS3, so I’m not trying to start a Sony bashing thread here. I’m also generally a big fan of Sid Meier’s games. But still, what the hell is he talking about here:
I’m sure the PS3 hardware is sweet and all, but when did Sid Meier ever make a game that depended on cutting edge hardware?
Maybe this was all taken out of context in a larger interview, but it all does sound a little silly coming from Sid Meier.
Civilization 4. I had to buy a $1100 machine to run it. It would have been cheaper to buy a PS3. It was completely unplayable on my AMD 1800+ machine w/ 1GB RAM and GeForce 4200. This was a machine that ran other scalable games like Half Life 2 and F.E.A.R. and Quake 4 just fine. But not Civ 4.
Why does this dev praise always seem to come out soon after NPDs? Just strikes me like someone picked the wrong console to develop a game for and is trying to get it some good buzz. Wonder if we’ll see a Sid PS3 game announced soon?
Sid Meier’s Railroads ported to PS3… and until the consoles come with a mouse and keyboard BY DEFAULT, I think this is a bunch of crap.
Also, apparently Sid hasn’t been watching which consoles are actually selling, cuz if you look at the numbers, people really like the lack of depth, lack of advanced hardware, and simplsitcity of the Wii… NOT the PS3.
THough maybe with Take2 tanking, Soren leaving Firaxis, and no one really knowing what’s going on there beyond another Civ IV exp… maybe Sony floated Firaxis a bunch of cash to develop or move their games to the console. Maybe they’re going to port twinked versions of their games for Sony Home (or whatever you call their download service).
Uhh, yeah but at what rez were you running those games? With what, 10-15fps tops? I dont remember if I had my 6600 when Civ4 came out or still was using my 4800, but civ4 ran ok with a 2100+ processor. It didnt help that civ4 iirc had issues with a lot of systems with its graphics.
His Stealth Fighter games back in the early 90s were pretty close.
Well, I never went below 1024x768 on any game, I’d go to lower detail, but never lower resolution. But you’re right, I’d get about 20-35 fps in both FEAR and Quake 4. Half Life 2 fared a lot better, since the original game didn’t feature HDR lighting.
Still, 20-35 fps was a lot better than what I got out of Civ4. Maybe the problem was based on graphics problems, I don’t know, but the game would start off fairly playable, even if it was annoyingly slow, but then after about half hour of play, it would slow down even further to an unplayable state. I tried different drivers, and even the patch that came out, but eventually I just came to the conclusion that I had to finally upgrade my computer, since I could do without the latest FPS and RTS, but I couldn’t do without the latest Civilization game.
Ding ding ding. I’m sure that’s what it is. Poor Sid, he doesn’t seem to have the chops to make another big original new game, and after Civ IV (and Soren’s departure) it looks like even Civ V might not be enough to keep things going.
So along comes Sony, and it’s pimp-the-PS3 time. Alas, how the mighty have fallen.
His name seems simply to be a shill nowadays. Very very sad.
Seems like a natural progression with Firaxis hitting various console titles, including Pirates for the PSP.
As for Meier being a “shill”… give me a break. I sense molehill mountain-making.
— Alan
The actual interview is on Playstation.com and it’s not a direct Q&A type interview. It’s an article with lots of quotes from Meier.
It all smacks of being pretty well edited. When he says “systems like the PLAYSTION3™” did he say “next-gen systems like the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360” and that got cut a bit? Did he choose his words because he was speaking specifically with Sony reps?
I think I’ll wait for an interview with a more independent source that asks him his feelings on the whole spectrum on consoles and handhelds before reading too much into this.
Sid Meier’s famous saying is “A game is a series of interesting choices.”
I have nothing to add.
Sid Meier promoting the PS3. Huh?
Sheesh, you gotta get the branding right. It should be “Sid Meier’s Promotion of the PS3” or, alternatively, “Sid Meier’s PS3-Pimpage”.
-Julian
Civilization 4. I had to buy a $1100 machine to run it. It would have been cheaper to buy a PS3. It was completely unplayable on my AMD 1800+ machine w/ 1GB RAM and GeForce 4200.
Weird, Civ 4 runs fine on my ancient P4 1.6 laptop with 512MB RAM and Geforce4 440 Go. Obviously that’s with lowest graphics options, but it’s playable with no noticable slowdown even late game on largest map size.
Before or after you patched it.
I seem to recall Civ4 being a mess when it was first released.
Civ4 was real hit or miss on older computers, I had no problems playing it on my old machine on standard maps (P3-866, 512MB RAM, Geforce 5700 le). I could play at 1024 x 786 (with details turned down) I was even able to play online (direct IP) over dial-up!! with just a little lag but still playable. I also remember seeing people online complaining that they weren’t able to play Civ4 on machines that were twice as fast as mine with a way better graphics cards.
Oh no doubt, I do remember quite a few people having issues when it first came out. I never did and still don’t.
Only product I’ve had a real issue with is Railroads, cause it’s getting chunky in native resolution on my box, but that’s a very different kind of game.
— Alan
I’ve had the game since release and don’t recall any problems pre-patch. Though the laptop was mostly only used to play LAN games on smaller maps back then, so it’s possible performance has improved for larger games.
Civ4 has been good to me; runs on my sister-in-law’s notebook with crappy integrated video too, though sometimes the animal resources (cows, horses etc) turn black.
I guess it’s as Taranis says.
IIRC, Civ 4 had a pretty serious memory leak problem on many machines pre-patch. It wasn’t enough to make the game unplayable for most people, but there was a noticeable improvement in performance once the first patch came out.
Troy