SimCity

Blog Post: Simcity is the new Mayor

Cheese678 — Sat, 18 May 2013 00:17:00 GMT

Attempting to step up from previous Simcity titles was Maxis' goal during the development of the reboot of the franchise. They not only excelled wonderfully, but also crafted an experience that never deteriorates with each playthrough.

At the beginning of the game, you're greeted with a tutorial that gives you all the basics of the game. After the painfully boring tutorial is finished, you get to select a server and join a game. You begin by selecting a plot of land in a region to begin building your city on. The downside to this is that multiple plots of land can be claimed by a single person, so one person can essentially be running an entire region. However, this occurs very rarely.

Once you connect a road to the highway, you begin to get to work. Placing zones is easier than ever, and you don't have to pay for any of them. You can easily place them on the sides of roads, and can use them to increase the amount of tourists that you gain in the city. Your population quickly skyrockets with the construction of residential zoning, and they can even "evolve" into larger buildings that hold more people.

Money is often scarce, and you'll need to raise taxes in order to get a sufficient amount of money. If you push the taxes up too much (around 5% is fine, but gets you about $100 an hour) people will begin moving out. Once people move out of their homes, they leave behind an abandoned building that will be more likely to cause fires. The only way you can fight these fires is by either bulldozing the building in question before a fire begins, or by building a fire station. The fire stations, along with nearly every other major building in the game, is pretty expensive. You'll be better off getting fire trucks from neighboring cities, even if they run a little late.

The graphics are very nice and simplistic, and the small people are detailed from a distance. The vehicles are varied and are nicely detailed as well. Major buildings are often the best looking buildings in the game, with many details (and some you can add).

My only major gripe about this game is the fact that your city doesn't really rely on most of the necessities of daily life. Your city can go years without a school building, but certainly can't focus on anything without worrying about the mayor not building public transportation in the middle of the city. These small problems with the people are presented in the guise of speech and thought bubbles, and are very annoying. They could've easily been removed from the game, since they don't really matter.

Overall, Simcity is an enjoyable game that most simulation fans should definitely pick up and play. If you are reluctant to play the game due to faulty servers, bear in mind that Maxis releases patches nearly every week to ensure the game runs smoothly, and smooth is good.

Blog Post: SimCity: Frustrated Incorporated

Torn Pr1nc3 — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 23:18:00 GMT

My first Game Informer review was for a game I had never played a single entry in the franchise prior and ended up loving it to no end, and I rank it in my top 10 of all time. In that review, I said I rarely write reviews and if I do, I either loved the game so much I felt I needed to share my experience with others, or that I felt I was so disappointed, that a warning needed to be sent out to everyone. The second half of that statement is sadly what I must do with SimCity. I say this as someone who anticipated this title for a long time, had watched countless videos on GIO, YouTube, and other sites, stalked the official site until launch, and generally had high hopes for it. Even after a horrid launch, I gave the game nearly 2 months to make things right, and they haven't even come close to reaching that point as of this review. I purchased this game to play with my brother and we both picked it up day one. We were so excited to play it, and we both wanted so badly for it to be good. I will ignore the launch issues (mostly), and concentrate on just the good and bad overall that the game has in its current state with patch 2.0.

THE GOOD

As much as I'm about to rant against this game, I need to make it known that no matter what you read, it isn't a total wash, which is why I gave it as long as I have to improve. Starting a new city is always fun for me. The first few hours are almost always incredible to witness. The graphics, while not always stunning, are almost always visually appealing to the eye, and at times (through the use of clever filters, much like Instagram) are gorgeous to behold, but it does take a high end PC to make that happen. There are two modes you can choose from, standard and sandbox. The standard option is the ideal way to play, and sandbox mode is essentially for either learning the ropes or creating a mega city right out of the gate as you have virtually unlimited funds to work with (by pressing a key combination on the keyboard) and everything is unlocked from the beginning. For the purposes of this review I will discuss the standard play mode, even though most of the pictures will be from the sandbox mode.

You have a near endless amount of options on how to create your city in virtually every aspect from the start. It helps to go into your creation prepared, and it will take a few trial and error cities to truly get the feel of it. My favorite part of the opening hour or so is drawing out my city, zoning it, and plopping the electricity plant (Of which Wind or Solar are your only options for standard play at the start) and a water tower, and then watching the flow of water and electricity spread throughout the city through one of several awesome integrated data maps they have. When assessing a city area at the start, you should check out all of these maps, especially wind direction (for placing things like sewers, factories, garbage dumps, etc.) and resource options such as oil, coal, water, and ore and decide if you plan to specialize in any of those or go with a different style of approach.

