The game is out in the US for those who want to give it a try. The pay to play model from GL has been much less aggressive in their recent releases, not to say that's great but many people who haven't played MV should really enjoy this along with whatever added features there are.
I find it to be unbearable that you support this! How can you go on another thread and say you dislike consumable IAP and would rather pay a premium price, but at the same time advocate GL freemium games?
Because I don't rage about games. I offer a nuetral opinion. And after playing for some time, I think people who haven't bought MV will enjoy this a lot.
Well...sorry to break it to ya, but by supporting this model you inadvertently stop supporting the premium model. Thus making devs continue the race to the bottom. Notice I said inadvertently instead of indirectly because it seems as if people really, REALLY don't understand this. Why are we here in the first place?
Haha. I support many premium games. I only plan on playing this for a bit to ring out some easy achievements.
There's a million different ways to support or devalue anything. When you say a IAP riddled or very mediocre game is good, people are like I can get a good game for free. They feed off of this to support not buying a game to "save money". However, people spend money on very frivolous things through out their lives. Look at Star Marine...some ppl thought it was insanely hard, but the more hardcore crowd thought not so bad. Also people who might give the controls more time will click with it. With GL they are destroying the very fabric of what gaming should be. If you look at the petition thread or the Star marine thread you'll see our frustrations. GL games no longer seem like games. You've already heard me say things like husks and immersionless so I'll spare you that rant. And don't say this is a casual game...we all know what this is. Tiny Wings is a casual game, not this or other GL freemium games. I'm about to test this game out and see if it's better than the other crap they've released...probably not!
Guys, I know it doesn't even look like Gameloft is trying anymore, but please don't start another Freemium vs Premium discussion here. No offense to those involved, but you have already stated your opinions in the Six Guns thread, as well as the Dungeon Hunter 3 thread, and others. There is nothing more that needs to be said, we all get it. Since it looks to be heading that way, please don't make this another argument thread. By all means, discuss the implementation of Freemium as you wish though. No hard feelings?
To be fair i can see both sides. I dont think freemium is the total death of the app store, i know Gameloft have gone OTT with it but i think most devs havent. I'm starting to see a crazy group of people who are sooo anti-freemium/IAP's its hurting other small devs Look at the thread for Star Marine. Utterly ridiculous, one long winded post (with no paragraph breaks) was unbelievable over the top, AND the guy hadnt even tried it ! Hes in some freemium/IAP rage so the second he sees the word IAP he goes ballistic. We've been over this again and again, a lot of people dont seem to be supporting devs, how many beggers have you seen here asking for promo codes or moaning when a games 69p or come down in price so they had to 'shock horror' spend an extra 50p a week ago and now are annoyed they paid more for the game. Smaller devs have to survive, if we all wait for games to come down in price or be free then you can bet your bottom dollar a LOT of devs will jump to the next gadget which offers them more money per sale than they get with Apple. Again the classic example - Bullet Time, IAP's done right, dont have to buy them, i bought one as a thankyou to the dev. Star Marine is to me a very good game, unlike Bullet Time (which was free) i wont be buying any IAP's as i've already paid for the game and also i dont seem to need them. I'm enjoying this old skool shooter and i'm collecting enough crystals to get new weapons etc. But i DON'T need to buy any IAPs', sometimes IAP's are a new modern way of cheating, back in the 80's you either had 'pokes' or cheats, in the 90's patches and now its common practice if you want to get ahead, spend a bit more and you can. Dont see the harm in that. But now theres SUCH an over the top response from 'some' of the anti-IAP gang that its doing more harm than good. If i didnt have GTA already i might get Urban Crime to check it out, i WOULDNT be buying any IAP's but for a free game and for a quick 5 minute play when i'm on a train etc i think its worth it, i dont think its utter evil. Saying that I admit GameLoft royally messed up with Six Guns which could have been a great game and even worse messed up the Dungeon Hunter series. BUT IF someone does like a Gameloft game or a freemium game its up to them, there seems to be a 'find them and burn the heretics!' type attitude to these users. If they want to play these games then let them, its not the end of the app store. The end of the app store is when everyone (more and more people) become cheapskates, wait for sales or wait for games to be free or dont buy games from indie developers. When i hear how many sales some games have by indie devs its sad to hear, so many people here wont want to spend 69p on a game as they think they'll get it for free, thats whats killing the app store, not freemium. Again i'm old skool, games to me cost a lot in the 80's and 90's, now i get quality games for 69p or 1.99, amazing value. THEN i get free updates, new levels etc, amazing and STILL you get tightwads waiting for the game to be free or even worse moaning and giving a game 1/5 as the dev dropped the price to try and get more sales. Can imagine its very disheartening for indie devs.
