SimCity

SimCity as a game is thoroughly entertaining, if flawed in several areas, and now at least we can experience it fully, and hopefully put the disaster of launch in our rear view mirror.

SimCity has the potential to become a true goliath in the city building-genre, but is still being bogged down by too many problems, like the randomness with which services are exchanged in a region or the idiocy with which working citizens drive to work. That the buildable surface is smaller than in previous installments didn’t bother us that much because there are enough devices that will let players put every bit of space to good use. It would help though, if the intercity cooperation and chaotic traffic would be improved with a patch.

In some ways I'd equate SimCity to an early version of Minecraft: a wonderfully creative toy attached to a barely functional game.

SimCity is a brilliant, accessible yet very deep game - at no point do we deny this conclusion. But for now, EA's infrastructure makes it a sometimes-broken, severely disappointing example of how good intentions with regards to DRM, monetization, and anti-piracy can backfire and create problems for gamers and publishers alike.

When it’s working, SimCity is an ecstatic god game that can be addicting to play; when it’s not, it’s one of the most frustrating experiences you’ll have.

The present itself is fantastic, well-conceived, and highly customizable to new SimCity players such as myself, and will be for SimCity veterans provided that they can get stomach the smaller cities, several missing tools, Origin, and always online DRM. Of course, that may be one too many pills for them to swallow. As Electronic Arts and Maxis fix the issue with the online servers, which the entire game hinges upon, feel free to add up to one full star to the grade below.

As a simulator, SimCity advances the achievements of SimCity 4, SimCity 3000, and SimCity 2000, but as a product, it is inferior to all of them. Constant connectivity does have benefits, such as leaderboards, worldwide challenges, and the Global Market, but it’s not even close to being worth the hassle for those features, and hardly touches the essence of what makes SimCity so diabolically addictive and engrossing.

Hints at great things but is limited by small cities and promises it can't deliver on. [June 2013, p.80]

Given enough patches and DCLs, SimCity might eventually become the game that should have been on its release and justify the ambiguous choices that its developers made. [May 2013]

Our general impression was: SimCity is good fun. Unfortunately, the game is let down by some serious server breakdowns leading to quite long waiting times and the fact that it doesn't really have a proper single-player mode. By addressing these issues and providing the possibility not to only be able to build cities along with other hobby mayors the developer could easily develop into a buy recommendation from our side.

There are some lovely aspects to the game, that have been developed from the earlier experiences that so many people knew and loved. There’s a great soundtrack, and the game has a polished look about it that makes you want to love it. But underneath, there is so much that’s broken, that I currently wouldn’t recommend the game - as I experienced it - to anyone not willing to go through the pain for a glimpse of the game they once loved.

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.

While the GlassBox engine is definitely an exciting direction for a city builder, its implementation is still lacking. Strange behaviours and problems in pathfinding are more than frequent, and the area available to build your city is too small. Online features are entertaining, but they don't justify all the limitations of the always-online system.

SimCity is a bit strange and it is difficult to get used to its mechanics, all because of the many problems related to multiplayer functions. Nevertheless, the series seems to be on a good path, it was necessary to give it a new life e maybe this is the right way. It’s just too bad that there isn’t an offline mode for the lovers of giant cities.

It's still highly addictive and you'll probably have a good time with it, but that's something you could also get from the previous games without lowering the demands made to the player.

Unfortunately, the compromises necessary to make SimCity a multiplayer, always-online game detract from what’s most enjoyable about city-builders, resulting in a product that feels like it’s actively trying to keep the player from having a good time.

Someone far more astute than I pointed out that the game feels like a Facebook game and it was at that moment that everything that is wrong with SimCity clicked into place. The always online requirement, the pleasantness, the restrictions, the simplicity, the overwhelming emphasis on community over the individual. SimCity is a game that seems ripe for the casual social networking infrastructure, but has instead found itself unfortunately released onto the mainstream market.

It’s cleverly designed and brilliant - it just can’t seem to manage all of its ambitions within the rather tight, easy-to-run framework that Maxis has placed the game within.

A huge disappointment not only due to the known technical issues, but mostly because SimCity is a toned down, kind of a "casual" approach to the classic games of the franchise.

You soon realize that control, like your city, isn’t all its built up to be. So much has been smoothed out that it doesn’t always feel like you’re running the show.

