I’m a bit of a closet Sims admirer. Not exactly a die-hard fan, but I appreciate what the series does in a lot of ways. I’ve still kept up with each release and although the iOS ones haven’t been constantly solid, The Sims: Medieval [$4.99] still stuck out to me as playing to two of my weaknesses, wizards and sandbox play.
The most obviously different thing about The Sims: Medieval is the directed nature of it (aside from the setting, clearly). After picking your social type and designing your character, you’re immediately struck upside the head with a few quests and tasks to complete that don’t inherently feature screwing around, socializing and trying to make your Sim make kissy faces at other Sims.
The experience simply isn’t as random as most Sims games. For a lot of people, that’s going to be a good thing, for others, it’s going to completely defeat the purpose of a Sims game. The Sims: Medieval ends up playing out more like an extended version of Fable than a traditional Sims game, minus the hack-and-slash portions.
The game is designed around these new rules though, so it works surprisingly well. You’ll spend most of your time venturing around the tiny village and completing tasks for people, which include the likes of fishing and the occasional fight. Your character will advance along depending on how you act, but unlike many previous games, The Sims: Medieval seems more interested in seeing you succeed on a larger level.
You’ll still get the bulk of experience you expect from a Sims game — you can outfit your home (but not design one), socialize, fall in love, become evil, sleep, eat, and everything else, but the sandbox nature is played down in importance. It’s all about forward momentum — you want to complete quests to master skills to become a wizard to join a party so you can run a castle. It’s not as much about setting up a world with circumstances and seeing what happens.
It might be best to just describe the course of my Sims life. Upon waking in his house, he wandered off to complete some tasks, including picking flowers, starting a fight and fishing. Bored with such trivial things, he decided to instead concentrate on religion and in turn, began appealing to people to join his new religion, Thoronian. If the other Sims were not willing to join the cult, he would hit them — you can’t kill people, unfortunately. Bored of these tasks, I sent him along to steal chickens, pickpocket and do otherwise dastardly things until he eventually built up enough rep to keep a kingdom of his own. He then married a fair maiden with a metal hat and a pike, and they slept together for all eternity.
The games shortcomings are on par with other Sims releases, music is repetitive and features far too much flute and some of the touch commands don’t seem to respond very well. The larger town map is also a disaster to use, as the marked spots you can visit don’t have obvious touch-locations to get to them. It’s also iPhone and iPod Touch only, which is too bad, because The Sims: Medieval would be terrific on an iPad.
So, for all intents and purposes, lets call this a light RPG with mild sandbox elements — one that’s trimmed a bit from its PC counterpart — it’s a tiny, handheld version of a game that’s already a bit scaled big from its originals. Still, it’s one of the first truly different experiences of the Sims in a while and although it’s a more directed experience, it offers enough new to keep casual players happy. If you’re partial to medieval fantasy settings, this might be the one Sims title to really draw you in.
This is bullshit, the developers that made this are taking advantage of peoples nostalgia.
Do we post anything that doesn't offend you in some way?
You guys have not offended me. The people that am mad at are the developers that are to lazy to make anything new and fresh and instead try to make a fast buck.
I have talked at length with Elite co-founder Steve Wilcox about this project and have been privy to a good many technical details of the system used to get these games over to iOS. I can assure you that the effort that has gone into the project is nothing that can described as making "a fast buck."
Also, these are licensed titles. The original IP holders of the games Elite is bringing to iOS have agreed to certain terms and those IP holders are making money on these games they long ago created, perhaps for the first time in decades, as I know is the case with Matthew Smith (author of Manic Miner, etc.).
Elite's intention is to bring these games of decades past to iOS in near 100% form. I, and plenty of others I am sure, can respect that and are glad to have them.
Elite is not trying to trick anyone here. It's plain to see that these are titles of old. And those who want to avoid them can do so. But lots of these games are great fun and I dare say worth a buck or two admission price.
Thanks for explaining that, sorry if I gave you guys a hard time :)
Only if you choose to purchase it, if you don't like, don't buy then they cant "take advantage"
personally im all for it. I have been playing the spectrum and amiga games on the app store, defender of the crown, another world are better than most new games on the app store. mostly been enjoying back to school on the spectrum emu.. that is absolutely brilliant game. played it for hours.
at 99 cents, it's hard to see how anyone's being "taken advantage of".
i think the spectrum games bought in a pack are about 19 pence each lol.
