Maxis Memories

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Well, I've certainly referred to my favorite Maxis game a number of times throughout my time here on the Escapist but I've never made a thread about it but here goes.

I grew up with a Dad who loved Maxis games. I ended up playing Simcity 2000 a ton, Sim Tunes, Streets of Simcity,[footnote]A game that is one of my absolute favorites[/footnote] Sim Tower and Sim Copter. While the SNES games provided me with the vast majority of my early gaming style, Maxis was the other half.

Anyway, whether it was blowing up cows with missiles, causing panic in Simcity 2000 or spending hours making music in Simtunes[footnote]Why for the love of god was there no copy paste function!!![/footnote] I spent a lot of time with Maxis and learned to appreciate their sense of humor. The radio from GTA probably was inspired by these guys.

I'm sorry to say that all they do now is concentrate on the Sims, a series I really don't care for, and the newer Simcities. The last game I played was Simcity 4 which was okay but certainly doesn't appeal to me as much as the older games do. You can accuse me of Nostalgia vision and you're probably right but I'm sorry that Maxis was swallowed up by EA.


Anyway, share what you liked most about Maxis and what your favorite game was. Or, of course, you could let this thread sink into inevitable obscurity. I just felt like posting this so I did.

*Boots up ancient computer and proceeds to go cow hunting*

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

*nom'd thread*

[sub]Ignore this post[/sub]

 

[Thaluikhain]

Streets of Sim, for me. Decent gameplay, but also they did a good job of getting the retro feel working.

Simcopter was alright, but not as good.

 

[Myrph]

I'll admit, the only Maxis game I ever really played much of was SimTunes, and even then I never really took to the whole composing with colours thing.
Was a fun distraction though and its sad there won't be more of them!

 

[Pinstar]

I am a child of Maxis. My very first game was Sim City for the SNES. Since then I played Sim Earth, Sim Farm, Sim Ant, Sim Tower, Sim Golf, Sim Life, Sim Copter, Sim Health, Sim City 2000, Sim Isle, Sim City 3000, Sim City 4, the Sims and Spore.

Will Wright is the only one of the three people I wish to meet in life before I die that I have actually gotten the chance to meet IRL (The other two being Sid Meier and Steven Hawking). My most prized possession is a notebook received at the SIMposium with his signature in it.

I weep for the loss of the true, pure-blooded Maxis culture lost when EA took over. Spore should have been so much more. And while The Sims 3 is fun, it has no shred of Maxis charm left in it.


May Will be able to rekindle it at Stupid Fun Games so that my son might have a childhood with as games of the same spirit and character.

 

[ten.to.ten]

The newer Sims and SimCity games haven't even been made by Maxis, the last game Maxis actually had anything to do with was Spore. I wouldn't be surprised if they no longer existed and just got dissolved into EA.

My favourite Maxis game is SimCity 3000 Unlimited, and I have played that more than probably any other game I own, with the exception of perhaps Civilization II. 10+ years on and I still get SC3K cravings. SimCity 4 had potential but the neighbourhood/region system was a game-breaker for me.

I've also played SimCity Classic and SimCity 2000 a lot too, though in SimCity 2000 I tended to spend more time just using the Urban Renewal Kit to make cities one piece at a time so that I could drive through them in Streets of SimCity. I spent more time playing the actual city building simulation of SimCity Classic because when I was a kid my family let me have the old computer in my bedroom, but it was a piece of crap 386 with Windows 3.1 and one of the only decent games it could run was SimCity Classic.

I also remember having a lot of fun with SimFarm and SimTower. And of course I'm a huge fan of the first two Sims games, but I don't like them as much as SimCity, I haven't played the third yet because I don't have a computer good enough to run it but it hasn't looked that interesting to me anyway.

 

[Fbuh]

ctrl + c + FUND

MASSIVE EARTHQUAKES AND FLOODING!!!!!

but at least I'm rich!

 

[Buzz Killington_v1legacy]

I would dearly love for someone to do an updated version of SimEarth. I used to spend hours doing things like terraforming Mars and dropping asteroids on top of India. (Not because I particularly dislike India--it was because I found the resulting crater nice to look at.)

 

[KissofKetchup]

I f***ing LOVED SimCopter and Streets of Simcity. Ooh they were awesome. Anybody remember SimAnt?

 

[ten.to.ten]

I f***ing LOVED SimCopter and Streets of Simcity. Ooh they were awesome. Anybody remember SimAnt?

