Netbookist: Netbook Games, Tweaks, Challenges » simulation

SimCity 4 on a netbook

Corporal — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 01:07:30 +0000

The Canadian Middle Finger... in your city!

SimCity 4 is a city building simulator. As the mayor of a plot of land of various sizes, the goal is to build something that you want. There are no goals in this game – so you can build a city that rivals New York City with a massive subway system, massive elevated highways and high density buildings. At the same time, you can build smaller towns that rely mainly on farming, with undivided streets and wind turbines powering everything. The sandbox style of SimCity allows you to build whatever your imagination allows, although there are some pressures such as managing finances and also six gauges under the City Opinion Polls that will judge your management of the city.

At the same time, there is a God Mode tool where you will be allowed to terraform the plot of land you chose such that it has valleys, plateaus, mountains and other geographical features. If you prefer a flat piece of land, which makes building a city much simpler, you can level the land.

SimCity 4 is extremely addictive because of the ability for you to see your city grow. You start with an empty plot of land, and from there, you will make decisions that affect your city. If you managed it well, you will see your city grow taller and mightier. Your advisors will heap praise on you if you do it well. Conversely, if you mess up, you will see your city, finances and rating go down in smoke. The latter situation is not that big of a problem because you can level your city off and start afresh. Or you can create disasters such as earthquakes and take revenge on your people.

The game plays very well on a standard netbook. Integrated graphics can pump out at least 20fps under the default graphics settings, although it might be subject to slowdowns when you zoom in and out. One problem is that the game does not have native support for widescreen resolutions, so you can either play the game with a shrunk 1024×768 resolution, or play it with a 800×600 resolution without stretch using this hack. One problem is that this game does crash to desktop quite a bit, so it would be prudent for you to try to fix it using the methods outlined in the SimCity 4 Wiki, or have an external autosaving tool.

SimCity 4 is something that is still loved by many people, and is kept alive by the large modding community. This is a full fledged game that plays great on your netbook, and so if you like this genre of games, you should check it out.

Like

Runs great on a netbook

Fantastic game despite age

Lots of mods to satisfy your every craving.

Dislike

Crashes to desktop sometimes

Verdict

If you like city building simulations and sandbox games, this is one of the most interesting ones to try.

Gameplay: Excellent

Graphics: Good (20+ fps with slowdowns at times)

Work needed to get game to play: Moderate (fixing crashes; resolution issues)

Transport Giant Gold 2012 on a netbook

Corporal — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 15:16:11 +0000

A typical tradition of traffic dynamics: ensuring congestion no matter the era

Recently, I’ve been hooked on transport management games. I played Cities in Motion, a game where you have to manage the public transport system in different cities such as Berlin, Helsinki and Tokyo. Interestingly, in that game, people in Tokyo drive on the right, while streets in Berlin look more North American than European.

That said, Cities in Motion was a game I was tempted to try on my netbook, but given that it runs like dung on my proper gaming laptop, it’s definitely not gonna fly on a netbook.

I stumbled upon a really old school game. Not as old school as Transport Tycoon, not as focused as Railroad Tycoon 3, but similar. Similar in a sense you have to manage your business, ensure that you have the cash, and complete goals. It’s an isometric game made in the early 2000s, with an intriguing concept of managing a transport system that consists of vehicles such as trains, trucks, airplanes, blimps and helicopters.

Just like Railroad Tycoon, you have a choice of fetching passengers or cargo. You have to build the infrastructure – streets, railways or airports, and then pick from a large list of vehicles. From thoroughbred horses of the 1850s to electric trains of the 60s to the Boing 747 of the 90s. Yes, Boing 747.

The game pits you in three regions – North America, Europe and Australia. And in each region, there’s a host of mission that takes you through the years. The American campaign starts from the 1850′s, and your role in that campaign can range from amassing a fortune, connecting cities via rail, and supporting the space race by creating an efficient system that allows you to transport raw materials to the value-adding industries, and then sending them to the space station. What keeps you on your toes is that you’ll have to complete all of these missions in a limited time, mostly about 15-20 years.

So many choices...