When actually zoning your areas, you will decide how your city looks, but also how it performs based on these data maps. The first picture below is a design I created to honor a friend's online production logo. Green areas represent residential, yellow are industry, and blue (not pictured here, but in later ones) are business. The ideal ratio for a balanced city is r:b:i (2:1:1) according to the strategy guide.

Below is a sample of the electricity flowing through a starter city. Red lines represent areas without power and yellow have power. Water flows blue throughout on its respective data map.

Once you get past this part, your city will spring to life as trucks come in and begin to fill in the spaces you brand. The size of the buildings is directly related to the type of road you build. Low density roads will yield rural communities, and high density roads allow skyscrapers. You can upgrade roads as you see fit to accommodate how you want your city to appear. If you like the way a certain area is performing and / or enjoy the way it looks, you can simply "de-zone" that area and it will remain as is until you zone it again.

Things go well as I said for the first several hours, and you can even track an individual family (house), business, or factory to see how it is performing. You will need, rather quickly, to add in fire, ambulance, and police services or request them from a connecting city. Trash and sewage are also a necessity. From there you decide whether to allow educational buildings, tourist attractions, or specialized buildings such as coal mines, electronics plants, casinos, or a number of other options. I decided to make the city above a generic city that was focused on industry and to a degree, tourism. Below is a picture of the city in a later stage of development.

As you can see, I filled in the corner areas with business zoning (this was in sandbox mode), and it worked pretty well for this small city which had a very tight design overall, and was not extremely complicated. I managed to have a relatively profitable time with it and didn't care about the other cities in the region and was playing the city in a private region alone. None of this carries over well into larger regions and online co-op play can be fun, but it has as many drawbacks as it has advantages. This brings me to:

THE BAD

Online coop is fun to play in theory. I have several friends I made just by visiting forums, and they joined me enthusiastically when we played for the first night, and even the second day we all were there in a 16 city region. By the third day of play, all but 2 of us had exhausted all of our resources, or had a number of other things go wrong. One player got so angry, he intentionally caused his nuclear reactor to have a "melt down", and thus the whole region was ruined due to radiation polluting it completely and entirely. In previous SimCity games, cities could go on for weeks, months, and if you check out some YouTube videos, even years (real time, not "game time" and house millions of residents.

The main issues I have with the game in its current stage are as follows:

Water: They said water will be in "infinite supply" near water sources such as rivers and lakes, or large bodies of water. The water is either depleted or contaminated within 2 calendar years in game, and that has not changed in patch 2.0. This hands down is my biggest problem with city sustainability, which is what ruins the game in such a short amount of time.

Pollution: Regardless of how you build your region, and how much you try to take pressure off of other cities by creating "Trash Cities" or what not when cooperating fully with one another, everything becomes polluted within 2 - 3 calendar years in game for every city in a region.

Below is a demonstration of the water map of a city that had only been in existence for about 6 or 7 hours of real time passing. It was completely drained and most of what wasn't drained, was polluted.

Power Failures: Power purchased from a neighboring city is sporadic at best in terms of reliability and even your own can do you in almost immediately unless you pause the game and fix things as soon as you notice the problem.

Below is the same city as the one pictured directly above only this was from a massive power outage that lasted only 2 in game hours. The yellow figures are "homeless" Sims that have moved out due to the outage and are looking for new homes, which they would never find.

Workers / Education: Commuting is not working properly at all for either of these. To make matters worse, the educational level of a city can actually impede factories in a variety of ways so that your city self destructs quickly.

Tourism: Is completely broken, to the point that I'm not sure how it works. I would love anyone from the company to explain it to me.

Gambling: Again, I have no idea how it works. The monthly reports do not generate revenue for the cities even if you are making huge profits, and it does not list in your hourly earned income either. Anything above the first casino type (cheap kind) doesn't make money anyway, because of the previous problem I listed. The problem "appears" to be fixed in the new patch, but in reality, it isn't. Money accrued never makes it to your bank, ever. If anyone can tell me how it works, please let me know, I've tried to figure it out and ask, to no avail.