SimCity looks and sounds beautiful, and contains many great development ideas, but the always-online requirement has hurt the game. It also needs some patching.

The core mechanics have heaps of potential, but I was disappointed with the overall package. Server issues persist, the game has numerous bugs, and isn’t as open ended as one might expect. I definitely encourage potential players to do a little research about SimCity before diving in – you may or may not like what it has to offer.

Despite its shortcomings, SimCity is proving a compelling and absorbing city builder. Given a few months to implement community suggestions this could be everything we had hoped for from this beloved franchise.

For now, SimCity is good for the reasons it’s always been good, and bad for reasons old and new. And yes, we wish we could play it on the train. But after spending two weeks as mayor of a series of teeming pocket metropolises, we’re still ready to spend more.

SimCity's a mess of moving parts, occasionally clicking into place and allowing for brilliant experiences before coming undone and tearing everything down. With updates to both server stability and the game itself, SimCity's wonderful moments may be able to overtake the bad ones to create the best game in the series. But if those don't come, EA's bustling metropolis may end up a ghost town.

To those who’ve never played a SimCity before, it’s definitely worth your time. However keep in mind in 2003, Maxis made SimCity 4. It is still a great game, it’s much cheaper, it runs on any old PC, and it’s all about YOU.

This is a game with startling clarity of vision, but that vision often feels narrow and intractable. It knows precisely what it wants to be, and in most key ways, executes on those ideas with precision. But in setting that course, it all but dismisses the way in which many played SimCity sequel after sequel. And while I expect many will fall head-over-heels in love with this SimCity's cooperative design, at its best, the game feels more like a really thoughtfully designed multiplayer mode for a larger, single-player capable game that, sadly, doesn't exist.

The worst thing about this SimCity that it is much more interesting to read about its woes rather than build cities in it.

There's just something disturbing in seeing a game that is part of such a storied and influential franchise sacrifice so much to rush headlong into the social sphere. Perhaps the bugs and shortcomings will be resolved in a few weeks, but until then, SimCity's hidden requirement of additional patience still applies.

Ultimately, SimCity is going to go down as a “what could’ve been.”

Nicely balanced in many ways, but frustrating for the single player. Not detailed/stable enough for interactive, co-operative play yet, either. [May 2013, p.86]

There is magic here, but after hitting the ceiling so often I can't recommend this game to many people without a list of caveats to warn them first. It's gorgeous, and a time sink, but the more you come to understand it, the less you wish you knew.

Like an archeological dig. Somewhere under the dirt lies the broken pieces of a fantastic game. EA and Maxis are working furiously to put Humpty Dumpty together again, but in the meantime, we have a game that’s equal parts entertaining and frustrating. Sporting a fantastic user interface, great graphics, and an interesting concept, SimCity has an astounding level of potential. But in its current state, I can’t recommend it to any but the staunchest series fans.

It's conventional. Playing the game is like being handed a piece of paper and checking off a to-do list. The old games weren't much different in this respect, but this is supposed to be a modern game and it's lacking in stories to tell your friends. A city is millions of people living together in harmony and tension. It's a human achievement and it's messy. SimCity is gorgeous and bland.

Something that looked like a very decent restart of the meritorious open-ended city-building game series turned out to be as dull as ditchwater. Maybe, the new SimCity title will be a good game some day. Only if its cities are 4x - 5x bigger, if modders take charge of it, and the online component is working the way it should be working.

The visuals are nice and while you are plotting your metropolis you can feel the potential of SimCity. But even though EA and Maxis are hard at work to fix everything in this state this game is rather disappointing.

Before it unwillingly became a fantastic rant against always-online DRM, and forced social cooperation, SimCity was supposed to be the shining new star of the city builders genre. Instead, Maxis and EA delivered a very pretty screen saver one can build as he likes. Miniaturized both in terms of zones to play with and gameplay mechanics, this SimCity is really fun for 10 hours, the time you need to build a full city and watch it like the pretty ant farm it is, before you simply abandon it before the very eyes of other players who were relying on its resources. It may still remain fun when played privately among friends with a decent strategy, which they need to polish even before laying their first piece of concrete on the ground, but in the end, we'd wager the game itself will be forgotten in a year's time. Its disastrous launch and unreliable servers? Maybe less so.