SimCity

 PC
User Score
2.2

Generally unfavorable reviews- based on 4557 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 602 out of 4557
  2. Mixed: 428 out of 4557
  3. Negative: 3,527 out of 4557
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  1. OrzoKnight
    Mar 8, 2013
    2
    My number one complaint is that you have to be online to play this game, even if you're playing by yourself. Number two complaint is the city size. They're downright tiny. I would like to be able to build much bigger cities. Lastly, it's a very frustrating process to even try to play, mainly because servers are always busy. It's taken me up to 30 minutes to be able to connect. I know thisMy number one complaint is that you have to be online to play this game, even if you're playing by yourself. Number two complaint is the city size. They're downright tiny. I would like to be able to build much bigger cities. Lastly, it's a very frustrating process to even try to play, mainly because servers are always busy. It's taken me up to 30 minutes to be able to connect. I know this is a launch issue which will get solved eventually, but people who payed $60 to be the first to play this highly-anticipated game probably are feeling cheated.… Expand
  2. Isochronous44
    Mar 11, 2013
    2
    Have revised my score upwards slightly, as EA has now actually allowed me to play the game rather than the loading screen for the first time. It was a lot of fun. A lot. This would be a fantastic single-player game. But then I lost connection, and couldn't log back on. That was not fun. Then EA allowed me to play again several hours later, and I found I had lost hours of progress. That wasHave revised my score upwards slightly, as EA has now actually allowed me to play the game rather than the loading screen for the first time. It was a lot of fun. A lot. This would be a fantastic single-player game. But then I lost connection, and couldn't log back on. That was not fun. Then EA allowed me to play again several hours later, and I found I had lost hours of progress. That was even less fun. Why is there no "Save" option? Never before have I played a game with that gave me such enjoyment before letting me down so badly. If it was an MMO it wouldn't feel so bad. But it's a single player game, and it doesn't NEED to be server-dependent. It really feels like EA is playing some cruel game here with one of my favorite game series of all times. They set it up this way deliberately, knowing that this would happen.… Expand
  3. mcussell
    Mar 8, 2013
    2
    After building a gaming PC for this game and a couple of other recent releases I have to say I'm pretty disappointed. I can't even play the tutorial level at the moment as I keep getting a 'servers are full' message. Not quite the gaming experience I hoped for when paying nearly £50 for a digital release!
  4. Sarnokh
    Mar 22, 2013
    2
    The game is broken is almost every important aspect. Sure, I can imagine IF one day everything works, it could be a 8/10 candidate. But as it is, on two fronts the game is entirely broken. In the Agent System, and in the server/online feature.

    There have been plenty of reports how and why the agent system and the other ingame systems don't work. There is little I could add to what has    The game is broken is almost every important aspect. Sure, I can imagine IF one day everything works, it could be a 8/10 candidate. But as it is, on two fronts the game is entirely broken. In the Agent System, and in the server/online feature.

    There have been plenty of reports how and why the agent system and the other ingame systems don't work. There is little I could add to what has been said a 1000 times by now. Simply too many subsystems of the game do not work at all.

    But I could live with traffic issues, simlulation disparities, trash gathering... all of it, if the game would actually, physically work. Just it doesn't. I invested 2 days in a region, and suddenly the game went to the main screen, out of the blue, "Server crashed" and the entire savegame of the region was broken and I could never load it again. Then I started a new region, two specialized cities, I put DAYS of long, hard work into the cities and was proud to finally got them them running. Them BAM, the game forced me to the main menu, the city was RESET, and the hard work of DAYS was lost to me.

    I contacted EA support, but they could do nothing to reset my savegames, which were lost entirely due to their fault. So they have no backups, and they have no system to save the savegames on MY OWN computer for safety backup. I can really live with a lot of issues, but when days of work into a game are ruined, it is beyond any excuse. And for weeks this is so, and EA simply refuses to communicate with it's customers.

    I give 2 honorary points for the idea behind the game, but the game is at the moment ENTIRELY broken, unplayable and as it looks, the issues run so deep it will take months to enable a halfway working status.    … Expand
  5. The_pharmacist
    Mar 9, 2013
    2
    DRM aside (which I don't support but can live with) this game is not what you'd expect from the the creators of simcity 4. I first actually got to play 2 days after purchase due to server issues but what I found is a game that is better suited for Facebook, I have little creativity in city creation and I have to start where they pre determine my highway connection is. The city I createDRM aside (which I don't support but can live with) this game is not what you'd expect from the the creators of simcity 4. I first actually got to play 2 days after purchase due to server issues but what I found is a game that is better suited for Facebook, I have little creativity in city creation and I have to start where they pre determine my highway connection is. The city I create very very quickly fills its boarders and the topography is non adjustable which wouldn't be so bad of the game wasn't 2km by 2km, I mean come on I want an in depth opportunity to be the creative city building nerd I always dreamed of but I find myself much more satisfied with building in tropico than this game and they don't even have a sewer system to build or subways.... Oh wait neither does simcity 5 … Expand
  6. bthomas
    Mar 9, 2013
    2
    Server overload can be a bummer when you try to play the new SimCity, along with the myriad of different bugs that will probably break most complex cities on their attempt to succeed.
  7. erik2472
    Mar 9, 2013
    2
    The game is fine, I mean, it works for the most part. The layout is bad, control over the cities is limited. City size is too small. It has crashed 2 times. Certainly not worth $80. Maybe worth $25. This is the last time I will ever pre-order a game. I think I will go back to sim city 4.
  8. james022
    Mar 10, 2013
    2
    Has a significant amount of potential. Visually the game is awesome. They did incorporate some great ideas such as interacting with other cities for trade, sharing resources, commuters, etc. However, the specialization provides limited options. Major Problem #1: Cities are too small!! I know their excuse for it but really? It's ridiculous and almost ruins the game on its own. MajorHas a significant amount of potential. Visually the game is awesome. They did incorporate some great ideas such as interacting with other cities for trade, sharing resources, commuters, etc. However, the specialization provides limited options. Major Problem #1: Cities are too small!! I know their excuse for it but really? It's ridiculous and almost ruins the game on its own. Major Problem #2: It's just too easy, there isn't a whole lot to it and it can be mastered quickly Major Problem #3 There are no ordinances, policies etc to run the city--it has simply been turned into a city building game with sometimes silly animated visuals Major Problem #4: Big changes have minimal impact-- for the city to really go downhill you really, really have to do it almost on purpose, you can get away with a lot, this isn't realistic.

    Overall I am VERY disappointed with SimCity (5). Not because it wasn't made well (it was, it's def. quality) but because they put in all of this thought and missed the main reasons why people love the SimCity franchise--you can run all facets of a city including policies, more detailed finances (what about budgeting by department??) and other strategically driven options and inputs. I still recommend the game but only for those interested in a pretty straight forward city building game- the management people should leave it.    … Expand
  9. Hapa
    Mar 11, 2013
    2
    The DRM in an effort to make money by stopping piracy killed the game and lost them millions. I will never buy a game with DRM again. The gameplay seems meh but I only could play for a small amount of time since the DRM stops me from playing all together. Don't buy this until they remove the DRM!!!
  10. Sirous
    Mar 12, 2013
    2
    Aside from the server and always online issues. There are some major bugs in the game that need to get fixed as well. With more gamebreaking bugs being found every day it seems. Traffic is the number one issue, only a few people have managed to truly trick the simulator and keep a good traffic flow going. A normal city layout and traffic pattern will not work and you need to fool the simsAside from the server and always online issues. There are some major bugs in the game that need to get fixed as well. With more gamebreaking bugs being found every day it seems. Traffic is the number one issue, only a few people have managed to truly trick the simulator and keep a good traffic flow going. A normal city layout and traffic pattern will not work and you need to fool the sims into going the way you want them too. Not normal, but tricks are needed. Essential services are broken, Fire trucks will all respond to the same fire, leaving others burning. They will all then go to the next fire and so on. Pathfinding on these is also horrendous, watching wrong turns and u-turns abound. Busses will do the same thing, they will all take the same paths and stop at the same stops over and over again. Anything far away in a densely packed city may never see a bus, or all of them at the same time. Very odd. Anything over 100k city will only see around 10% actually doing anything. While your city is demanding more workers and more shoppers. There are many more, Aside from the server issues, this promised to be a good game. Digging into it, it is hopelessly broken. Simulation fails on just about every level one could imagine. Maybe they did it to make it harder to desing a functioning city, or that region play was to fill in the gaps, if only region play actually worked.… Expand
  11. StellaDrinker
    Mar 12, 2013
    2
    Connection Issues
    -----------------
    No problems getting into the game at all although it does lose connection to the servers fairly regularly. While this doesn't prevent gameplay you are forced to keep the game running because if you quit the game before it reconnects the you will lose your progress since the last save. Having said that it did take two days before the 'buy' button on    Connection Issues
    -----------------
    No problems getting into the game at all although it does lose connection to the servers fairly regularly. While this doesn't prevent gameplay you are forced to keep the game running because if you quit the game before it reconnects the you will lose your progress since the last save.

