SimCity (Or "Sim City" if red wavy lines annoy you) is the latest city-building game in the long-running series, developed by Maxis and published by Electronic Arts. It has been received with a storm of criticism, and so I decided it would be best for me to delve right in and see what all the fuss was about.
(Please note that I am playing with all of the extra content, not just the base game.)
The very first thing you see when you launch the game is its "Region" view. From here you can choose where you want to build a new city or re-launch an old saved game. I heard a lot of people complaining about the lack of choice of city size, but frankly, there are three options to pick from (The largest having 16 times the area of the smallest) and that is plenty for me.
[small]The game does leave very little doubt as to where it wants you to start.[/small]
From the Region view, you can also change the map to show transit networks rather than the default "Bird's Eye" view, but I found myself not using this feature very much. It doesn't seem to matter much where you place airports or sea ports, since these services cannot be shared between cities.
On the whole the tutorials give you a very good view of the core functionality of the game while still leaving enough to player experimentation to keep it enticing. One problem I did have with the tutorials was some of the more useless advice it gave me early on. "I have to build coal-fired power plants right next to the houses? Won't people not want to live there...?"
[small]Apparently, I'm just picky.[/small]
When you do finally leave the tutorial world and strike off on your own, the gameplay will be fairly obvious to anybody who has played one of these before, but that's not to say this game doesn't have some tricks up its sleeve. In general though, people need houses, they need jobs, and everything needs electricity to run. In addition to these basic needs, they will also require municipal water systems, shops, garbage removal, schools, police, hospitals... The list goes on. Most of the challenge of the game lies in making sure you can provide all of these services while also balancing the budget. There is a ridiculous number of different ways to play this game, and everybody's style of play looks visibly different.
Fortunately, the game provides you with multiple graphs and map overlays that provide a wealth of information. You also get a whole panel of advisers who will helpfully let you know when you don't have enough hospitals or when you need to put in new roads and whatnot.
The mechanics behind services seems a bit iffy at times. Take the air pollution example I hinted at above. Outside of the tutorials, air pollution is a bad thing to have around near residential or commercial zones (houses and shops, respectively) which makes sense. If you do have a massive battery of coal fired power plants a stone's throw from downtown, just put a row of trees down and they filter all of the carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and ash from the air. You know, just like in real life.
Also worth note for its ridiculousness is the highly simplified "radius of effect" from schools, hospitals, and some of the other service buildings. It doesn't seem to matter how long a drive it is between the buildings and the housing, so long as it is within the magical circle.
[small]Pictured: A boarding school by nature of the five hour bus ride there and back.[/small]
It is still a welcome improvement over SimCity 3000's even more simplified system wherein you could place 30 schools in the far corner of the city and it would provide service to the whole city, but I expected better. I had been told this game was running on some kind of new engine that individually simulates all people on their daily routine, but it is not at all obvious in this case.
I had also been told that decisions made by one city would affect other cities, so if one city is creating a lot of crime, it will overflow into neighbouring areas. This too was apparently hype, because I saw no evidence of it. You are very free to make a "dirty" city with all of the factories and coal power plants you like and sell the power to "clean" cities which are squeaky clean, since city lines apparently don't allow airflow between municipalities.
A quick word on the extra content. This has been quite controversial, but frankly, I feel like the Rush Hour Expansion Pack is really a must-have for all players. I know a lot of people have disliked EA's various policies regarding DLC and "Project Ten Dollar" in particular, but for only 10 extra US dollars, Rush Hour provides exciting new modes of play. In particular, it adds the U-Drive missions, allowing the mayor to jump behind the wheel of dozens of different vehicles to compete for money, public approval, or unlockable buildings (Though if I may say so, the connection between some of the missions and the buildings they unlock seem tenuous at best. Drive a hearse around, unlock a military base? What the heck?).
It also adds several new kinds of roads, highways and mass transit options (Such as ferry terminals and elevated rail) which help things flow more smoothly, especially in larger cities. As with all things in the game however, it depends mostly upon smart implementation by the user.
[small]Progress![/small]
There have also been several complaints about the DRM included in the game. I didn't really notice anything, but I have a pretty good connection, so your mileage may vary. I certainly didn't mind having to type in a serial key during installation. It never really got in the way after that.
Apparently this game can be very unstable on multi-core machines, so I would have to guess that is the reason some people have been having troubles. Again, I didn't notice anything despite running the game on an i7. If you have issues with it, the community has some workarounds; you just have to edit some shortcut properties for Windows to run it smoothly.
It was odd, because I was also told this game had non-optional multiplayer, but if it did, I didn't notice that either. Frankly I think I prefer it that way. The closest I got to multiplayer with SimCity was sampling the wares of the rather robust modding community. Mods like Network Addon Mod among others take the current functionality to new heights without feeling too overpowered.
[small]My name is CWestfall, mayor of mayors. Look on my Ground Light Rail, ye mighty, and despair![/small]
Closing Thoughts
All in all, this game is a steal. The Deluxe Edition (Available on Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/]) is only 20 US dollars, and includes the base game and all the DLC released so far. You could pay $60 for much worse games with half the functionality and various extraneous features that are both unwanted and unasked for, but why on earth would you want to do that?
SimCity 4 is the next logical step in the city-building genre, improving on what has worked before, but not being afraid to try new ideas either. I'm optimistic that Maxis is going to build a dynasty here, and I can hardly wait to see what they do next!
