![]() ![]() Now the game is overly focused on upgrading your roads and parks in order to entice that ever elusive middle class. The small stage creates a whole host of problems that fundamentally change the way you play the game. By hour three, I was bulldozing buildings and roads in the hopes of cramming more stuff into an already crowded space. Once you’ve taken care of utilities and basic services like fire, police, and transportation, you’ll find you’ve run out of room to build things like stadiums, seaports, or many specialized buildings. Part of the reason why the game offers you city specializations (culture, gambling, technology, etc.) is because you can no longer just keep expanding and assume you can build everything. Your sandbox is now much smaller than in previous games. Since the game is multiplayer-centric and yes, must always be connected to the Internet, other problems persist even beyond the disastrous server crashes. It’s a huge deal, and cannot be overstated: SimCity is now a multiplayer game and playing without other people is going be much more difficult and limiting. By playing alone, you aren’t missing out on minor resources, either: having one player specialize in tourism can affect the entire region, or having one player with great oil resources can save you the trouble of buying your own power plant. Why they couldn’t program AI cities to play with you I have no idea.Īfter a few hours, you’ll realize that you either have to build the other cities yourself or just make do. Unfortunately, EA didn’t seem to account for players who simply don’t want to play with other people, so when you start a new game and build your city you’ll find yourself punished by not having other people in the area to share resources. Electronic Arts made the controversial decision of making SimCity multiplayer-centric because hey, what could be better than building a world with your friends? It certainly worked for games like Minecraft. ![]() If you’re reading this review, I can assure you that launch period issues should no longer affect you, so I’m not one of those reviewers who is dinging the game’s rating based on launch issues.īut there are larger problems with SimCity that linger and make it difficult to recommend. I did not, as some have reported, have difficulty putting the game on Cheetah mode (the fastest mode). Even then, SimCity did crash during my initial tutorial run and I had some major slowdown issues for the first day. I pulled double-duty and chose to tackle (wisely, it turns out) Bioshock Infinite first so I didn’t get to SimCity until a few days later. My experience with the launch was much smoother than some others’ in the press, mainly owing to the timing of my review. The result is a game that never feels overwhelming despite being very, very complex. You’ll have goals such as “Plop a Community College” and “Get 1000 students in a day” that can result in bonus simoleons and needed direction. In the new SimCity, Maxis has done an admirable job of streamlining the interface, using a great deal of the trappings of the Sims 3. Throughout the history of SimCity, Maxis kept expanding on the number of aspects of your city you needed to track, moving beyond power and water to things like waste, pollution, and trash-and as a result, the interface became more and more unwieldy. Thanks to the amazing detail, choice, and control, you really do feel godlike, for my money-more so than even in games like Civilization or Black & White. The little digital ant farm you’ve created is also full of many choices, from how to plan your cities’ roads to what industries you specialize in (gambling, technology, etc.), how you develop utilities, and even some microscopic details like tax rates for the different classes of people who dwell in your fictional city. The new engine creates unrivaled detail in the game world, allowing players to see individual trucks, sims, and street corners. In SimCity, your metropolis has never looked so clean, crisp, and vibrant. While the new SimCity is in many ways more approachable and fun than ever, the move to multiplayer gameplay created severe gameplay issues, creating a frustrating and at times broken game. ![]() This latest iteration, titled simply SimCity, is both the sequel to SimCity 4 and a reboot of the franchise. From this humble beginning came iconic titles like SimCopter, SimCity 2000, and the juggernaut Sims franchise. Both educational and fun, it was the first world builder video game that allowed the player unrivaled abilities to play god-even back in 1989 in your school’s computer lab, you could turn your city into a sprawling metropolis or burn it to ash. Few franchises stir the imagination and the awe of gamers quite like Maxis’ SimCity.
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