    Having said that it did take two days before the 'buy' button on the website worked without giving a 'server error'

    Saved Games
    -----------
    I'm not aware of any indication of when it actualy saves the game. But it does often fail to do so meaning you have to redo your work again when you next login.

    Map Size
    --------
    I agree map sizes are way to small. To the extent it limits creativity and in my experience pushes you to playing each map in the same way. I do wonder if the beta was limited to 1 hour to avoid people realising this.

    Game speed
    -------------
    Currently the game is limited to a max speed of 24 minutes per game day. This is quite important as it happens. If you play the game like I prefer to, start slow and build my city then you will spend many many hours just waiting for your cash to increase enough for your next purchase.
    On the other hand you can take the other approach (the one I feel you are forced to take) spam the entire map with residential and commercial with just enough industry and ignore all but the vital services (ie water and power). Then sit back and wait until you have lots of cash, demolish your city and build it how you wanted it in the first place. Either way there is a lot of waiting around doing nothing.

    Power and Water system
    ----------------------
    I actually like this aspect of the game, I didn't enjoy having to lay all the pipes and powerlines, too much micromanagement for me. The new system of using the roads for everything works very well for me.

    Apart that is from what I assume are bugs. For example I had my city running along nicely I left the city and when I came back to it suddenly the game decided that I no longer had a massive excess of power but instead a massive deficit I had to plop 20 more windmills just to break even???

    Bugs
    ----
    The game still contains a number of bugs, mostly minor but some are not, for example you may get locked out of a map due to 'processing' never to be able to play that map again. This of course could in turn screw up your entire region causing many many hours of gameplay to be simply wasted.

    Multiplayer
    -----------
    Sure you can let someone play a map in you region but don't be fooled this is a single player game. The global market? This boils down to the price you pay when you buy resources. Is it really influenced by other players? I don't know but it really makes no difference. If you need to buy resources then you pay the price the game tells you. That's it.

    Disasters
    ---------
    I've never been a fan of these. I don't see anyway of turning them off in a normal game. Why such a big deal? At 24 minutes per game day it took me about 1.5 hours to save for my school that's 1.5 hours of me doing nothing but let the game run. As soon as I plopped it down and earthquake hit and destroyed it. So I started the wait all over again. Guess what, another earth quake and destroyed again. I had a further three disasters in that session. I estimate about 7 hours gameplay of which about 6.5 hours was just letting the game run to save up money. Which is why you should just use the spam method to build up lots of cash at the start which makes a mockery of the economy in the first place.

    Replayability
    ------------
    If I'm honest I was getting bored by the end of my first session but I stuck with it. Overall there is lot of frustration from losing work and even entire maps but the number one problem by far is the tiny map size which limits creativity and gameplay possibilities. I'm going to give the game a little more time but I do feel I've got pretty much all I'm going get from it a far cry from past sim city games which I would play for months if not years. Always Online
    --------------
    I didn't buy Diablo because of this but took a chance here. From what I understand things like map size and game speed and limited to reduce the load on their servers. The irony is that I bought myself an expensive laptop so I could play all the latest games but for this game I could have stuck with with my old crappy one.

    My experience with this game has convinced me that I won't be buying any more games that require this, at least, not for a single player game.

    Overall
    -------
    If you are on the fence then wait until the price comes down before you consider trying it it is WAY overpriced at the moment and certainly not as stable as it should be.

    While it certainly a pretty game it is failing to hold my attention.    … Expand
  12. Styrkyr
    Mar 12, 2013
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. The Good: Simcity has very good graphics. The data overlays are beautiful. Construction looks realistic. Nonrenewable resources add a new and interesting flavor to the game. Multiplayer regions with multiple cities online add a new and very fun flavor. There are new disasters which look and play realistically, have unexpected effects on your city. You can now build curving roads and road/road overpasses. Roads now govern your buildings density. There is a good selection of different buildings. The Bad: -Serverside
    Always-Online DRM means that you have to have a stable internet connection; the slightest hiccup in your internet will result in the game crashing and you losing hours of game play. The servers are horrible; most of them are either "busy" or "full", meaning that you can't play at all. They also crash often. Server capacity is abysmal. There is no "offline" option for single player games. All saves must be synced with EA's cloud servers; you cannot have any local saves on your hard drive. -Clientside
    Buildings often look half finished and devoid of color or decoration; it is clear that this was an unfinished product that was rushed out. City sizes are limited to approx. 2km x 2km; slightly smaller then the smallest map size on Simcity 4. Buildings cannot be placed anywhere where they are not adjacent to a road; you can no longer fill in the interior of city blocks with parks/etc. Some graphics appear half finished, i.e. grass showing through a road, dirt overlapping on a road, or jagged/flickering graphics. The game is slow to respond to neighbor deals, such as sending power or sewage to a neighbor. Parks look like they're made with astroturf. Waves/beaches look unrealistic. Zones are aligned on a road and cannot be expanded to show the entire zone; this makes planning for city blocks very difficult. There is no subway, elevated rail, monorail, or highways available to be built. Agriculture/farms have been completely removed from the game. It was not designed to be compatible with player-designed mods. Overall:
    This game had the potential to be something great, to be a truly awesome game. But with the forced DRM limitations EA has imposed on us, as well as the horrifying state of their servers, this game has become yet another destined for the bookshelf. Maxis outdid itself with bringing new ideas, concepts, and operations into the game, but with the client-side limitations such as city sizes and lack of transportation options, not to mention the server-side DRM, the game is effectively crippled. Bluntly, I can not recommend this game to anyone. One can only hope that EA will listed to the community and fix what is wrong.

