richardbaxter

The Sims Medieval is an awesome game. It is refreshingly non-consumption orientated, letting one share in historic reality of virtue. Consequently, it is objectification free. There is good freedom of play, and the role playing element adds to this. Rachel Bernstein also did a good job at incorporating, for political correctness if nought else, a minimalist implementation of (pre-tolerant) socially universal site specification limitation in form, seen in the alternative (modern-like) female clothing. Despite this, and the obvious deviation employed by some bandits, the clothing is beautiful. The honour one receives in this environment makes one feel alive. Bernstein's creation restores lost valour, and puts to rest compromise and its futile conclusions. The music follows this, where I encountered atmospheric bliss on a continual basis - while experiencing and arranging interiors as necessary. The commitment towards societal realism was appreciated also, whether it be in the dancing, the markets, the occupations, the non-secularism, the speech, etc. This all exceeded my expectations. The neutrality can be slightly deceptive however (had to break out of a strange relationship during the tutorial by restarting it); but if you read everything - and pause when necessary - you can feel in control of your character. It can also be challenging at times, especially when starting a new character and learning their work routine. Sometimes I feel it would be nice to be able to take a break from routine to maintain some basic level of communication with ambient sims - especially in time critical quests. I also feel that quest specific animation could have been added for adventures (such as that employed in Sierra games like Quest for Glory), although the stories are good - and are always creative and fun reading. Furthering this critique, the duals look like they have had their kinematics derived from fight stylisation used in Medieval shows, which can be non-representative of real sword combat - which is fast, dynamic, skilful, and aggressive. It might be worth while asking trained practitioners to demonstrate this off set, peer to peer, in full armour (albeit with blunt weaponry) - a spectacular which appears too dangerous and violent for the public arena. One final lapse is the lighting - the lack of bump mapping on the exact type of wall most benefited by it; that of stone (demonstrated in Doom 3, 2004). The human faces look brilliant though with the subsurface scattering upgrade, except in some interior scenes where faces can very occasionally receive a redish (saturated) plasticine look. I found also the lack of detail in outdoor terrain texturing to be problem also, although this can be mostly resolved by increasing the level of anisotropic filtering (this is a common problem in games with open scenery, eg RTS). I theorise that the pre-identified "painterly" approach probably could have been avoided by the introduction of bump mapping in interior/exterior surfaces, and with an improved rendering of the rock faces. But this deficiency is blitzed by the realism conveyed by the sims themselves. I was working on the xml code base to a society simulator SimNation (late 2008) when I noticed that EA had already made what I was after in SimCity Societies. More recently (late 2009), I envisaged 'the perfect game' - a human interaction simulator based in the middle ages - and it became apparent that EA were working on this also. The Sims Medieval is this game.