Roads: Firetrucks, Ambulances, Buses, Police Cars, and Garbage & Recycling Trucks simply do not path correctly, even after the last fixes. It is better than before, but by no means is it acceptable even. There is no priority given to anything really other than firetrucks (at times and seemingly random, like many things), and traffic is still a nightmare at higher than medium density, to a point that traffic is unable to move in multiple cities because there is no room for anything to go at all.

Specialization: It is nice to be able to have cities specialize in something, but not when it isn't working properly. You can only choose a few select buildings to place (schools, tourist attractions, casinos, fire stations, hospitals, etc) in any given city. The area is just too small and budgets won't allow you to have a city that is a "be all" city. The problem is made worse when specialized cities don't function as they should and one small problem, such as your sewage not going to a neighboring city as it is supposed to, can cripple your city in far too short a time span, and it's time to start a new region. Not just a new city, a whole new region. Once one city is done, the rest will follow quickly in almost all cases.

Multi-player: The game is currently crippled to a point that it is unplayable for anyone for more than about a 2 or 3 day (and I'm being generous here) life span per city, before having to scrap it entirely and move on. Trying to solo a region with more than 2 or 3 cities is next to impossible. It gets better with multiple people working together at the same time, but only if they are all playing AT the same time and are working well together and communicating. Even then, it's only limited to what the game is able to perform and things do not run smoothly. Sending or donating resources, money, or services are unreliable and sometimes broken altogether.

Was this the intention all along? To be honest, having bigger cities will only compound the current problems, as much as I'd love to see them eventually. Cheetah speed was nice to see return, but it has actually caused me to run out of resources faster than I was before, which if you look at posts I made before they added Cheetah back, was my main concern. Of the 14 people I met and recruited to my region, I still speak and play games with a few of them regularly (not counting my brother obviously). Not a single one of us is playing SimCity though right now, and I don't think any of them are playing, as they are all still on my friends list, and I never see them on playing that game. The always online aspect, though not a deal breaker for me, was enough to cause major problems for many in game and out.

Great Works: These are absolutely terrible. The alleged end game of SimCity is to build a "great work" which can be one of four unique structures. It takes a lot of money, time, and resources to make one happen, and then to have it function properly once it does happen. I know many have done them successfully, but I have yet to complete one. They either don't register resources correctly (and in fact will go backwards in progression sometimes), or take so long, your city depletes itself of resources before it finishes. It is frustrating beyond belief.

SUMMARY

In short, the game has potential to be amazing. The reality is though that as of now, it is still broken. I had high hopes that version 2.0 would fix many of the problems the game faces, but that again, sadly, has not happened. It pains me that it could be, at this rate, version 3.0 or 4.0 that things are working mostly as they should be, and EA knows they've lost this war already. What is truly upsetting is that EA refuses to acknowledge that they still don't have it under control and that a free game should shut everyone up. The free games offered were (with one exception) all games where you would be enticed to spend more money on DLC and whatnot. To make matters worse, they are working on DLC for this game, when the core game is not even fully functional. This is just poor decision making and the reason I deducted a full point off of what would have been a 5.5 score.

There are times that I love playing the game, and when things are going well at the beginning of a new city, it is incredibly fun and has a feel unlike anything else I've played. I hope to one day return to it and know that I will not end a session annoyed at the shortcomings the game has. The problem is that EA / Maxis have now lost my trust, and I would never invest in another SimCity game at launch, if ever. I leave on an optimistic note by posting my favorite picture I took from the Sandbox mode. If you pause the game at the start of a sandbox mode and know exactly what you want, you can still create a pretty awesome looking city in a short amount of time. Just don't expect it to last. It really is a shame, because I so badly wanted to enjoy this game, and it has jaded both my brother and I.

As always, I appreciate any comments, suggestions, or feedback you can give me. If you have a game you'd like me to review, send me a message, or post it on here.

Blog Post: SimCity Review: Not Built Better

bombstopper — Sun, 14 Apr 2013 19:03:00 GMT

SimCity is one of those rare titles that invokes a natural curiosity for experimentation, creativity, and pre-meditation. Despite the fact that the game is essentially a city planning simulation, SimCity titles are still able to create an engaging experience that is both playfully fun and cognitively challenging for all ages. The latest release then, SimCity, is a reboot of the classic franchise developed by Maxis Games (creators of the original and subsequent titles). The focus on cooperative multiplayer has lead the game to redefine some of the characteristics that some fans enjoyed, while also repurposing what it takes to build a city.