    Pentium Core i7 4.2 ghz OC
    32gb DDR-3 Kingston HyperX RAM
    3 x EVGA GTX 680 2gb SLI'd
    OCZ Octane 1tb SSD    … Expand
  13. jdestroyer82
    Mar 13, 2013
    2
    This game is fundamentally broken on almost all levels. AI is oversimplified and a hindrance to game advancement. Online only functionality is not worth the restrictions. Players end up with a tiny generic city that becomes more and more frustrating to grow. This game is a massive disappointment, even beyond the restrictive DRM and launch issues. This will be the last EA game I willThis game is fundamentally broken on almost all levels. AI is oversimplified and a hindrance to game advancement. Online only functionality is not worth the restrictions. Players end up with a tiny generic city that becomes more and more frustrating to grow. This game is a massive disappointment, even beyond the restrictive DRM and launch issues. This will be the last EA game I will purchase, no matter what the name of the studio they assimilate. Because, that studio is only a name. None of the original Maxis seems to exist in this product. I hope this serves as a lesson to the game industry and its consumers.… Expand
  14. Squidcod
    Mar 14, 2013
    2
    Aside from the always on servers, and the emphasis on social activities over city management, Sim City has failed to provide an intelligent and long lasting simulation. There are obvious flaws that can be visibly noticed in the algorithms used, and many in-game features are unreliable and random.
  15. Dethslayer7
    Mar 14, 2013
    2
    This game was terrible. It was a bad write-off of the old (and good) SimCity. I am very disappointed, and the fact that it has DRM makes it even worse.
  16. guitarmaniac005
    Mar 15, 2013
    2
    Although this game could have been something amazing. EA and maxis decided they wanted more money... so they added DRM.... the maps are too small for building space and on top of that Maxis developers lied to us by saying the game needed an online connection. Don't buy this game, I do not recommend it
  17. PunisherNOR
    Mar 16, 2013
    2
    I specifically created this account to express my distaste for this game. Let alone the incredibly horrible and incompetent launch, the always online DRM and the small maps, the game itself is broken and should never have been released in its current state. Let me emphasize that if you do buy the game; know that you’ll feel like you’re participating in a beta test and not a finishedI specifically created this account to express my distaste for this game. Let alone the incredibly horrible and incompetent launch, the always online DRM and the small maps, the game itself is broken and should never have been released in its current state. Let me emphasize that if you do buy the game; know that you’ll feel like you’re participating in a beta test and not a finished product. First, the traffic system does not work and it creates traffic hell. And hey you can’t alleviate it with a subway system, but what you can do is create a snake like road system with no interactions so the AI does not screw itself over. Also, the sewage system is broken (it seems like it follows the same pathing as traffic, that is ALWAYS taking the shortest route even though there are other routes available), the power grid system is broken and the water system is broken too with similar issues as traffic. Even though you have plenty of capacity for these things, the engine does allow distribution between routes A, B and C, but only chooses one route, leading to congestion and full stop. And this did not show up in internal testing? Furthermore, if there is a disaster such as a fire, all your fire trucks are sent at the same time, often driving in weird circles or not arriving at the fire at all. Moving on, the regional trading system is also broken. If you send money to another city, know that the money arrives (if it arrives) several hours or maybe a day or two later. I have not tried sending any other resources in fear of losing them permanently. And then there’s the main problem, the RCI zoning issue. You can build a city completely made up of residential. No need for commercial zones and industrial because parks take care of the jobs! The developers have purposely created a game where residential zoning is independent of commercial zones; they only need industrial for jobs, and in the extreme case you only need parks. The fundamental core of the whole series is in shambles. And good luck with getting a refund if you bought this over origin, it’s impossible.… Expand
  18. will86c
    Mar 17, 2013
    2
    Size city limits are absurd. Having to be online all the time to play even alone is ridiculous. Lack of terraforming and custom regions is disappointing. The game play has been dumbed down to the point where there is no challenge. There are no difficulty levels, every game is the same. If you don't already have friends on Origin then it's impossible to find a game to play in. There is noSize city limits are absurd. Having to be online all the time to play even alone is ridiculous. Lack of terraforming and custom regions is disappointing. The game play has been dumbed down to the point where there is no challenge. There are no difficulty levels, every game is the same. If you don't already have friends on Origin then it's impossible to find a game to play in. There is no way to search for open games or reorder the game list to show available cities. Compared to Sim City 4 this game is garbage, I wish I hadn't even bought it. The only good thing about the game is that the graphics are pretty.… Expand
  19. Felice
    Mar 19, 2013
    2
    The gameplay is disappointing, it seems that the residents (sims) populate your city whatever you do correctly or incorrectly. The mayor of the city can put a landfill in the middle of the city but residents continue to arrive in the city! I think it is just simulation and realistic, I am very disappointed.
  20. Facet
    Mar 21, 2013
    2
    EA have done it again.. made a great promotion of the new simcity. make it all fine and shiny.. But what the hell is wrong with these people! This game is not anything near done. The game is pretty much broken. It have so huge great potential. but the the greed from EA just goes to new levels once again. They don't even understand the backfire they make on them self.
    For many years i    EA have done it again.. made a great promotion of the new simcity. make it all fine and shiny.. But what the hell is wrong with these people! This game is not anything near done. The game is pretty much broken. It have so huge great potential. but the the greed from EA just goes to new levels once again. They don't even understand the backfire they make on them self.
    For many years i haven't bought anything that have EA on the cover. i know how much crappy beta games they pop out. Just can't support it.. But i ended up falling for this simcity trap. Its so sad how great the fundamental of this game is. But just get completely broken by EA profit run..
    TO ALL... DON'T SUPPORT EA GAMES     … Expand
  21. Adhikm
    Mar 24, 2013
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. It ridiculous that EA dont want to hear us as their customer. The original habits of Simcity are offline, easy to safe the games, user can act as god who able to create their own land contour and the city should large or huge. But this Simcity 2013 is far from those features.
    1. I always have to connect to internet (and the server sometimes are full)
    2. The server cannot synch our files to other alternative servers they offer (It so shame)
    3. The synch between the games and server only when we out from the games (imagine if it crash after we play for 4 hours, which is always happened)
    4. The city is so small, dont event thinking to have Hi way surround the city... the area more like a village rather than a city.
    5. Crash while gameplay, and after that... even though have a feature Roll Back but still the city cannot be open. I have report this to EA and no solution until now.
    6. The AI of traffic, dump truck route and bus are even worse

    Plus point of this games is only graphics.    … Expand
  22. DDKain
    Mar 26, 2013
    2
    Many bugs, crashed savegames 'cause of server issues, a non-balanced gameplay. Less functions, options building space and buildings than you have sim city 4.
  23. EA_Sucks
    Apr 3, 2013
    2
    "DO NOT BUY THIS GAME." That's what I told everyone who would listen a couple of weeks ago. I have now cooled down, and will now say this: This game is worth 10£. Not more. One user here said it was a 80£ Facebook game, which is pretty much the most accurate description of the latest Sim City I have seen.

    I am not an EA hater (please disregard my nickname). I don't even mind Origin, or    "DO NOT BUY THIS GAME." That's what I told everyone who would listen a couple of weeks ago. I have now cooled down, and will now say this: This game is worth 10£. Not more. One user here said it was a 80£ Facebook game, which is pretty much the most accurate description of the latest Sim City I have seen.

    I am not an EA hater (please disregard my nickname). I don't even mind Origin, or the insanely annoying always-on DRM system. Hell, I can even accept overpriced digital downloads if they're for a decent game such as Mass Effect or Star Wars: The Old Republic. I'm a grown man, I can afford a fiver here and a fiver there. The number one problem with this game is that is completely, utterly dull. Replayability: Zero. I had been looking forward to this game since it was announced, but started to worry when I was bored in the beta even before the mind numbingly stupid one-hour time limit was up.

    When the game was released, my worst fears came true. Nevermind the fact that I couldn't play for two days because EA didn't want to spend money on server capacity. Maxis, hopefully bullied around by the suits in EA, had utterly ruined one of my favorite franchise. The list of reasons why this game completely fails to live up to its predecessor is long. Very long. Here are a few game-breakers.

    - City size. You -will- use all the available land within an hour or three. After that, it's all about understanding how the game's traffic system works. Or doesn't, depending on how you see it.

    - Traffic. As mentioned, it is horrible. The agent system in Sandbox (Sim City's engine) simply does not work for traffic. Emergency vehicles get stuck in traffic, city services (garbage trucks, school buses etc.). Google "Sim City traffic" and you will see just how realistic looking cities that "work" in this game are.

    - AI is non existent. The PR people at EA bragged much about how each sim would have his or her own job, personality, home etc. That was a lie. Every morning, every sim goes out looking for a job, stopping at the first available job for his or her education level. It is impossible to feel attached to your citizens, because the only thing their zombielike behaviour does is messing up traffic even more.

    - Multiplayer is worthless, there is very little (if any) cooperation and interaction between cities in a region.

    - No terraforming. Your territory acts like a plot from one of the Sims games. Just more static.

    - It is impossible to build a realistic city. All the reasons above contribute to that fact, and if you ever hoped you could simulate your home town like you did in Sim City 4 or one of the earlier games, forget it. This game won't do it.

    - City specialization is far from deep enough, and stops being interesting after a few hours.

