Sim City
Reviewed By Tristan Tancredi
Expectations were exceeded with the hotly anticipated release of the revamped Maxis blockbuster, Sim City: It was the biggest Sim City launch of All-Time.
Dominating the sales charts with more than 1.1 million units sold during it's first two weeks on the market, the incredible popularity of Sim City's 2013 campaign was both a massive success for EA, and yet the beginning of inexcusable server problems.
Gamers who purchased Sim City in the first week of release encountered numerous problems, the largest of which was the inability to connect to the Sim City servers (or becoming disconnected from servers, thus losing hours of work). This resulted in fans of Maxis' Sim City being unable to simply play the game.
The disaster that was the release of Sim City could have been somewhat minimised if not for one of the biggest development gaffe's in the history of the gaming scene. That is, the lack of an offline mode.
Sim City is 100% online, that means, to play the game you MUST be connected to a server at all times. Now, i'm no computer brainiac, but an offline mode would have (and still would) significantly reduce server congestion. It baffles me why the developers would elect to head down the "100% online" path knowing full well that an offline component would still incorporate 90% of online gameplay.
The server congestion seems to have eased considerably since the early teething problems, mainly due to the addition of extra servers. Now, three weeks after the bungled release of the game, Sim City is playable, yet not without it's lingering issues.
Constant updates are flowing from the developers at Maxis to try and stamp out the bugs and issues associated with Sim City. As we speak there is probably another update ready for download, so you will forgive me if this problem has already been fixed. The problem I speak of is searching for and joining a new game.
With no search filter, we found it almost impossible to find a map that wasn't already full. After losing our cool after 20 or so minutes, we decided to create our own map with the intention of other people (who we thought would be experiencing the same issues) to join. Two days later, and we were still waiting for a neighbour.
So it was back to the "Join a Game" section to meticulously scour the map for an opening. Finally, after scrolling for a good 30 minutes we found a recently created map. We purchased some land, and we were the Mayor of "Slough" (Office UK reference) at last!
Anyways, let's forgot about what this game doesn't have and focus on what it does. That is immensely detailed gameplay that utilises a new Engine known as Glassbox. This new engine provides a simulation notably more detailed than previous Sim City titles. Every resident can be pin-pointed and tracked (which is amazing when you have a population in excess of 10,000).
The game starts out simple enough; build some roads, implement residential, commercial and industrial districts. Build police stations, hospitals, schools. Manage the budget and raise taxes. Everything a good Government does well. The first stint of Sim City (2-3 hours) is good old fashioned city-building fun. Simple enough for the casual gamer, yet with enough depth to challenge the more hardened simulation fans out there.
Post 3 hours and Sim City will test your resilience. The more adrenaline seeking gamers out there will be bored within 3 hours. The disappointedly small size of the maps allows for gamers to quickly reach the boundaries within said time. Once these boundaries are reached, the design of the game is questioned as gamers must destroy parts of their city to make space for necessary districts. This then overflows to create more and more problems, giving the gamer no choice but to start a new map (if they can be bothered).
Each map has different resources for the gamer to capitalise on, from oil, coal, water and other natural resources. These resources can then be used to support the city via power and electricity. They can also be traded (theoretically) to neighbouring towns. Either we weren't doing it properly (the in-game tutorials and guides to trading is very brief) or it wasn't working when we tried. We have read different reports that there is a delay when requesting trades, etc. In our experience it wasn't a smooth system at all. A very messy, buggy trade system.
Maxis has come a long long way since it's inaugural 1989 release. The 2013 release is a multi-layered, highly in-depth live simulation. The idea of Multi-city play is an extraordinary theory and one would suggest, when all the current problems are ironed out, will be adored and loved by all. The same can be said for the Global Market.
Just before I wrap this up, I need to mention the music composed by Christopher Tilton. Simply a perfect fit to the ups and downs of Mayoral life.
After all is said and done, Sim City is a game like no other. An original city-building simulation which requires time, patience and a switched on brain to gain utmost enjoyment. So long as you are prepared to be subjected to frustration, bugs, server problems (which aren't as big as they were on release) and pixelated up-close graphics, a good time is to be had. Regardless, the lack of an offline mode put Sim City on the back foot right from the get-go.
Game: Sim City
System: PC
Developer/Co-Developer: Maxis
Publisher: Electronic Arts