Something that is immediately noticeable for fans of the classic games, is the fact that much of the process in the city building process is stream-lined. That is to say, zoning now does not cost any money and the construction of roads automatically places alongside it the electrical and water lines. Another new addition is also the inclusion of data maps (each with their own visual distinction) that lets a player know everything from the direction of your regional wind, to the amount of waste that your city produces. This kind of immediate response to your city not only allows you to correct immediate problems, but to also plan for natural city improvements, such as recycling centers or more hospitals. Natural disasters make a return that can also keep the gameplay fresh and hectic as it requires an intimate knowledge of your cities needs and assets in order to keep your head above water.

Despite some of these improvements and inclusions however the game includes some major and somewhat baffling differences from the most recent major release, SimCity 4, include the removal of terraforming, the ability to build on slopes, agricultural zoning, subways, and larger plots to build upon. What inevitably happens in SimCity is that your roads define where you can build, and natural terraforming happens when roads are cut into sides of hills, but only so much so that the road can be built. This leads to a baffling amount of space that cannot be used, only steep roads with no purpose other than transportation since nothing can be built on either side. Roads, while improved, have nearly lost a sense of creativity as well because of the limiting space that one has to work within. Curved roads, free form roads, it doesn't matter because in the end to obtain an efficient city, the roads mostly need to be in square block sections. One good addition to the road creating mechanic though, is the inclusion of parallel white lines which show the distance a new road needs to be built in order for a building to be created. However, in the end most cities will begin to look similar in road design because of the developer's choice to limit player space.

Much more can be said about the roads, such as the ability to upgrade them, thereby increasing the amount of vehicle density they can carry and its subsequent connection to the upgrading limits of your city (i.e. a low density road cannot carry apartments whereas a medium and high density road can). However special roads such as Avenue's must be built in advance and are essentially wastes of space since their main purpose is to allow trolley transportation, something which is highly unnecessary and removes your room to build. On top of this the road construction tool is hard to operate and still inconsistent in making the city efficiently organized. So what brought about the decision to create a smaller building space for players?

This directly ties to the core change in design that the developers had in mind during the creation of this game; Multiplayer. Whereas in the previous games where you solely built a city and took care of all the needs of your people (such as education, work, tourism, industry, residential), the purpose of cooperative multiplayer was built so that cities could become specialized. This meant that under ideal circumstances, friends and strangers could come together with the common purpose of building a healthy region, by catering their specific cities to the greater purpose. One could create an oil-based economy which would create pollution and decrease the happiness, but also provide power to everyone else, whereas another could create schools to improve the businesses for others. Every city then will suffer in one area so that everyone can benefit. This mimics what we would expect in real life, but in the end creates frustration at your inability to create a city that can do it all. While is can create compelling choices, it in no way is a satisfactory endeavor when you wish to expand or to re-organize your city.

This normally however would not be a problem within other games since cooperative components come as an addition to single-player based games. SimCity on the other hand has no single player component and so playing on your consists of a private region that requires you to build multiple cities just to make sure all needs are met. This is neither an enjoyable experience nor an easy one to produce because it requires an almost simultaneous set up of each city in order for certain services are available. This major disappointment has also been coupled with a terrible server launch for EA that has still not been fully resolved. While the servers do technically work, matching with other players is still far from a streamlined experience.

SimCity is still a fantastic game in what it tries to do, create a city. However, some key design choices have left the game to be flawed in ways that make the previous games seem like a better alternative. If a single player mode was added, the game would still not be as good as one would hope for because much of the creativity in city design was limited by the initial concept of cooperative building by smaller construction space. For fans of city simulators, SimCity is still one of the most compelling options available, and hopefully lessons learned from this release will point Maxis towards a better path.

P.S.

A point of note that others may not be aware of, this game has a DRM always online feature which does require an internet access at all times. I tried not to let it impact my final decision on the game but it is something that is surely important for those considering the purchase. My opinions on the multiplayer are strictly a result of the DRM server issues from EA, and the impact it had on my personal enjoyment of the game.

Blog Post: Best Simcity Ever!!!!!!