The game is actually very entertaining when you’ve set up something really efficient, profitable and current. There is a great feeling of seeing the dough come forth automatically, so you can expand your transport networks. The game also runs excellent on a netbook, and you can expect hours of enjoyment on it if you like these sort of games.

The flipside, unfortunately, is also very distinct as you spend time on this game. The game has a huge host of bugs, annoyances, typographical errors and has a learning curve that is moderately a mission to learn.

The bugs are minor but can turn into major annoyances. Sometimes, buttons don’t work. Other times, you can have a route to your station, but the computer won’t recognize it and tell you that the train can’t get there. That gets truly annoying because it means you have to spend cash to rebuild your railroad. Out of the box, the game won’t save properly either – the fix is below.

Learning the game is also quite hard, especially if you’re not the RTFM (Read The Friendly Manual) kind of person. There is no tutorial, although the first few missions are quite easy because you’re only required to manage horses which don’t break nor need maintenance.

The game also has a very inelegant interface. In order to do one thing, you’ll have to make quite a disproportionate number of clicks. For example, to build a railway, you have to click on build. Out of ten buttons on the sidebar, you’ll have to remember which one. Once you click build, you’ll be presented with a number of buttons again for different modes of transportation – do you want to build a horse and truck depot? A train depot? An airport? A shipyard? Click on the right one, and then the cycle repeats again. Do you want a small, small-medium, medium or large depot? Electric or non-powered railway?

The biggest pain lies in the building the railway. To build a railway, you have to join two stations. Usually, these two stations require you to curve the railway. And then here comes the inelegant interface again: how steep do you want it? 1×1 curve? 2×2? It becomes a puzzle sometimes where you’ll have to engage in trial-and-error to see which curve will allow you to join both stations. There is no diagonal track, by the way. So building diagonally means curving left, right, left, right, etc.

Oh, if only they’ve seen how easy it is to do this on Railroad Tycoon or Cities in Motion.

The game runs excellent on a standard netbook. It does run at a native 1024×768, which means that it won’t be a perfect aspect ratio for a netbook, but the graphics looked fine while I played it. It ran quite stable without crashing.

FIX: Save Game Error

If you have a problem saving your game, head to the installation folder, and create a folder called save . The theory that I heard is that Transport Giant is too old a game and therefore is unable to weave through Windows 7′s file protection system. Create that folder in small caps and you’re good to go.

Like

So many vehicles to choose from…

So many missions to play on…

So many eras to play in…

So time sapping… (i.e. it’s ultra-addictive!)

Dislike

So many bugs…

So tough to play (initially)

So annoying sometimes

Verdict

I’m pretty glad I found this game. I used to play it in my youth and it was great. The game has lost some lustre as it has aged graphics, but the gameplay is still excellent. It is a lot of fun, and if you can tolerate the bugs, the inelegance of its interface, and the minor annoyances that come with the game, you’ll be set on one of the best transport-management sims. Though if you don’t want to go through the torture, try Railroad Tycoon 3 instead.

Gameplay: So simple, yet so addictive.

Graphics: A throwback to the mid-90s.

Work needed to get game to play: None!

SWAT 4 on a netbook

Corporal — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 16:25:21 +0000

What lurks behind that door better be checked with a flashbang first...

If you like tactical shooters with a heavy dose on realism, then SWAT 4 might be the urban combat simulator which you are looking for. Placing you in a SWAT team, you take up arms ranging from the AK47 to the non-lethal pepper spraying gun, and a range of handguns, explosives, flashbangs, and other tools that will aid you in what is one of the hardest shooting games out there.

Teamwork is essential to your survival as both you and your enemies are potential one-shot kills. Open a door without checking and you might be looking down the barrel of a shotgun. Command your team well in ordering them to open and flashbang, and you might just save a few lives in that mission.

Multiplayer on SWAT, however, takes the cake. The game engrosses you in different modes, such as the standard team deathmatch styled games and if you have a friend, you can also do co-op modes where you will jointly try to take complete missions available in the single player. And that’s probably the best part about SWAT – its multiplayer. At least, until you die in co-op and have to sit out the whole round without playing.

Technical Problems?