    I'm going to be generous and give this game a score of 2. I might have given it 3 points if it didn't break such an amazing franchise. The dumbed down graphics look nice, in a model landscape sort of way, which was supposedly what the devs were going for, and the game will keep you entertained for a few hours. Oh, and there's a color blind mode.

    If you see this game on a 10£ sale I have no doubt that we will see very soon) go for it, but don't believe for a second that the critic reviews aren't biased. This is a terrible, terrible game.

    Buy any of the Tropico games, Cities XL, Cities in Motion or any of the other city sims out there. They are much better. Sim City 4 is still the king.    … Expand
  24. comensee
    Apr 10, 2013
    2
    I've been a Sim Cities fan ever since I picked up Sim City 3000 when I was a kid. I bought this game a week after it was officially released and so far I've been disappointed. The first serious problem you come across once you launch the game is trying to find a map that has open slots. Not only is there no way to filter the maps with ones that have spots open, but they're listed from theI've been a Sim Cities fan ever since I picked up Sim City 3000 when I was a kid. I bought this game a week after it was officially released and so far I've been disappointed. The first serious problem you come across once you launch the game is trying to find a map that has open slots. Not only is there no way to filter the maps with ones that have spots open, but they're listed from the oldest to newest! I had to click through through pages and pages of servers and I spent almost 20 minutes trying to find a map with open slots!

    Now, once you get to building your city things start to get interesting. The graphics are very good, but the tutorial is very limited on teaching you the major dynamics of the game such as zone densities, freight, etc. It plays out just like every other Sim City game, but it's remarkably much easier than Sim City 3000 & 4000 to stay in a positive budget. Building your city is very fun and challenging if you have to build around terrain or natural resources, but you very quickly come to realize just how small the maps are.

    The maps are about half the size of what I remember from any Sim City game and it literally doesn't take that much time before you're trying to squeeze out every inch of space in your city. Eventually you do hit the point where you have no more space. Also, the game's density system is overly complex and you will eventually hit a bottleneck where your city can't get any bigger.

    Literally I would say 5-6 hours into my city I would run out of space, couldn't increase my population any further, and I was making so much money that my city had millions in the bank. Also, the game's AI is very bad with it comes to trash collection, buses, and just about everything else.

    TLDR; too easy, gets boring fast, crappy map browser, great graphics, crappy AI, and SMALL MAPS!!!    … Expand
  25. akratic
    Apr 24, 2013
    2
    Graphics nice. Rest, bad. This is a facebook-style game. EA made it un-piratable (always DRM). The question to EA is: Does it justifies the low scores and bad reviews, hatred from people who bought the game?
  26. AzumiRM
    Apr 25, 2013
    2
    Words can not describe my utter disappointment at this game. Being the still proud owner of Sim City 4 that I am, I really looked forward to Sim City with the utmost enthusiasm. Was I ever disappointed.
    I will start with the thing that most have complained about. The Anti-Piracy measures that EA Games decided to attach to this game (Digital Rights Management). I understand that you need    Words can not describe my utter disappointment at this game. Being the still proud owner of Sim City 4 that I am, I really looked forward to Sim City with the utmost enthusiasm. Was I ever disappointed.
    I will start with the thing that most have complained about. The Anti-Piracy measures that EA Games decided to attach to this game (Digital Rights Management). I understand that you need to put a stop to piracy but at the cost of your paying customer base? This was a bad move on behalf of EA and could have been handled so much better.
    Next is the size of the city which you can build. 2Km x 2Km. Most small towns I know of are bigger than this. It makes you feel extremely limited while also feeling that you could be doing so much more. I got the feeling that EA will be releasing paid for content which will increase the map size though.
    I gave this a 2 based on the quality of graphics, 0 was my first option. I found the graphics to be fairly pleasant to look at when you eventually prove that you didn't steal the game and are able to log in. The engine needs some work as it can be a little choppy but overall the visuals are good.
    To sum this up: I hope that EA have learned that there is a limit to what you can use as an anti-piracy measure before it becomes too much for the legitimate customer base to put up with. Presuming that people who downloaded the pirated version of previous games would have paid for a genuine copy is incorrect. Most of them probably wouldn't have so you can't call it a "loss" and then to implement measures which kill your developers game and reputation is just selfish and naive, especially of a large company like EA. Digital Rights Management (DRM) as an anti-piracy measure doesn't work. To top all this, a pirated version was released anyway.    … Expand
  27. Red-Rocket
    Jun 23, 2013
    2
    Ok i really want to enjoy this game, it looks good, i like the mechanics BUT THE ALWAYS ONLINE DRM is not for SimCity. And EA being EA this game will go offline and be unplayable in a few years. Thats not worth it
  28. Cnic
    Dec 4, 2013
    2
    I wish I'd checked these reviews before I went out and bought this game, thinking SimCity would be great as it always has been. First off with DRM, this doesn't affect me so much as I really always have connection but if the EA servers fail I have paid £40 to do nothing. It's not a city builder, it's a small town builder. The sizes of the plots are ridiculously small. How can you build aI wish I'd checked these reviews before I went out and bought this game, thinking SimCity would be great as it always has been. First off with DRM, this doesn't affect me so much as I really always have connection but if the EA servers fail I have paid £40 to do nothing. It's not a city builder, it's a small town builder. The sizes of the plots are ridiculously small. How can you build a city in a 2km by 2km grid?

    What I was expecting was something along the lines of SimCity 4 but with new features/better graphics. There's a few new features but i'd say there's less features overall. Ea have taken out highways and subways and to build an airport you're going to have to destroy half of your "city"

    Honestly so disappointed with this version of SimCity. Going to play SimCity 4 to try and recover from burning £40.

    Don't buy...

    Added review:

    After 8 or so months i decided to come back to this game, still disappointed. If you look at their Facebook almost every comment is from people who want bigger maps. Surely the next update has to be bigger maps? no. I don't understand why a game company would so blatantly ignore their fanbase. Surely they would actually make money from this?

    To add to it when i patched i couldn't play because the server was unavailable... I think i'll take a point off my previous score.    … Expand
  29. BrazilianJoe
    May 6, 2013
    2
    SimCity is supposed to be THE city simulation game. Unfortunately, it has been corrupted by the scourge of EA.

    The only redeeming features are a beautiful environment created by the GlassBox engine and breaking the grid, and for those I give 2 points above 0. This is after the most grievous bugs of the tacked-on 'MMO features' which were preventing the game from actually running have    SimCity is supposed to be THE city simulation game. Unfortunately, it has been corrupted by the scourge of EA.

    The only redeeming features are a beautiful environment created by the GlassBox engine and breaking the grid, and for those I give 2 points above 0. This is after the most grievous bugs of the tacked-on 'MMO features' which were preventing the game from actually running have been resolved.

    It is a huge step back from the features and gameplay of SimCity 4. The simulation is super-shallow and there is zero challenge and the game becomes boring pretty fast, and largely forgettable.

    Stuff which should have been there from day 1 is missing, and we can see already the DLC on the pipeline just to give us what should be there in the first place. The number one on this list are BIGGER CITIES; seriously, each land patch is the size of a neighbourhood.