Captain stig — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 14:05:00 GMT

I've never been the largest fan of Simcity but this new the entrie/ reboot whatever it is but I love it. A few DRM problems do not drag this game down. My best sim game of all time

Blog Post: So bumpy

silverfail — Sun, 24 Mar 2013 21:31:00 GMT

This game could have been so much better. Excluding the first week the servers are somewhat functional the delay between cities is a huge pain. The Ai are awful at finding their way around and are a big problem. Ex: I would have my city complain about trash so I put more garbage trucks I see 10 garbage trucks on the same lane trying to pick up one person trash when all my other streets continue to complain about trash with not a single truck on the street. This game could be better in the future when they fix a lot of problems, but for now its not really worth it.

Wiki: SimCity Guides

Anonymous — Sat, 16 Mar 2013 01:19:00 GMT

Guides for SimCity

Blog Post: I don't see how this go such bad reviews.

David Huscher — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:50:00 GMT

Simcity is fun and very addictive yes its had its problems but once I got past all that I am having so much fun. I haven't ran into really any problems lately, I would give this game try don't let all the server problem thing fool you.

Blog Post: Disaster

Bustin — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 22:49:00 GMT

Take one of the most beloved PC franchises and completely and disastrously ruin it and that is the new Sim City.

Set aside the huge pain in the ass always online requirement, and the terrible server issues and the game is still extremely buggy. There are extreme AI pat finding issues that make creating a realistic city layout next to impossible. Police, Fire and EMS responses do not properly route, traffic does not work properly and all the AI people seem to race to the nearest job site, thus making your Sim City have the highest employment turnover rates ever!

The game is nearly crippled due to the AI path finding, add on the server issues and always online and well actually enjoying yourself playing this game is next to impossible.

Back to dosbox and Sim Town...

Blog Post: Building On Unstable Ground

Joe Juba — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 21:30:00 GMT

When people go on vacation, they occasionally become so attached to their exotic destinations that they want to stay forever. The unfamiliar streets and strange customs promise exciting new experiences far more attractive than the day-to-day drudgery back home. However, popular vacation destinations aren’t inherently better – people just don’t stay long enough to see the problems. This holds just as true for the digital destination of SimCity as any sunny Caribbean beach. [Excerpt]

The first few hours of SimCity are wonderful. The basic premise is the same as ever: As a new mayor, you are charged with creating a thriving town from nothing. You still place residential, commercial, and industrial zones while hoping to hit population milestones, but that isn’t your only goal. The big innovation in this reboot is diversity. Players can specialize in different areas, like oil drilling, gambling, or manufacturing, and each path has a different set of goals and rewards. I love how each specialization uses the same city-building fundamentals, but forces players to dive into new mechanics and take alternate paths to success.

As a fan of the series since the original, I am amazed by all of the conveniences and details Maxis worked into the experience. Automatically routing all power, water, and sewage through the roadways is brilliant, since it minimizes the time you spend monkeying with each utility. As my cities grow, I love diving into the data maps to see how various factors respond. These maps show you things like land value, happiness, ground pollution, and they are all clearly (and stylishly) represented. I used to happily stare at the graphics and charts in the previous installments, but the data maps are a much more informative and elegant way to convey information.

I saw all of this as I played a review build of the game on EA’s test servers. When I continued to play after the official launch, cracks in the foundation started appearing. Everything that I initially liked about the game is still intact, but like placing a coal power plant in the middle of a residential block, dark clouds spread and pollute previously pristine areas.

The bigger your city grows, the harder it is to manage. Traffic congests roads during rush hour due to poor AI. No matter how many high-capacity roads you build, cars sit bumper-to-bumper instead of pursuing alternate routes. Critical vehicles like fire trucks and police cars also get caught in the traffic jams, in addition to responding inefficiently to emergencies in general (like sending every fire truck to a single blaze, even if multiple buildings are on fire). These AI and pathing problems also prevent other major features, like casinos and mass transit, from functioning properly. Even though the simulation is responsible for these failings, the alert messages players receive imply that they’re the ones doing something wrong.

Given those issues, it may be a blessing that your population is held back by the fact that you don’t have a lot of space to work with. Compared to previous installments, the smaller plot size in SimCity is apparently aimed at encouraging players to make multiple cities instead of a single sprawling megalopolis. However, I was cramped for space even when trying to build a city around a single specialization. To make matters worse, the inability to terraform means that you are stuck with the map exactly as it appears. If you just need a little extra space to expand your power plant or place a port, you’re out of luck. Individually, these shortcomings might seem like minor details – but in a simulation, the details are everything.