With guns like that, this is no ordinary beat

Being a fairly modern game for a netbook, you’d expect that the game would be on the brink of totally being unable to be played. In fact, even before you start the game up, a big warning sign would complain that your modern but extremely underpowered Intel GMA is not supported and you’ll run the game at your own risk.

Of course, I had to try. FPS in-game was pretty much below average, and hampered a lot of the gameplay. Sometimes, you need to react quickly, and aim quickly, but when the lag sets in, it can be quite hard to see where you’re actually aiming. Also, the draw distance, when the graphics are set to the lowest, leave much to be desired. In certain rooms, you would not be able to see from one end to the room to the other.

Fixes?

For starters, you won’t be able to mod much of the game to any level of supreme playability. You’ll be struggling along the likes of 15fps and less when the action is turned up. Ideally, your computer has been set up to be able to play games in the 4:3 resolution without causing unsightly stretching.

But if you have a more powerful computer and you want to play in a widescreen resolution, you can do the following,

Navigate to \SWAT 4\Content\System and open Swat4.ini in a text editor such as NotePad.

Search for the following lines:
FullscreenViewportX=
FullscreenViewportY=
Modify these lines to suit your resolution. X is horizontal and Y is vertical.

The following example would force the game to run in the resolution of 1440×900.
FullscreenViewportX=1440
FullscreenViewportY=900
After changing the values, save the file and make it read only. This will prevent the game reverting back to a 4:3 resolution.

When launching and exiting the game you will get the error File Not Saved: Failed to write \SWAT 4\Content\System\Swat4.ini. This error is fine, just click OK to continue.

Some vertical view is lost when running in a widescreen resolution.
Source: Widescreen Gaming wiki

However, I never bothered because on any bog-standard Intel GMA, the best res to play it is unfortunately the one that looks the most unsightly – 800×600.

Like

Very realistic sim

Heart-pounding action, tense atmosphere and great soundtrack to add to the fright factor

Lots of cool guns and tools

Dislike

Gets exponentially tougher to a point where you’ll be restarting often

Has performance issues on a netbook

Controls take time to master

Verdict

If you like realism, guns and SWAT operations, then SWAT 4 is a great tactical shooter to consider. But perhaps you might want to check out Tom Clancy’s Rogue Spear while you’re at it?

Gameplay: Great (but extremely challenging)

Graphics: Barely (5 – 15 fps)

Work needed to get game to play: None

Screenshots: Softonic

The Sims 3 on a netbook

Corporal — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 15:34:34 +0000

Hmm... will it run?

After writing on The Sims, I felt that it was important to test out the latest iteration too – The Sims 3. The game was designed for 2009 computers, and as a result was extremely challenging to get it to run on a netbook… after all, a netbook is a like a mid-range PC of 2002. However, there is a modicum of chance, since the minimum specs are…

2.6 GHz Pentium D CPU, or 1.8 GHz Core 2 Duo, or equivalent
1.5 GB additional RAM
Intel Integrated Chipset, GMA 3-Series or above
The latest version of DirectX 9.0c
At least 6.1 GB of hard drive space with at least 1 GB of additional space for custom content and saved games

Ouch? With the stock HP Mini 110-3500 that I’m on, it seems to fall a bit short of the requirements – 1.50Ghz dual-core Atom, 1Gb RAM. This doesn’t bode well. Although Youtube suggests that people have been able to get the game to run well on a single-core N450.

Tweaks

In order to get The Sims 3 to run, you will need to enable custom resolutions that allow you to get resolutions higher than 1024×600. Follow this guide to do so, assuming you are using an Intel GMA chip, then set your resolution to 1024×768. With that, you can start up The Sims 3 and configure it to run in windowed mode at a lower resolution.

Some say that you need 2Gb of RAM to play it well. It might be true because I’m on 1Gb and it is just unplayable. 5fps, 1.5 seconds of wait time for a click to respond, and then the most unsightly worlds you’ve ever seen with all the settings at its lowest, and resolution at 640×480. Not good at all.