Final Score: 9.5/10
(Please note that I am playing with all of the extra content, not just the base game.)
The very first thing you see when you launch the game is its "Region" view. From here you can choose where you want to build a new city or re-launch an old saved game. I heard a lot of people complaining about the lack of choice of city size, but frankly, there are three options to pick from (The largest having 16 times the area of the smallest) and that is plenty for me.
[small]The game does leave very little doubt as to where it wants you to start.[/small]
From the Region view, you can also change the map to show transit networks rather than the default "Bird's Eye" view, but I found myself not using this feature very much. It doesn't seem to matter much where you place airports or sea ports, since these services cannot be shared between cities.
On the whole the tutorials give you a very good view of the core functionality of the game while still leaving enough to player experimentation to keep it enticing. One problem I did have with the tutorials was some of the more useless advice it gave me early on. "I have to build coal-fired power plants right next to the houses? Won't people not want to live there...?"
[small]Apparently, I'm just picky.[/small]
When you do finally leave the tutorial world and strike off on your own, the gameplay will be fairly obvious to anybody who has played one of these before, but that's not to say this game doesn't have some tricks up its sleeve. In general though, people need houses, they need jobs, and everything needs electricity to run. In addition to these basic needs, they will also require municipal water systems, shops, garbage removal, schools, police, hospitals... The list goes on. Most of the challenge of the game lies in making sure you can provide all of these services while also balancing the budget. There is a ridiculous number of different ways to play this game, and everybody's style of play looks visibly different.
Fortunately, the game provides you with multiple graphs and map overlays that provide a wealth of information. You also get a whole panel of advisers who will helpfully let you know when you don't have enough hospitals or when you need to put in new roads and whatnot.
The mechanics behind services seems a bit iffy at times. Take the air pollution example I hinted at above. Outside of the tutorials, air pollution is a bad thing to have around near residential or commercial zones (houses and shops, respectively) which makes sense. If you do have a massive battery of coal fired power plants a stone's throw from downtown, just put a row of trees down and they filter all of the carbon monoxide, heavy metals, and ash from the air. You know, just like in real life.
Also worth note for its ridiculousness is the highly simplified "radius of effect" from schools, hospitals, and some of the other service buildings. It doesn't seem to matter how long a drive it is between the buildings and the housing, so long as it is within the magical circle.
[small]Pictured: A boarding school by nature of the five hour bus ride there and back.[/small]
It is still a welcome improvement over SimCity 3000's even more simplified system wherein you could place 30 schools in the far corner of the city and it would provide service to the whole city, but I expected better. I had been told this game was running on some kind of new engine that individually simulates all people on their daily routine, but it is not at all obvious in this case.
I had also been told that decisions made by one city would affect other cities, so if one city is creating a lot of crime, it will overflow into neighbouring areas. This too was apparently hype, because I saw no evidence of it. You are very free to make a "dirty" city with all of the factories and coal power plants you like and sell the power to "clean" cities which are squeaky clean, since city lines apparently don't allow airflow between municipalities.
A quick word on the extra content. This has been quite controversial, but frankly, I feel like the Rush Hour Expansion Pack is really a must-have for all players. I know a lot of people have disliked EA's various policies regarding DLC and "Project Ten Dollar" in particular, but for only 10 extra US dollars, Rush Hour provides exciting new modes of play. In particular, it adds the U-Drive missions, allowing the mayor to jump behind the wheel of dozens of different vehicles to compete for money, public approval, or unlockable buildings (Though if I may say so, the connection between some of the missions and the buildings they unlock seem tenuous at best. Drive a hearse around, unlock a military base? What the heck?).
It also adds several new kinds of roads, highways and mass transit options (Such as ferry terminals and elevated rail) which help things flow more smoothly, especially in larger cities. As with all things in the game however, it depends mostly upon smart implementation by the user.
[small]Progress![/small]
There have also been several complaints about the DRM included in the game. I didn't really notice anything, but I have a pretty good connection, so your mileage may vary. I certainly didn't mind having to type in a serial key during installation. It never really got in the way after that.
Apparently this game can be very unstable on multi-core machines, so I would have to guess that is the reason some people have been having troubles. Again, I didn't notice anything despite running the game on an i7. If you have issues with it, the community has some workarounds; you just have to edit some shortcut properties for Windows to run it smoothly.
It was odd, because I was also told this game had non-optional multiplayer, but if it did, I didn't notice that either. Frankly I think I prefer it that way. The closest I got to multiplayer with SimCity was sampling the wares of the rather robust modding community. Mods like Network Addon Mod among others take the current functionality to new heights without feeling too overpowered.
[small]My name is CWestfall, mayor of mayors. Look on my Ground Light Rail, ye mighty, and despair![/small]
Closing Thoughts
All in all, this game is a steal. The Deluxe Edition (Available on Steam [http://store.steampowered.com/app/24780/]) is only 20 US dollars, and includes the base game and all the DLC released so far. You could pay $60 for much worse games with half the functionality and various extraneous features that are both unwanted and unasked for, but why on earth would you want to do that?
SimCity 4 is the next logical step in the city-building genre, improving on what has worked before, but not being afraid to try new ideas either. I'm optimistic that Maxis is going to build a dynasty here, and I can hardly wait to see what they do next!
Final Score: 9.5/10