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Prior to release, much of the discussion about SimCity revolved around the fact that it has no offline mode; it must remain connected to EA’s servers. I’m not going to use SimCity as a weapon to attack the larger concept of always-online gaming. Regardless of your feelings on that issue, SimCity undoubtedly benefits and suffers in many ways from the constant connectivity.

In its ideal state, SimCity fosters cooperation between players by encouraging cooperation within a region. Pooling resources and sharing services is the surest route to success, and collaborating with your friends is fun. This experience is what the always-online requirement facilitates – in theory. In reality, the first week of launch demonstrated the worst-case scenario: SimCity was effectively unplayable for several days. Maxis disabled certain features to ease the burden, most importantly the “cheetah speed” setting. Without it, your city’s growth and income is severely restricted by the slow pace the simulation is forced to maintain. As of this writing, cheetah speed is still not restored.

Even though the servers run better now, I still experience delays ranging from 5 to 45 minutes when trying to share services or gifts with other cities in my region, leading to confusion as to whether or not a problem has actually been resolved. Creating a new city is also a problem in some cases; if you don’t already have an Origin friends list populated by people playing the game, your chances of finding a decent region are low. You can’t search for available slots by any useful criteria (like types of specialization needed), so any casual player has to wade through a sea of garbage regions.

Given time, Maxis could clear up the problems with SimCity. The studio could deliver consistent server performance, restore cheetah speed, patch the AI, and give players larger cities. But games can’t be reviewed based on the product they might become; Electronic Arts and Maxis are charging gamers for this experience right now. At this point in time, it just isn’t worth your money.

For a closer look at the more positive elements of SimCity, check out our Test Chamber made prior to the game's release.

File: SimCity screens

Joe Juba — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:42:00 GMT

SimCity screens

File: SimCity screens

Joe Juba — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:42:00 GMT

SimCity screens

File: SimCity screens

Joe Juba — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:42:00 GMT

SimCity screens

File: SimCity screens

Joe Juba — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:41:00 GMT

SimCity screens

File: SimCity screens

Joe Juba — Fri, 15 Mar 2013 19:41:00 GMT

SimCity screens

Blog Post: A major dissapointment for newcomers and especially diehards

SirLagsalot — Sat, 16 Feb 2013 21:28:00 GMT

Thanks a lot, EA. You just messed with the wrong franchise.

At least we don't have to BUY it with your stupid Origin "service". The Origin account and constant internet connection are VERY stupid choices to make and will make this game fail miserably. The "Multiplayer" isn't a valid excuse either. What if some of us don't want to be ALWAYS on stupid Multiplayer where we build cities near those of people we never met in our lives? Come back when you've made a decent game, EA.

By the way, it didn't help to disgrace the 1989 classic by naming this one after it.

-SirLagsalott, former SimCity fan

Blog Post: SimCity Digital Edition's Exclusive Landmarks

Matthew Kato — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 16:34:00 GMT

SimCity is all about building the kind of city you want, and now that can include famous landmarks like the Eiffel Tower in the Origin-exclusive Digital Deluxe Edition of the game.

The Digital Deluxe Edition of the game comes with the Paris, German, and British city sets which include the Eiffel Tower, Brandenburg Gate, and Big Ben landmarks, among other goodies. Set these down in your city, and you not only spruce up your skyline, the surrounding buildings conform to their distinctive style. This includes double-decker buses and other unique buildings, as well as an increase in tourist foot traffic.

For more info on the game's Digital Deluxe Edition, take a look at the official Origin Page, and for more gameplay details check out Joe's recent in-depth preview.

Note: SimCity comes out in North America on March 5. Disregard the March 8 date on the trailer. That is for Europe.

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Blog Post: What You Need To Know About The Latest From Maxis

Joe Juba — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 13:01:00 GMT

SimCity releases on March 5, which means that the game is in the final stages of development at the Maxis offices in Emeryville, California. In fact, it's so close to release that we got to sit down and play it for five hours straight. This extended hands-on time gave us a better sense of SimCity than ever before, and these are some of the biggest take-away points about the game and what it offers. [Excerpt]

It's Not About One City
The original SimCity had one primary goal: Increase your population. A lot has changed over the years, and the number of people in your town isn't the only (or the most important) objective. Now, you're aiming for a more collaborative success, even if you're playing single-player. Because all of the cities in a region can share services, it's wise to divide your efforts. Dividing unsavory services like sewage management and garbage disposal can dampen the negative effects on a single city, while maximizing the positive effects for multiple cities. If you aren't playing with other people, you can build multiple cities by yourself in a single region to share the burden.