However, that was during the first run of the game. After I exited and tried again, with the help of Gamebooster, I seemed to be able to get the game to run moderately. While FPS ranged from 8 – 12 fps, it was still quite playable, since this game doesn’t require quick wits. However, it’s still gonna be hard on your eyes as the texture detail really suffers at the lowest settings.

In the end, this game is somewhat playable, though you’d have to prepare for some slowdowns, long load times and ugly graphics. It gets worse as you have more and more objects or head into the city with a lot of other Sims around, but hey, you’re playing a 2009 game!

Like

The best iteration of The Sims – thorough, involving and varied

Extremely addictive

Dislike

Struggling graphics – low-res, low texture detail, low FPS

Painfully long load times

Verdict

If you found The Sims too basic, and The Sims 2 a bit too halfway, then you could try your luck with The Sims 3. It is playable, though barely, given that the graphics is just not up to par, and what’s worse is the load times, and frame rates. Much of what irks me has to do with the performance related to the netbook rather than the gameplay.

Gameplay: Great!

Graphics: Barely (5 – 15fps)

Work needed to get game to play: Moderate (15 minute)

Operation Flashpoint GOTY on a netbook

Corporal — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 20:04:13 +0000

Yes, Corporal, I understand how unwieldy it is to drive in OpF.

There aren’t too many games that are better than America’s Army when it comes to realism, but once you’ve played Operation Flashpoint, you’ll find that AA, while great fun and very realistic, is no match for Operation Flashpoint when it comes to variety, warfare, tactics and simulation. The game involves you in a fictional war that was caused by a rogue Soviet general by the name of Alexsei Guba. Armed with personal goals of taking down Gorbachev and proclaiming himself as the leader of the Soviet Union, he takes the army he leads into nearby territories, where the United States has interests in.

And that is where the Cold War Crisis starts. Of course, if you got the Game of the Year (GOTY) version, there are also other expansions which put you in different scenario. Resistance is probably the most poignant, since it pits you against the Soviets with a minuscule army. It’s probably the most challenging expansion of the GOTY.

A smart soldier will just steal that BMP and sabot him to smithereens

The best part of the game has to lie in the fact that you’ll take up many roles all in a very simulation-based territory. This is not Doom 3 or Quake. This is serious. You have to think about how your attacks are going to be, plan the routes, wait patiently, and commandeer tanks to support people. Ambushes, bombs, artillery, saboteurs will all be at your disposal, but how you use them will greatly affect how many people die – be it soldiers on your side, or the enemies’.

On the other hand, in Cold War Crisis, sometimes you’ll be in the shoes of a Sam Fisher look-a-like saboteur which will demand that you work mostly alone and do things stealthily. A one man show has only his silenced MP5 and brains to save him from alarms that will trigger all sorts of unwanted resistance.

At the same time, you’ll be driving tanks, flying helicopters, jeeps and shooting guns both of Soviet and American origin. There’s the M1A1 Abrams as there is the T72. The Mi24 as well as the Apache. And the most classic distinction between Soviet and American machinery: the AK47 and the M16. No crosshairs here, you’ll need to shoot using the ironsight.

Performance on a Netbook

Performance of Operation Flashpoint GOTY on a Intel GMA 3150 can vary. Unfortunately, the worlds that OpF has are large with a lot of objects in them, and if you ran using the Autodetect settings, you’ll have the game that runs barely. Toggle it a bit and you’ll have a better running game, though you’ll probably have to settle with forgoing high and widescreen resolutions.

However, the good news is that OpF does not require any modifications to run. You can play it straight out the box, however, as aforementioned, do remember to toggle down your graphics!

RPG? Prepare three or prepare to run. M1A1 vs T80 on the other hand...

Like

Extremely good variety of missions and roles

Very realistic

Plausible storyline (after all, the Soviets were evil, right?)

Dislike

Playability fps-wise ranges from barely to maybe.

Animations are really ugly

Verdict

If you haven’t tried this game and you’re a fan of ARMA and America’s Army, then you ought to try it. Your netbook is preferably a powerful one, and hopefully you’re a forgiving person to ugly graphics. However, the game makes it up with a great concept, great storyline and great realism.

Screenshots: msxbox-world