Ok, let’s get the bad news out of the way first, yes SimCity
has been plagued with issues since day 1. Yes, they even affected me. And yes,
that pissed me off. But outside of that, does this new game have what it takes
to make it into today’s gaming world.
Gameplay
So what’s new about this game? Well, where to start. First
off, gone are the days of customizing your map. You are given a nice selection
of regions to choose from, and when within those regions you can choose where
to place your city. However, if you don’t like the amount of water in any given
region, you cannot change it. You can’t raise or lower the terrain, nor can you
populate the map with heaps of trees first. So right now you might think, this
is a bad thing.
Well you are right, and yet also wrong. Having set lands
makes you think about the type of city you will build before you even plant you
first piece of road down. If you build next to a large body of water, you have
some options that are not present in a mountainous region. Trade Ports and
Ferry Terminals can only be placed next to water, so right away you need to
choose if you’re going to build a big industrial town or a tourist town. Such a
hard choice right? But this is where the city limits come into play.
Whilst you’re building your dream city, another player can
be building the city that is the polar opposite of yours. And it’s in this way
that SimCity takes flight. Sharing resources, emergency services or even
workers is needed to ensure that your city and the ones around you prosper. You
can’t just plop down a massive stadium and expect to draw tourists. You need
workers, without them your city wont grow.
Adding houses in the new SimCity has nothing to do with
zoning some lower, middle and high land areas. It is all road based now. You
need to start out small, just with some light roads, and when you place down
some residential zones, the people build to the street level. So after a while,
when you’re doing well, you can upgrade that street to a medium and people will
then upgrade their house. You are no longer required to go in and demolish
everything in order to build newer homes for your Sim’s.
Graphics
Right off the bat you will notice that SimCity looks very
different from the previous games, and that’s a blessing. After the last game,
Societies, changing your look would never hurt. But thankfully the team at
Maxis have gone and smashed all the preconceptions for what the sim genre could
look like.
SimCity has a level of detail that will amaze you, should
you take the time to lower yourself down to street level and watch the goings
on of your city. And even looking from up high, you can see some amazing
detail.
Now this is not without issues, there are some problems when
it comes to zooming out, or in, or anywhere in-between. The issue comes in the
form of roads not appearing to be done correctly. There is nothing worse than
spending heaps of your hard earned simoleans on a great new road, only to see
bits missing. Of course if you move in closer you would see that it’s all
there, but that initial look of seeing something missing, well it makes for a
sigh moment at least.
Sound
How does the game compare, it was always fun to have a disaster
occur just to hear the roar of the invading monster, whilst your large
buildings collapse and burn. But outside of that, the general sound effects are
not really that impressive. They work just about as well as you would expect
them too. The music however is another story. The further you zoom out, the
louder the background music becomes, and I find myself zooming out a lot, just
so I can listen to that soundtrack.
When you zoom in, you get the full city soundscape thrown at
you, and whilst its fine when you have a small town, once you get into the
larger cities, having so much noise can be distracting. That’s not to say it
detracts from the game, its all a part of the charm of the city.
Final Thoughts
SimCity is a game that gets a great many things right. And that’s
a testament to the design of the core gameplay. Each time you load up a new
city, your choice of what type of city you plan to build can easily determine
if you will succeed or fail, straight out of the gate. For a great experience,
especially with some mates, you can’t pass up SimCity.
Post a Comment