SimAnt is unfortunately one of the only Maxis games that I've never actually played. Always been curious about it though.

 

[EvilPicnic]

SC2K was the BOMB

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Anybody remember SimAnt?

Never even heard of it.

*Wikis*

 

[Inkidu]

I f***ing LOVED SimCopter and Streets of Simcity. Ooh they were awesome. Anybody remember SimAnt?

SimAnt is unfortunately one of the only Maxis games that I've never actually played. Always been curious about it though.

I played it. It's kind of meh in the long term, but the idea of invading a house as ants is awesome.

 

[NLS]

I remember flying around from rooftop to rooftop in Sim Copter, man that was fun

 

[Neverhoodian]

Oh yeah those were the days, before EA milked the Sims for all its worth. It might be the nostalgia talking, but I don't think so.

SimCopter was probably my favorite Maxis game. I liked the sheer variety of missions you'd undertake, and the option to import your SimCity 2000 cities was awesome. I usually just played custom scenarios though, as the difficulty curve in campaign mode eventually got too frustrating for me.

SimAnt was lots of fun too. I remember the struggle to defeat the reds and infest the human's house. Whenever things got a bit frustrating I'd boot up Experimental mode and implement the spider and goofy dialogue cheats.

 

[DEAD34345]

I f***ing LOVED SimCopter and Streets of Simcity. Ooh they were awesome. Anybody remember SimAnt?

SimAnt is unfortunately one of the only Maxis games that I've never actually played. Always been curious about it though.

I played it. It's kind of meh in the long term, but the idea of invading a house as ants is awesome.

Kind of meh in the longterm... compared to housekeeping and socialising in The Sims?

That game was truly epic, and I think it was because you always just played as one random worker ant (or soldier), and you were really no stronger than your allies. I think a great FPS could be made with that kind of premise, in which you are not the one-man army like usual, but instead are no better than any of the other soldiers.

 

[s0m3th1ng]

Simant was on all the Macs at my elementary school so I played that a LOT. All I remember was that you could turn on the A.I. for your own ants and it would pretty much play the game for you...

 

[Inkidu]

I f***ing LOVED SimCopter and Streets of Simcity. Ooh they were awesome. Anybody remember SimAnt?

SimAnt is unfortunately one of the only Maxis games that I've never actually played. Always been curious about it though.

I played it. It's kind of meh in the long term, but the idea of invading a house as ants is awesome.

Kind of meh in the longterm... compared to housekeeping and socialising in The Sims?

That game was truly epic, and I think it was because you always just played as one random worker ant (or soldier), and you were really no stronger than your allies. I think a great FPS could be made with that kind of premise, in which you are not the one-man army like usual, but instead are no better than any of the other soldiers.

You're making an assumption here. You assume I think The Sims is better than SimAnt. The problem with SimAnt was there wasn't a whole lot to do until you got to the house. You dodged ant lion nests, lawn mowers, but most of it was controlled via menu and the only options were get killed as a soldier or drudged on as a worker digging tunnels and gathering food. In fact the point behind being one of the numerous cogs in a machine means that your player controlled ant of choice doesn't really affect the game beyond its opening stages. You set your birthrates and priorities and forget it.

 

[Neverhoodian]

You're making an assumption here. You assume I think The Sims is better than SimAnt. The problem with SimAnt was there wasn't a whole lot to do until you got to the house. You dodged ant lion nests, lawn mowers, but most of it was controlled via menu and the only options were get killed as a soldier or drudged on as a worker digging tunnels and gathering food. In fact the point behind being one of the numerous cogs in a machine means that your player controlled ant of choice doesn't really affect the game beyond its opening stages. You set your birthrates and priorities and forget it.

Debatable. I'd say that fighting for your life and the colony's against ravenous spiders, rival ants and the occasional human footstep/lawnmower is more exciting than, say, guiding an unresponsive human through the monotony of daily life. That's just my preference though.

Also, you could influence your fellow ants via pheremone trails to lead them to food sources or to warn them about dangers. You could even recruit your fellow ants and lead raids against rival colonies and spiders in an "RTS lite" approach. Just because you were just one more ant didn't mean that you couldn't make a big difference.

 

[Redlin5_v1legacy]

Crazy Simcity building [http://www.break.com/game-trailers/game/splinter-cell-conviction/sim-city-with-population-of-six-million-people] I found off of cracked. I liked making big cities in Simcity but this guy took it to the umpteenth degree '

I wonder what it would be like to play Simcopter on his maps!