    The writing is on the wall, it is just a matter of time until it becomes a The Sims-like monstrosity with 10+ DLC that would cost upwards of $500 to have the complete game, plus optionally buying in-game currency.    … Expand
  30. nikhilsamkumar
    May 29, 2013
    2
    SimCity 5 is the degraded Version of SimCity 4 Never Expected this from Maxis. NO facility for bridges /flyover. Monorail and elevated rail are gone. Area provided for Building the city is too small. No teraforming This game really Sucks.. l repent purchasing-this game. Maxis give me back my money!: CITIES XL is still the best city building game ever built.
  31. alfdib
    Jun 26, 2013
    2
    I cannot believe SC5 is this game. The cities are ridicoulous little, you'cant expand...there are not underground like in SC4...the traffic is not sustainable due to skycrapers in a little village...water, even close to the sea run out easily and people left city because of no water this is ridicolous, in real life this is never going to happen). If you put a nuclear power station thenI cannot believe SC5 is this game. The cities are ridicoulous little, you'cant expand...there are not underground like in SC4...the traffic is not sustainable due to skycrapers in a little village...water, even close to the sea run out easily and people left city because of no water this is ridicolous, in real life this is never going to happen). If you put a nuclear power station then radioactivity kills everyone in the sorrounding in few months... this is absolutely not real life!!!! Who was the diretor of this game? probably a kid of 4 years old could have done better job.… Expand
  32. fredinator
    Aug 20, 2013
    2
    Horrible game. Long loading, expensive dlc, pseudo multiplayer, server problems, functional buildings not working. This game does most of what it is trying to achieve wrong.There are in fact so many problems with this game that you can not even count them and Maxis is not able to fix it so what do they do? They release DLC for around 10€ that adds blimps for transportation which is one ofHorrible game. Long loading, expensive dlc, pseudo multiplayer, server problems, functional buildings not working. This game does most of what it is trying to achieve wrong.There are in fact so many problems with this game that you can not even count them and Maxis is not able to fix it so what do they do? They release DLC for around 10€ that adds blimps for transportation which is one of the broken features of the game. Well at least the game looks good when you are in the statistic screens.… Expand
  33. barwnkesteven
    Aug 22, 2013
    2
    This game made me sad I have played and loved this franchise for as long as I can remember (well, except Societies which I pretend didn't happen). Unfortunately, SimCity gets far too much wrong. I can overlook the always online thing; though at the same time, for all the hype and drama caused by it, I don't feel it adds very much to the experience.

    The main reasons I don't like this    This game made me sad I have played and loved this franchise for as long as I can remember (well, except Societies which I pretend didn't happen). Unfortunately, SimCity gets far too much wrong. I can overlook the always online thing; though at the same time, for all the hype and drama caused by it, I don't feel it adds very much to the experience.

    The main reasons I don't like this game are the maps are far too small, traffic is an abomination your city is eventually brought to its knees no matter how small it is and too much generally goes wrong. Fundamentally, there are too many limitations in the game. SimCity's marketing line is "Your City, Your Way". I find it is anything but...it is "My City, Maxis' Way".    … Expand
  34. lominero
    Sep 4, 2013
    2
    Don't bother! The map sizes will completely disappoint you. Just when things start to get somewhere you need to build another city to support your main one. Complete BS. The always online ruined this game. EA is just too greedy.
  35. LairdEJM
    Sep 10, 2013
    2
    This game is such a disgrace to what used to be a stellar series, not due to the core game, but due to the cynical and life draining DRM and internet only play which restrict so much of what SimCity is about. Unfortunately even when actually managing to play, the game commits suicide by having tiny city squares and ridiclous restrictions on buildings, whose only raison d'etre is toThis game is such a disgrace to what used to be a stellar series, not due to the core game, but due to the cynical and life draining DRM and internet only play which restrict so much of what SimCity is about. Unfortunately even when actually managing to play, the game commits suicide by having tiny city squares and ridiclous restrictions on buildings, whose only raison d'etre is to persuade you to play with others, a feature that the game already betrays itself!

    Unfortunately I believe that this game is too flawed at the fundamental level to ever be a worthy successor to the brilliant SimCity 4. A shame, because the franchise at it's heart is legendary amongst the PC community and can be so much better.    … Expand
  36. majikm249
    Sep 18, 2013
    2
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Inventive restructure of user interface, solid execution on how interactions "feel" in game. Social structure and communication of system needs is acceptable. NOTHING SAVES YOUR CITY WHEN THE WATER IS GONE. Unless you happen to occupy an ocean or river connected tile for water supply (river resource runs out too) you need a solid seller of water to fuel alternative economic priorities than base industry. Tech industry is almost all water need. I tried to self supply, no hope there. Want my $70.00 and 12 hrs back now. Played it day of release... FAIL. A few days later, functional. Later that week, water mechanic kills off entire map.

    I guess I could go play BattleFailed on servers run by abusive douches.    … Expand
  37. tulir293
    Sep 30, 2013
    2
    Ignoring the servers, which are not a problem anymore, the game is playable. Of course, a big thing lowering the score is the map size and the always-online DRM. No local saving, the game will probably be down in some years when the servers get shut down and there is no single player mode. It is true that EA is just fishing for money from the Simcity 4 players who trusted EA that theyIgnoring the servers, which are not a problem anymore, the game is playable. Of course, a big thing lowering the score is the map size and the always-online DRM. No local saving, the game will probably be down in some years when the servers get shut down and there is no single player mode. It is true that EA is just fishing for money from the Simcity 4 players who trusted EA that they would make an awesome new version. I myself foolishly pre-ordered the game too, how could I have known that Simcity Digital was after the Simcity 4 was one of my favourite games when it was released? Unlike those who gave a zero, I am still able to give a two, as the servers are working fairly well now. Though I must admit that on the release the servers simply did not work for even nearly everyone… Expand
  38. asteroid
    Nov 1, 2013
    2
    The idea of the Simcity is both got better and worse. The machine which controls the sims had big upgrades. However the massive engine caused other game performances to decrease. They weren't able to give the player the opportunity of choosing the building size. Also the new multiplayer gameplay shouldn't be necessary it should be optional. The idea of Simcity is making your own city notThe idea of the Simcity is both got better and worse. The machine which controls the sims had big upgrades. However the massive engine caused other game performances to decrease. They weren't able to give the player the opportunity of choosing the building size. Also the new multiplayer gameplay shouldn't be necessary it should be optional. The idea of Simcity is making your own city not making someone others "TOWN"… Expand
  39. Omen1994
    Nov 23, 2013
    2
    Worst customer/producer communication ever. They get so much hate on facebook and streams.. i dont get it. The community wants bigger maps offline mode and so on.. Hobby modder are able to creat things like that but maxis "is not able to" Rly i dont get it
  40. Atraxerxes
    Dec 2, 2013
    2
    Honestly, buy SimCity 4 instead.

    The newest SimCIty should be called SimGraphicsCity instead. The only thing better about this version is that the shadows and lighting effects are cooler. Gone is the ability to create large sprawling cities with downtowns and residential neighborhoods. What really made the previous games fantastic was the amount you needed to micro manage. For god's    Honestly, buy SimCity 4 instead.

    The newest SimCIty should be called SimGraphicsCity instead. The only thing better about this version is that the shadows and lighting effects are cooler. Gone is the ability to create large sprawling cities with downtowns and residential neighborhoods. What really made the previous games fantastic was the amount you needed to micro manage. For god's sake, you had to lay water pipes and electrical lines.

    Did you like subways? yeah forget about that, it's gone.

    Remember how there were other cities you could interact with but it didn't matter? Well this is almost all about interacting with neighboring cities.

    Honestly, it feels like Farmville 2.0 at times. Here let me gift my neighbor a garbage truck.

    The only thing I can say that really stops this from being a complete turd is that the Info-porn graphic overlays are amazing.

    Oh yeah, and forget about playing this game on your laptop on the commuter train, or any place where you don't have internet access. You need to be constantly logged in for it to work.    … Expand
  41. Stigggggggy
    Dec 9, 2013
    2
    Really looked forward to this game, but it just does not deliver to what it once was. If you want that old-school SimCity feel? Look elsewhere, you are gone so regret buying this game.

