ANNO 2205 - The New Frontier for City-Building?

[PGHammer]

Lost (including here at Neowin) amid the hubbub between SimCity and Cities: Skylines is another popular city-builder series that had their next title in development; Ubisoft's ANNO series launched Tuesday their next city-builder, ANNO 2205, and it stakes out new territory for city-builders several different ways.

1.  First off, it's on Steam (following previous titles in the series) - however, don't even bother to bring your non-x64 PC. (That's right - unlike every other ANNO title, this one is x64-only.  Has any other Steam title gone the x64-only route?)

2.  Unlike ANNO 2070, it is actually graphically on-par with the competition - one ding with ANNO 2070 was that it fell between CItiesXL and SimCity 2013; 2205, on the other hand, can give both SimCity's GlassBox and Cities: Skylines a run for their money on DX11.

3.  It's actually portable-friendly.  Not many x64-only games, or city-builders in general, are all that playable on a notebook (and I have to put both Cities: Skylines AND SimCity 2013 in the notebook-hostile category).  So far, I've been playing 2205 ONLY on a notebook (my desktop needs a new PSU, which I haven't bought or installed yet).

4.  Lastly, it's where you will be doing most of the building - about two hundred and fifty THOUSAND miles away.  (That's right - while you may START on terra firma, at most you'll be building the equivalent of Cape Canaveral and vicinity; you'll be doing most of your building on the moon.)  Therefore, this game is rated NW - No Werewolves.

I haven't done anything but go through the initial briefing yet (and watch some videos on YouTube from those that started earlier than me, as I just installed it overnight (last night into this morning - the game itself launched yesterday).

  Has anyone else among the Neowinians grabbed this surprise gem?

[ctebah]

Downloading on Steam as we speak.  I'll be installing it after work.

[PGHammer]

Followup; the fail on my devbook is the GPU (AMD Mobility HD4200) - so I moved to Mom's AIO (HP Pavilion third-gen Core i3).  While the non-quad CPU and HD4400 graphics throw yellow flags, I HAVE gotten further compared to the far-older devbook.  My desktop is being rebuilt around LGA1150 (initially G3258 and my existing GTX550Ti, along with 8GB of DDR3-1333 that I bought back when DDR3 was in glut turf) and a factory-refurb Z97-based ASRock Extreme4.  The PSU that failed was replaced with a Corsair CX600M (it was the new PSU that confirmed, sadly, that when the previous PSU failed, it took the motherboard with it - currently, it's connected to a far-older, but working, ATX motherboard with a P4 Northwood-B - however, it's so old that it doesn't support SATA at all).  Because I'm going LGA1150, I'm in position to take advantage of LGA1150 pulls as they become available (such as i5).

[PGHammer]

Followup - the rebuild is complete, my games - including ANNO 2205 - are installed, and between the increased RAM (8GB of DDR3-1333), and the dGPU (the carryover GTX550Ti), the new ANNO is smooth as glass.  (In fact, it's smoother on the rebuild than it is on Mom's i3 - while the HD4400 is good, a dGPU will still wax it.)  Still, the performance in my GAMES is such that DX12 would be the only thing driving upgrades on the GPU end.

[PGHammer]

Followup - another pleasant surprise is the MUSIC - it was good in 2070; the surprise is that 2205 is even better.  In fact, it's so much so that I chased down the OST to ANNO 2205 (like I did for 2070); as was the case with 2070, there is a single track in 2205 that really stands out.  Still, there are no real "factions" in 2205 (though there are NPCs) - it's mainly your corporation vs. the Orbital Watch (pronounced "OW" - as in the pain they are trying to inflict on your project).  My favorite music in the game is NOT during the combat scenes (which was just as true in 2070) - instead, it's set in the Arctic setting where you're building a "frozen" launchpad amidst the icebergs.  The theme for your frozen construction site is - not so appropriately - called "Thawing" - which is something you don't want to happen, of course.  It's a nice tight instrumental piece.

[PGHammer]

I finally grabbed the Season Pass AKA the Fill-In-Da-Blanks-Pass (if you bought the base game, this fills out the rest of your DLC content card (Tundra, Frontiers, and Orbit) - which is why I snagged it during the current Ubisoft sale - especially since it was all of $9.99 USD).  I'm one-third through Tundra (the first major achievement there is rather groanworthy for certain folks - draining the swamps - all of them) and I've started on the the construction of TechNet Station (Orbit DLC); however, I have just gotten in to the first of the archipelagoes in Frontiers when I ran out of RAM and promptly blue-screened (which I expected, to be honest - 8 GB with ALL the DLC is simply too little - and playing at the second highest detail does NOT help).  Fortunately, after tax time is done, I SHOULD be able to get that RAM upgrade (from 8GB to 16GB).