Online gaming has boomed into a juggernaut of sorts, with millions of people jumping online daily to either play a quick round of Blizzard's DOTA or have a nip and play the latest offerings from Zynga like FarmVille to Cafe World. The real problem with this type of gaming though, is that it can be very hard to keep up with sometimes unless you know a few tricks of the trade.
One of the biggest challenges has been thearmoryof locations in which to play some of the most popular games on the web.
How many times have you started an online game,ulsive Google browsing later leads to hours of frustration as you try to locate a location that actually works? I know I have, and trust me, I've been there.
Fortunately, a few gaming sites made a flash game so that players could easily locate online games, it took the pressure off of locating a solid location to play games, and as a result, sites like Gaming loophole and heavy games became very popular. The game also worked in that I could either stop playing games on my PC, or simply move onto a different machine.
Unfortunately, sites like those have costs, making them not worth it for me. I simply wanted a few quick hours of gaming, with no depth or meaning, simply a way to get a few hours of gaming, and the site didn't fulfill that need.
That's when I decided to try out CityVille.
Now, normally, I'm never really keen on real time strategy games Zynga has produced, given that their games don't focus on a deeply immersive gaming experience, and I've often been critical of them. But CityVille was different. Zynga's a good company, and while they've been doing some excellent work with CityVille, this is the gaming company's first attempt at turning their most popular PC game into a console launch title.
Although I was skeptical,CityVille was a blast to play. The plot to the game is very simple, and quite entertaining, giving you a chance to build a city while doing some of your regular city stuff. For example, you start out as a rookie developer, and the goal is to build a city of a few million people so you can expand your reach. Obviously, your motivation is to grow your city, and to see your city grow, but even more so is the desire to develop your own aesthetic and strategy.
In that respect, Zynga did a wonderful job of creating the right incentives and designs to drive people to perform more, and to want to improve, their cities. While it's still a PC game, you become increasingly impatient as you wait for your population numbers to increase, and you're encouraged to complete certain tasks to get more people out of your city. You're encouraged to collect so many goods, and to have so many buildings built, and to constantly strive to do more. While it started out that way, most players end up getting a little bit fed up with the game, and want to unlock more of the game. The game has a bunch of different ways to do that, through 'hints', and 'tricks' that are revealed to you as you progress through the game. I was surprised that they actually used the regular edition of the eBook, and that the new eBook was completely different from the old one.
But, even as a person who has played all Zynga games, after 3 amazing seasons, and countless hours of gameplay, I still look up at my city and I see its slowness. I miss the days when my city compared to others in Zynga, and when I see some of my neighbors having twice the amount of energy as I have!