Have It All If You're Small
Even though SimCity has an emphasis on cooperative efforts, you can still create a single, self-sufficient town that covers all of its own bases. "You can certainly have a small town that does it all. That has its own power generation, its own police force," says creative director Ocean Quigley. "But that starts to break down when your city is large. When your city needs a lot of water. When your city is generating a lot of garbage. When you have a lot of injured people who need hospitals. If you're making small-town America, you can fit all that stuff into a single city. But as your city becomes more and more dense and has a higher population, you'll find that it makes much more sense to put things in adjacent boxes, and let them be handled outside the city."

Sandbox Mode
In the standard mode, SimCity offers a variety of challenges for your and your region-mates. On the other hand, those wouldn't be fair if some players were allowed to cheat and others weren't. To solve this, Maxis has included a Sandbox mode. “Sandbox mode is where you’re saying ‘I’m not interested in leaderboards. I just want to have access to a whole bunch of cheats. I want to play with the simulation as a toy,’” says Quigley. “So, we give you a bunch of money cheats, and a whole bunch of other cheats for you to do stuff with. Everything is unlocked.” This means that even with the emphasis on connected play and working together, players who just want to explore the simulation without restrictions are free to play however they please.

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Looking Good
One of the coolest features of SimCity is buried a bit in the options menus, but you can select the visual style of your city from a pull-down menu. This doesn't change any of the actual buildings, but it does alter the color. Some filters give your city a hipster-style Instagram vibe, while others just accentuate cool or warm colors. My personal favorite was a black-and-red filter that gives everything a Sin City look. Even better, some filters are geared toward colorblind players. They may not look great to those with normal vision, but they are engineered to accentuate the differences between colors that otherwise would not seem distinct to those with colorblindness.

Different Goals
Multiple specializations are available for mayors who want to take their cities down certain lucrative paths. Maybe you want to focus on drawing in tourists. Maybe you want your city to become a mining juggernaut. Whatever you choose, you will find that SimCity guides you toward your goal without putting pressure on you. "We want to provide just enough structure so that if you’re not entirely self-directed – if you’re not doing SimCity as creative play but you’re doing it as a gamer and want a game experience – that you have a clear goal that you can move to. And you get feedback as to how well you’re doing and what the stages you need to do are," Quigley says. "We’ve had to put in a bunch of stuff like that, because otherwise, it is more toy than game. And it has to have aspects of both."'

The Online Thing
Every time we post anything on this site about SimCity, we see comments from outraged fans regarding the game’s controversial always-online feature. People don’t like sacrificing control over products they purchase – especially in a series that has such a long single-player tradition. "There are a lot of people who want us to be making a 1990s-era game. A lot people who want us to make SimCity4++. It's not the '90s anymore. The world has moved on," says Quigley. "We're building a new game in this new environment. The Internet is a thing now." From my time with SimCity, this goal of constant connectedness serves the game well. Yes, you need to be online to play, even in single-player. Yes, it doubles as a form of copy protection, but it doesn't impact the quality of the game mechanics. As someone who was skeptical of the decision early on, my time with the game has convinced me that it has benefits. It contributes to the sense of collaboration and cooperation, which (like it or not) are critical components of this game. Yes, it is still annoying that you can't play offline single-player. Part of me misses the idea of creating one massive city that does it all, but another part is looking forward to the possibilities with this new incarnation of SimCity.

That's it for my initial impressions, but we'll have a full review closer to SimCity's release. The exclusive screens below were taken during my time with the game at Maxis, and include shots that highlight the black-and-red filter, the building upgrade process, and a pipe spitting sewage into the open air. When you're doing looking at those screens, check out Ocean Quigley’s blog for more (and read his answers to many questions in the comments).

File: SimCity Exclusive Screens

Joe Juba — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:43:00 GMT

SimCity Exclusive Screens

File: SimCity Exclusive Screens

Joe Juba — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:43:00 GMT

SimCity Exclusive Screens

File: SimCity Exclusive Screens

Joe Juba — Thu, 24 Jan 2013 18:43:00 GMT

SimCity Exclusive Screens