Two major games, both much anticipated, were released this week: the reboot of Tomb Raider and SimCity.
We'll have both of them measured in our upcoming Harris Buzz report, ready in a couple of weeks time.
But both titles have had major launch issues.
SimCity has taken one hell of a panning, not from critics but with gamers annoyed with EA insistence on an always-on online DRM solution (for what is basically an offline single player game). A pathetic user metacritic score of 1.6/10.0 at the time of writing is an indication of people's frustration. An always-on DRM you need only via Origin is annoying enough for many, but EA's servers unable to cope with demand is an own goal, as you can see below. Amazon even suspended its sales.
Tomb Raider looks pretty lush. Well that's what I've seen on YouTube at least because I can't play it on Steam using my i7/680GTX. A patch and a new driver is needed (although there is a registry fix for those who don't want to wait).
This is my experience of Tomb Raider to date:
All of this makes me wonder why I ever bother pre-ordering PC games.
Wait for a few months, get all the patches and fixes and get it for half the price and zero frustration.
All I need to do that is to acquire some patience.
UPDATE: Tomb Raider patch released, all okay. EA apologises, offers free game.