    Ill gibe em 2/10 for the effort yeah effort of ruining a perfect franchise...
  42. baalroo
    Mar 24, 2014
    2
    It's actually quite surprising how truly bland and un-sim-like this game is. Going in I really thought the complaints of "the cities are too small" and "the simulations are too simple" were just the cries of EA haters and non-sim-enthusiasts complaining for the sake of complaining. The truth is, the haters are right. After an hour of playing, you'll feel like you've already seen and doneIt's actually quite surprising how truly bland and un-sim-like this game is. Going in I really thought the complaints of "the cities are too small" and "the simulations are too simple" were just the cries of EA haters and non-sim-enthusiasts complaining for the sake of complaining. The truth is, the haters are right. After an hour of playing, you'll feel like you've already seen and done pretty much everything there is to see, and you're unlikely to ever feel truly engaged. The game is cold and indifferent, moves at a snail's pace, but yet after about an hour you'll have most of the city plot filled up with stuff. There's just very little content, and even less reason to care. This game is a terrible let down.… Expand
  43. munjeni
    Apr 17, 2014
    2
    1.EA..that greeeedddyyyy bastards..that's all i will say about that
    2.Graphic : Graphic is beautiful..for sim city and CoT , from 1-10..pure 9
    3.Servers : i mean..realy ??? realy ??? 3-5 or more hrs of work and then "unable to load city..try later" or similar..if..but that's BIG IF you load your city after crash you are damnnnnn lucky - from 5 cities,at least 2 times on each has crashed    1.EA..that greeeedddyyyy bastards..that's all i will say about that
    2.Graphic : Graphic is beautiful..for sim city and CoT , from 1-10..pure 9
    3.Servers : i mean..realy ??? realy ??? 3-5 or more hrs of work and then "unable to load city..try later" or similar..if..but that's BIG IF you load your city after crash you are damnnnnn lucky
    - from 5 cities,at least 2 times on each has crashed and i was able to load..gues how many ?? 1.. ONE.. (later when crash this one goes to hell to..what a surprise.. -.-)
    4.Borders : you (if you lucky (online)) will play about 3-5 hrs if you screw with the game..if not,you wil play 2 hrs at most,for ofline ..same..per one city
    5.Graphic design of menu : easy to navigate and clearly
    6.Bugs : I will not even start with this..damnnnn
    7.Would i recomend this game : Helllll NOOOOOOOOO..play 3 or 4---->3 are my favorite,4 is nice for verryyy big city..
    8.If you have nerves for to damn bugy game and you want to play realy let say smal part of city (town)..buy..otherwise..don't even bother with this piece of crap
    One more thing : EA - thank you for ruin my favorite game and take my money for **** -.-    … Expand
  44. gonzalo123
    Jan 19, 2015
    2
    It's a modern version of the predecessors. I will start with 5 points, and then i will add or take off points.
    Pro's:
    1-The user interface is small and good. (+1 point) 2-The answer time in the servers are good. (+1 point) 3-The game has goals. Achievements. (+1 point) 4-Is addictive. (+2 points) Con's 1-The lag is annoying. (-1 point) 2-The servers are full. (-1 point) 3-You    It's a modern version of the predecessors. I will start with 5 points, and then i will add or take off points.
    Pro's:
    1-The user interface is small and good. (+1 point)
    2-The answer time in the servers are good. (+1 point)
    3-The game has goals. Achievements. (+1 point)
    4-Is addictive. (+2 points)
    Con's
    1-The lag is annoying. (-1 point)
    2-The servers are full. (-1 point)
    3-You can't skip the tutorial. (-1 point)
    4-Too many updates, almost all days, the wait time is annoying. (-2 points)
    5-Painted cardboard graphics. (-1 point)
    6-2 square kilometers to build. (-2 points)

    The game is very bad, not recommended.    … Expand
  45. Zipprian
    Sep 9, 2014
    2
    I am sure it has been said a million times, but any fun this game provides is killed by the small map size. Your map fills up extremely fast and then you really can't do anything else.
  46. wolfe1924
    Sep 14, 2014
    2
    I loved sim city 4 a lot, for some reason when I play this im not sure if its because im more stupid now or something but I don't understand the game cant grasp around it very well. the building on the zones especially has to be connected to the road to build the zone instead of previous versions you could just make zones then worry about roads later and how zones take a certain size imI loved sim city 4 a lot, for some reason when I play this im not sure if its because im more stupid now or something but I don't understand the game cant grasp around it very well. the building on the zones especially has to be connected to the road to build the zone instead of previous versions you could just make zones then worry about roads later and how zones take a certain size im not sure just rubs me the wrong way.

    even after the tutorial this games learning curve seems really streamlined but yet oddly steep at the same time im trying to figure out if the games just to different so I don't understand it or don't like it or what. I gave this game 3 chances spaced out a couple between each and well still makes me want to hurl to be honest.

    I got this game after all the online crap got sorted out so have nothing to say about that overly. the city size is small as all other people have said you need to make other cities to help your city cause you cant build a mega metropilis on this small lot (sims reference :p ) where on sim city 4 you could make wonderful huge cities even on smaller areas with everything packed into it it had a hard learning curve to get a good economy and money in the positive but it made so much more sense.

    conclusion this games not good for majority of sim city players will not like this at all, I can see more sim players liking this over sim city players (not insulting sim players by the way) it looks pretty and that's about it this game feels like a demo of sim city 4 just prettier is all. instead of building a huge city with every building in it sometimes almost 1 million people they give you this dumb downed little plot of land to make a small town (it feels like it anyways) I regret buying this game I tried to like it but even how they changed the interface of building and nerfed city size I try to like it but I cant.

    final advice if your still considering this game after all these reviews people have done make sure you watch tons of review videos, gameplay videos etc learn everything you can about it at first glanced looked pretty good seemed somewhat similar but after I installed it started it up waited 3 hours for updates ontop of that started the game itself made my little plot of land and puked in my mouth it seems.

    First review for a game on here (sadly this one) and all those reasons up there is why its a 2/10 for me.    … Expand
  47. crishy
    Oct 3, 2014
    2
    Summary and Veredict: Very poor game even after the forced online mode era gone once and for all. It is a case in point that shows graphics are not everything.

    Modding might make this game much better with time (like it did for SC4) but considering EA right now appears to be not as friendly towards it as it was when SC4 was released (so they can release their overpriced DLCs in the    Summary and Veredict: Very poor game even after the forced online mode era gone once and for all. It is a case in point that shows graphics are not everything.

    Modding might make this game much better with time (like it did for SC4) but considering EA right now appears to be not as friendly towards it as it was when SC4 was released (so they can release their overpriced DLCs in the first place), the crippled region play without terraforming and lack of creative control, all these factors but make this game very boring after a couple of hours of play.

    Definitively not worth the 60$+ it cost at launch and still not the 20$ it costs right now unless you are a very casual player just looking to play town mayor with some pretty 3D graphics once in a while. If you want to go anywhere further in the field of city simulator use that money to get either SC4 or Cities XL.

    Pros:

    - Decent full 3D graphics.
    - Roads can now be built curved, elevated, etc.
    - Improved simulation of town's inhabitants. (may or may not be important depending on your style of play). Nice with the bus and ground rail transit options the game offers.
    - Online mode can make for some fun moments with friends though this was already possible in SC4 in a slower and more cumbersome scale.
    - Upgradeable buildings.

    Cons: Pretty much everything else.

    - Ridiculously small town sizes. More like small neighborhoods. In paper "2 x 2" km wide (or about 1.25 mi by 1.25 mi) but considering that roads take much more space than they used to in SC4 or in real life, the maps appear to be much more smaller than that. Using roads as reference, maps are about 0.5 km wide. So yea, the 2 x 2 km SC city has about 1/16th of the area of a medium tile city in SC4 (which is supposed to be 2 x 2 km wide as well) and 1/4th of the smallest cities in SC4 that are 1 km wide. There is a mod that increases their size a bit but with region and lag problems described below, use it at your own risk.
    - The above would be not such a big deal if they were side by side like SC4 had but alas the towns are spread apart and there is nothing in between them but a few roads linking them together. After building your towns - which can be done in less than an hour easily in each town, and in a day or two in all towns inside a region - you are left with a terribly unrealistic looking region with packed squared shaped towns scattered in a region of blank space. You cannot even add extra city connections.
    - Building sizes in contrast appear very small relative to the roads they border. Even SC4 had size scaling problems (roads and buildings) but yea, they go to a whole new level in SC.
    - Cities can achieve populations similar to their counterparts in older games, but that just makes your cities appear even more unrealistic and silly than they are already appear to. For example, a 350k city would have 1.4 mil people per square kilometer in SC, using the size above, in SC4 medium city same population 56k, while the densest cities have about 100k to 20k.
    - No ability to create new maps or even terraform whatsoever. Towns appear in the region locked in place and you cannot even change their location. So if you dislike that big hill or that piece of river bed inside your town or a new region altogether you are pretty much screwed.
    - Curved roads create big spaces of wasted space, a very minor problem on its own but considering you do not have a lot of space to begin with, often you are left wondering why build them in the first place? Speaking of which no freeways or one way roads to begin with. Even gridded layouts have plenty of wasted space.
    - Zone density way too simplified and is based off only on the type of road used to zone them, further stiffling creative control. Since buildings are based off the road they are beside at if you demolish the road you also end up demolishing the buildings... Everything has to be beside roads, even parks.
    - No subways or agriculture. Not that they would fit in in 0.5 km wide towns anyway.
    - Lag problems when your city gets more and more populated. Suddenly, trying to simulate 350k+ people on a game daily basis does not appear to be that enticing...
    - The game was online mode only (for a game that screams single player over and over again) for over a year and had huge server issues in the first month or so after its release. While they bear no weight on how the game is right now after the offline patch it is outrageous that we had to wait a year for that to happen at all. Especially considering that they lied that this was impossible to begin with.
    - Overpriced DLCs that offer very little for your buck. SC4 has plenty of similar mods and plugins that are completely free to begin with.