We'd be delighted to receive suggestions for other 8-bit titles to be brought back as 'Elite Collection' apps.
The best way to do that would be to post suggestions at this forum thread. Alternatively we can be reached via our UK website, or via the 'contact' form in the apps.
We look forward to reading your suggestions.
Steve,
Forget the hater, this is awesome. Nostalgic, sure, but sometimes I do get nostalgic for awesome games. and I've wanted to play the Monty games and starquake for 20 years. So, thanks.
Oe thing I'd ask- iCade support please! Seeing all the work you've done on the controller already (very innovative), then incorporating this Bluetooth controller shouldn't be too much of a stretch.
Pretty please?
Actually I'm referring to your other release, the spectrum collection.
But iCade fir this as well would mean I'd buy it too.. ;)
Some C64 titles I'd recommend bringing over : Anything Llamasoft (if they agree of course), Racing Destruction Set, Eidolon or Fractalus, Movie Monster, Dropzone, Wizardry, Robin of the Wood, Thrust to name a few
Manimino's Commodore 64 app has several Llamasoft titles, free IAP...
My personal favourite C64 game was a shooter called 'Delta'. It was published by Thalamus. I'm also very fond of the old Epyx games - Impossible Mission 1 & 2, Pitstop 2, and of course the Summer/Winter/World Games series.
Sadly quite a few really good C64 games were licensed from coin-ops or movie/TV properties, which I imagine would make securing those impossible. I'm thinking of the likes of Rambo, Miami Vice, Bionic Commando etc.
You could look at some originals too - Monty on the Run, Thing on a Spring, Thrust, Mega Apocalypse, Head over Heels, Paradroid, Way of the Exploding Fist 1 & 2, IO, and Fairlight.
I'll be getting Black magic, and I'm looking forward to Alternate Reality: The City.
Personally, I think these old games are better than most of the new stuff out in the app store. I never played none of these games, so it has nothing to do with nostalgia for me. Without these ports I would have never found out/played great games like Cybernoid, Back to School, Another World, Road Blaster, Transylvania Adventure, Phantasy Star 2, etc.
Icade support would be fantastic. These games are great, but some suffer from the lack of physical controls. Please make it happen.
Steve Wilcox tells me they will begin examining the issue of iCade implementation as soon as they are able. FYI.
Thank you for these releases. As a big fan of the C64 and the Atari ST/Amiga, if you bring 'em to iOS, I will probably buy 'em.
One question though: Since they are the same price, why not simply make the games Universal instead of one for iPhone and one for iPad? As it is, I want to support you, but I don't know if I want to support you TWICE for each game. Many of us own more than one iOS device and its a shame for devs to not consider a universal release, especially since this is emulated, developing seperate assets should not be a heavy development burden.
Thanks for considering the above, this doesn't take away that this is an excellent start.
It really does need iCade (even more than the spectrum one). I've just bought all 3 but probably won't play again until I can play with my iCade. Far too fiddly and slow. Please keep Uridium in the back pocket until it's iCade ready.
I also remember an old C64 game called Guardian which was a Defender clone which would be magical (again with iCade - sorry) and get old Tony Crowther's game's on Potty Pigeon, his Monty Mole and all Llamasoft (but that I suppose goes without saying). Good work though - just with iCade support it would be perfect.
The notion of releasing 'HD' versions of these screams ripp-off. These should have been universal, and they should have been part of a universal C64 app. iOS needs a proper full on C64 emu packed with classics, and so far we've been very poorly served.
Umm.. Apple doesn't allow emu on iOS in the App Store..
I think you might want to have a look at the app store in future before saying such silly things - there are many emulators on the app store.
I don't the separate HD versions are so bad for the standalone apps, but it is disappointing that due to the way IAP works, you end up having to buy the same game twice for the HD and standard version.
But, at a buck a game? And money is going back to the original developer/publisher? It's not so bad.
Does anyone know when these will be made available as in-app purchases in the Elite Collection?
As someone who has never played any of these, can someone suggest one to me... assuming for the moment that I just intend on buying one (if I like one I may buy more).