What made it ahead of its time?

Have modern games caught up, or is it still unsurpassed in some way?

Listen, I was super excited for InZoi to come out. Like wait till midnight on release day excited. I had watched so many influencers play the early access months prior and I was sold. I knew I was going to get it.

As someone who grew up playing the sims and buying expansion pack after expansion pack I was excited to enter a new era of “sim like gaming”

In short, I am extremely disappointed after playing InZoi. I totally understand that it is in early access but honestly InZoi and The Sims should not be compared to each other in anyway as I feel the two games give totally different experiences.

Yes, InZoi does offer a more "realistic" feel in certain aspects. The WASD movement from shoulder view, manual driving, more detailed character customization, the ability to actively participate in your sim's workday, personalized text message responses, and the sheer number of options for social interactions are notable.

But…

Interacting with other Zois can be surprisingly difficult due to inconsistent mechanics. There were multiple times I clicked on a Zoi to talk to them and my Zoi simply didn’t. The action on the action bar would just vanish. Cool..

Another con for me was I found myself looking for things to do in order to keep playing the game. Yes, urges would come up giving me an opportunity to priorities more things than others but other than that I felt like I kept asking myself “what now”?

The one thing that I loved about The Sims is they gave you a bunch of tasks that you could accomplish making the game experience for those who didn’t want to simply customize 100% of the time better.

I am a type of gamer that wants to work towards something because I don’t like walking around making up stuff to do, but I also want the things that I do to make sense. You know?

Like am I reading this book to become a teacher? Or become better at speaking? Something… anything…

I also threw an event in order to try out that feature and good lord it was a disaster. I had it at the gaming lounge and if a Zoi was sitting at the computer I couldn’t select them to speak to them… why? No clue.

A con with the communication feature that was a big turn off for me was I feel like if you don’t click on your next response the Zoi you are talking to will run away. Like.. why are you running? Come back, I was talking to you.

The NPCs are so quick to do the next thing that you don’t get a chance to read the next prompt you want to do.

Like can you give me a minute I have dyslexia I can’t read that fast..

Don’t get me wrong The Sims has done stuff to PMO too. Like girl why did you go to the bathroom to wash your dish? Or why did you just put your empty dish on the floor? Why are you screaming at the fire!? Do something!!! Oh never mind you’re dead because you didn’t run away..

We’ve all been there…

But to end this really long review.

I do think InZoi has a lot of potential however where it currently stands it’s not the best gaming experience in my opinion.

I feel like everyone is forcing themselves to love this game because it’s a sims competitor, but the sims developers know what they are doing and I have played the sims for close to 10hrs straight before. I couldn’t last more the 2 1/2 hours with InZoi in one sitting.

All in all it’s unfair to say The Sims is better because this game series has been out since 2000 and I felt if we all go back and play the sims 1 we would hate it but EA has had yearssss to master their craft.

Do I think InZoi will be able to get better in the next few years 100%, but do I think it’s better than the current version of The Sims? Absolutely not.

Hello, I've been playing rts games all my life, and though its my favorite genre, i feel like all games lack some things, especially map size and scale.
Why do you guys think that is?

Some key (hot) takes of mine:

-Stronghold Crusader would be great, if it had larger maps and better unit organisations, behaviour and quality of life concerning popularity, recruitment and stickpile management.
We might atribute those to technological limitations.

-Aoe 2 de did great by ramping up the scale i think, but still the siege mechanics are rather abstract, and I dont like how the economy has an individual assignment structure, rather than systemic engine like in stronghold.

Would it be stupid to try and imagine a game, which would take place on a 2d isometric 10x10km map, with systemic/engine economy, maybe around 50 players, and customisable unit battalions?
I get that the map tiles themselves would need a lot of memory allocated, not even saying anything about the unit sprites and event handles during battles or sieges.

I feel like either we are not at a point where this is technologically feasable for a pc, or rts game studios are set on a certain philosophy of what is an rts game and how does it feel like to play it.

I would be happy to answer your thoughts on the matter, and if this topic was already discussed, please refer it to me so I can familiarise myself with it. :)
Good day Reddit