    Pros or Cons depending on your style of play:

    - Increased options for trade of goods and services between towns. Some of them I find them quite unrealistic though. At least it mitigates (minimally) the small town sizes.
    - Water and power built automatically under roads.    … Expand
  48. Silverzapper
    Jan 31, 2016
    2
    This game is the perfect example of what happens when you rush a game out for sales alone. The city sizes are tiny and things don't work how they're supposed to. The sims are terribly programmed causing one of my roads to be stuck in gridlock and the other almost completely empty. Once I reached a high enough population my sewage system stopped functioning and my city was ruined. When aThis game is the perfect example of what happens when you rush a game out for sales alone. The city sizes are tiny and things don't work how they're supposed to. The sims are terribly programmed causing one of my roads to be stuck in gridlock and the other almost completely empty. Once I reached a high enough population my sewage system stopped functioning and my city was ruined. When a game requires mods just to work you know it's a bad game. Don't buy this. It's bad even with mods.… Expand
  49. djprinvale
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    Thanks for gimping a fully purchased game. I think the game itself has potential and I would like to play it but always online DRM is unacceptable for a SINGLE player game.
  50. Goekhan
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    Let me sum it up:
    -"Unable to create your city at this time. Please claim a city again." This issue haven't got fixed on beta. 3 days after release, and I STILL GET THIS.
    -Busy servers; either get in line, or go play on some other server (if you can) where your cities are NOT stored at -VERY SMALL city areas. Are you kidding me? Areas should be AT LEAST 4 TIMES BIGGER. -Always online    Let me sum it up:
    -"Unable to create your city at this time. Please claim a city again." This issue haven't got fixed on beta. 3 days after release, and I STILL GET THIS.
    -Busy servers; either get in line, or go play on some other server (if you can) where your cities are NOT stored at
    -VERY SMALL city areas. Are you kidding me? Areas should be AT LEAST 4 TIMES BIGGER.
    -Always online DRM I'm mostly fine with this, but due to 1st and 2nd points I've made... the server load I mean... Enough said, I think?    … Expand
  51. Xalon
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    Yet another epic game series completely ruined by EA. So broken, it's totally unplayable. How many hundreds of times have we allowed EA to pull the wool over our eyes now? I'm looking forward to the next command and conquer being a piece of garbage also.
  52. IRSmurf
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    SimCity is a buggy mess. First, the UI stopped responding due to their overloaded servers. I couldn't even close the game, since it didn't want to close until it synchronized with the server. A server which was refusing connections. I Alt-F4'd out of it and tried to get back in the game. I had to spam the login, clicking it over and over, pressing the OK button saying the servers were busySimCity is a buggy mess. First, the UI stopped responding due to their overloaded servers. I couldn't even close the game, since it didn't want to close until it synchronized with the server. A server which was refusing connections. I Alt-F4'd out of it and tried to get back in the game. I had to spam the login, clicking it over and over, pressing the OK button saying the servers were busy over and over. I got in after about twenty minutes until I got in. Once I got it, it made me play through the tutorial again. Except this time, the dialogue boxes wouldn't load, since the servers were over capacity. I couldn't complete the tutorial. So I walked away from my computer for a while.

    I tried logging in again, and this time the game had a queue. Except it wasn't a queue that guaranteed access to the game after a specified wait. It was simply a retry button on a TWENTY MINUTE timer. For nearly half an hour I spammed the server selection screen, clicking US East, (Error: Busy), Server, US West (Error: Busy), Server, US East, (Error: Busy), Server, US West (Error: Busy), Server, US East, etc. I finally got in. I got into my city and went to region view. I worked on a new city in my region for another half hour and then the screen went black and SimCity closed. After a while I was able to reconnect. ALL MY WORK WAS GONE. I started a new city in the same area and IT HAPPENED AGAIN! It erased my progress.

    EA, this is horrible. If you don't have the server capacity to handle the launch of your always-on DRM scheme, you can't implement an always-on DRM scheme. I will never pre-order another EA title with always-on DRM.

    The fact that EA has the nevrve to say this disaster of a launch has only affected a smaller number of players is like rubbing salt in the wound. They're completely full of crap. Their lie only validates my opinion that EA has contempt for their customers.    … Expand
  53. Suyadon
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    I purchased this game yesterday; have yet to be able to play it (can't get on a server). I'm going with a 1 vs a zero because the load screen is really cool to look at. More importantly, there are some nice online video so you can just watch others play vs wasting your day or nights building your own city. I highly, I repeat, highly recommend you purchase this game if you DON'T want toI purchased this game yesterday; have yet to be able to play it (can't get on a server). I'm going with a 1 vs a zero because the load screen is really cool to look at. More importantly, there are some nice online video so you can just watch others play vs wasting your day or nights building your own city. I highly, I repeat, highly recommend you purchase this game if you DON'T want to play it. Hope this has been helpful!… Expand
  54. Mike_D
    Mar 5, 2013
    1
    I have completed everything that the game allows. Meaning I installed it and started it up. I would give it a 0 but the menu looks nice. There is no way to actually play the game so it is broken and should be avoided at all costs. I want to play BY MY SELF but it will not allow me to do so. Therefore it is broken and not worth buying.
  55. DA2sucks
    Mar 11, 2013
    1
    It takes Ubisoft to learn that it just not worth having persistently connected games and deal with the potential customer backlash afterward. I've since wary of buying anything coming out of Ubisoft. I will stay out of EA too if this persist and vote with my money, until they learn...
  56. grungebob
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    If you like to play this game... you can't. EA in their typical manner doesn't have enough servers and you are always trying to log in, even for single player games. Maybe in a few weeks it may be great... but if you want to play a city building game, stick with playing SimCity 4 or Cities XL for now.
  57. ezioauditore
    Mar 9, 2013
    1
    I have been waiting for this game for a long time, waiting for innovation and an entertaining, LARGE city-building game. This is a horrible game. And I'm saying this not taking into account the million problems I have had trying to play online. Not expecting this many players is a horibble excuse Maxis and EA. I severely recommend that nobody plays this game. The graphics, I don't evenI have been waiting for this game for a long time, waiting for innovation and an entertaining, LARGE city-building game. This is a horrible game. And I'm saying this not taking into account the million problems I have had trying to play online. Not expecting this many players is a horibble excuse Maxis and EA. I severely recommend that nobody plays this game. The graphics, I don't even want to talk about it, I recommend Cities XL. DO NOT play this game, do yourself this favor.… Expand
  58. Diaboliquin
    Mar 11, 2013
    1
    "Always-on DRM is a disease that we cannot allow ourselves to be so willingly infected by. It’s a curse on gaming. It’s diminishing our experiences, reducing the possibilities for our play, and creating a space where faulty games are accepted as complete. Always-on DRM is a broken game. They need to be fixed.""Always-on DRM is a disease that we cannot allow ourselves to be so willingly infected by. It’s a curse on gaming. It’s diminishing our experiences, reducing the possibilities for our play, and creating a space where faulty games are accepted as complete. Always-on DRM is a broken game. They need to be fixed."

    http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013/03/11/simcity-is-inherently-broken-lets-not-let-this-go/    … Expand
  59. Jopoo
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    Always-on DRM is pushing many of us PC gamers to crack/pirate sites to get around it and I've personally stopped giving money to offending companies as punishment.
  60. Kagd
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    NEVER SUPPORT ONLINE DRM FOR SINGLE PLAYER GAMES. Period.
    I cant enjoy this single player game because it forces me to be online. Worse then that EA's servers are broken.