IDK...the overall trend seems to be bad. Like you said, devs can only be burnt so many times before they leave or go freemium. People, like myself, can only be burned so many times before we leave or start complaining. Nonetheless, the fact that people consider what GL has put out lately to be games is baffling. Anyways, Dumaz100 said it best in the petition thread. New England Gamer also made some good points. Also, Hodapp's link was a very good read, especially the slacktivism part.
My problem with Urban Crime has nothing to do with the IAP, but Gameloft's new, worrying trend of creating games with hardly any unique content, no overarching narrative, no greater context, and gameplay which amounts to essentially just a long series of random missions. Both Six Guns and Urban Crime (and even Dungeon Hunter 3, but the whole arena concept would have needed to be modified or scrapped) could have been very nice open world games, given extended storylines, greater elements of progression, a fleshed-out world, far more locales, and varied gameplay. Now, Urban Crime plays like an infinite but also very poor man's GTA or Gangstar. The territory mechanic is a nice touch, but would really have come into its own in a complete game, in a story-based context. As this title relies on auto-aim and touching to select targets, the combat mechanics are less entertaining than in Six Guns (where the player could actually fight manually), to the point of often simply consisting of selecting a target and keeping the fire button pressed. Furthermore, the graphics are surprisingly basic, with low-rez models and non-retinaized text. Also, the world seems even more sterile and bereft of personality than in the Gangstar series, with random NPCs swarming about aimlessly Simply put, all we do is run random repeatable missions (of which there are rather few types), with little variety in between. There seems to be little point to anything. In Six Guns and Dungeon Hunter 3, at least battles were mildly entertaining, thanks to the basic combat mechanics. (Price-wise, both Six Guns, Urban Crime and Dungeon Hunter 3 provide fun for the price of free. No argument there. But not fun enough for me to spend time playing them.) With a real gaming world, a narrative context, a sense of purpose, story arcs, non-recurring content, and a supporting cast, Urban Crime could have been another entry in the Gangstar series, for good or bad. Now, it is a very free but near-empty playground. As I belong to those that believe that Gameloft actually can create good (if rather generic) games, and also believe that some experimentation with freemium and IAP schemes can benefit the player base and the platform, I hope they deem these latest experiments a failure, and either go back to stuff like Modern Combat 3, 9mm, GT Racing: Motor Academy and the old Dungeon Hunter games, or move on to yet bolder and greener pastures.
Another "Gem" from Craploft... A suffering horse needs to be put out of it's misery... (btw....the graphics look really awful....just look at those tires of the bike)
.... Ok so I tried this last night, tried to jack a car but needed to be a certain lv or IAP gems to unlock it. I already knew that part so no biggie, what I didnt know about was the energy part, it slowly goes down over time and every mission you accept takes 1 energy away so far. This is crazy.... Why play this over city of saints....
That's exactly what they did with Let's Golf 3. One hole costs one energy point. You get 5 free a day. Or you can buy them with the ingame currency (which takes forever to build up) or pay up with real cash. IAP's to unlock stuff or pimp out your gear is OK by me. Some people like to earn it, some are just too impatient or just don't have the time. But literally having to pay to play is asking too much. It's back to the arcades all over again. Insert coin.
Try the game and you'll know it's nothing like that. The only 'waiting' is for energy which is used to turn in missions. Contrary to what Amenbrother said, it doesn't deplete over time, it regenerates, even while you're roaming the city or completing missions or doing side tasks like beating up civilians, delivering packages, or driving taxis. The pay to play model is not nearly as aggressive as what was in LG3, which was still somewhat enjoyable IMO. You don't have to like the game or even accept it but in all honesty, it's not that bad.