    As for gameplay; the city limits are a complete disgrace. You end up with patches of heavy developed squares surrounded by empty grass. Just trash.
  61. starwalker
    Apr 7, 2014
    1
    EA should effectively FIRE the whole Game Design team for ruining a franchise and the trust of it from what Maxis had. Period.

    EA is doing a great job of killing well known Franchises down to nothing. Good Job EA. Good Job.

    And I'm talking about the offline experience, not even online.
  62. Wilian
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    A game with great potential and vision, but as anyone soon finds out that potential is wasted on the fact you can not even enter the game. While I'd like to give a long meaningful review of this product and a score to reflect it, all that is possible right now, few days after the game hit the market, is to groan at the connection screen.
  63. sagor
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    Very small area for the actual city, comparing to previous versions of the game.
    Graphics is not as good as it was in the video (and I play on ultra high).
    And you cannot even play it right now, as all servers are down, even though official response is they are up and running. EA in all its glory!
  64. Chapy
    Mar 16, 2013
    1
    LISTEN, all these red reviews are for a reason, forget the server issues, read on! The game is riddled with bugs, gamebreaking bugs, and I don't even mean crashes or performance issues. Here is a reddit thread dedicated to listing some of these gamebreaking bugs. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a0taq/compiled_list_of_suggestions_and_bug_reports_to/ The AI of your utilityLISTEN, all these red reviews are for a reason, forget the server issues, read on! The game is riddled with bugs, gamebreaking bugs, and I don't even mean crashes or performance issues. Here is a reddit thread dedicated to listing some of these gamebreaking bugs. http://www.reddit.com/r/SimCity/comments/1a0taq/compiled_list_of_suggestions_and_bug_reports_to/ The AI of your utility workers are just broken, the pathfinding is atrocious. Just today I discovered a building that costs half a million dollars doesn't actually unlock things that it claims it unlocks in its description. A half a million is not change. These red reviews are acceptable based purely on gameplay bugs alone, but if you incorporate the legitimate server issues that STILL persist (3/16/2013) than this is a game that EA and Maxis should literally be ashamed of.… Expand
  65. kevtheobald
    Mar 27, 2013
    1
    I had a nice long review written, but their servers had an error and it was lost. Here is the short version. EA is using a DRM which requires you to always be online to play. You cannot save a game locally on your computer. That means if you drop your connection, you lost your city. They do not allow you to turn off disaster mode and the game has little to no challenge to it. The only goodI had a nice long review written, but their servers had an error and it was lost. Here is the short version. EA is using a DRM which requires you to always be online to play. You cannot save a game locally on your computer. That means if you drop your connection, you lost your city. They do not allow you to turn off disaster mode and the game has little to no challenge to it. The only good thing is the game is pretty. Avoid this game and you will avoid many headaches.… Expand
  66. skelling_jen13
    Jul 19, 2014
    1
    Seeing as every time I try to start the game it says, "servers unavailable," this is the worst waste of money I have ever had the mistake of buying. Do not buy the game, I can only imagine its a scam if every time I try to play it won't let me.
  67. Ekras
    Mar 5, 2013
    1
    What a waste of money. First off the cities are tiny (making you constantly have to re-start and build over from scratch), the AI it horrible, and the interface is lackluster at best. Than you have the perma-DRM which totally wrecks the game- if your connection hiccups you can't save so you have to restart from the last save when you had internet access. The game crashes frequently tooWhat a waste of money. First off the cities are tiny (making you constantly have to re-start and build over from scratch), the AI it horrible, and the interface is lackluster at best. Than you have the perma-DRM which totally wrecks the game- if your connection hiccups you can't save so you have to restart from the last save when you had internet access. The game crashes frequently too which makes this even more frustrating. I'm giving this a "1" just for the Sim City name outside of the little bit of nostalgia this brings back to Maxis' pre-EA classic there is nothing of value in this game.… Expand
  68. MikeDubC
    Mar 5, 2013
    1
    I did not want to do a review based on DRM.....but I was left no choice. I love the game, I would give it a 9 out of 10, if the DRM was better. Even when I do get into servers, sometimes the server will crash, and I will lose an hour of progress. This really makes the game unplayable. I would prefer no online play rather than this.

    Its really a shame EA has done this, probably my last    I did not want to do a review based on DRM.....but I was left no choice. I love the game, I would give it a 9 out of 10, if the DRM was better. Even when I do get into servers, sometimes the server will crash, and I will lose an hour of progress. This really makes the game unplayable. I would prefer no online play rather than this.

    Its really a shame EA has done this, probably my last purchase from them.    … Expand
  69. williamflipper
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    There is a big potential inside this wreck train but for the price asked is offensive toward any consumer.
    It feels like a Cityvile or any sim/facebook type of game pumped up by high budget, You can not avoid to play with other players and also YOU NEED other players to share their resources because the game design doesn't allow the player to be self-sufficient with resources and able to    There is a big potential inside this wreck train but for the price asked is offensive toward any consumer.
    It feels like a Cityvile or any sim/facebook type of game pumped up by high budget, You can not avoid to play with other players and also YOU NEED other players to share their resources because the game design doesn't allow the player to be self-sufficient with resources and able to covers the citizens needs    … Expand
  70. Orbies
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    I have not been able to play. So now I will not play, regardless if they get this working. I am absolutely done with EA forever, and will voice this to as many people as I know.
  71. CornerBoy
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    So the game's been out for 2 days now, and I still haven't been able to play due to the ridiculous online only feature. It actually seems like people pirating the game are the only ones able to play.
  72. ramha
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    Pay and do not play by EA is the height of arrogance!
    Ubisoft has also had an experience on hard DRM protection, but EA did not listen to other people's mistakes and have started to do the same. It's a shame when good projects EA spoils And it is not the first time
  73. Joacimsvensson
    Mar 14, 2013
    1
    Fun concept but an un-worthy sequel that is extremly flawed and buggy. Read http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=523158 for the complete story.
  74. Ryanjf
    Mar 5, 2013
    1
    Can not play offline. Servers are overwhelmed and since it uses DRM, even if you get connected, it will disconnect you when it randomly checks your license and can't connect to the server.
  75. PC-EliTiST
    Mar 15, 2013
    1
    "EA destoying games" moto started by some "whiners" -a few will say, but currently is has become an indisputable reality. They bought all the good games because they have investors with much money. Those investors now sit in their 5millions vila and receive from the gamer's pain. Check the latest games that all of them have been released in a not even beta form, and you'll understand what"EA destoying games" moto started by some "whiners" -a few will say, but currently is has become an indisputable reality. They bought all the good games because they have investors with much money. Those investors now sit in their 5millions vila and receive from the gamer's pain. Check the latest games that all of them have been released in a not even beta form, and you'll understand what happened to Sim4. They want to make as much money as they can, but they invest as less as they can.… Expand
  76. Rockstorm
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    After waiting for around 30 minutes in a queue to finally play the game, my city gets corrupted and I lose some of my progress so far. This is unacceptable. This is for all intents and purposes a single player game and there's no reason to be always online. DO NOT BUY!
  77. abentwookie
    Mar 9, 2013
    1
    Wow this "Always Online" nonsense completely wrecked this game to the point where we can't even play it. And in an attempt to fix the problems they actually disable many of the games features. lol I already did a chargeback to get my money and I will not be buying another EA game until they stop doing this nonsense. If you buy a single-player game then you should be able to freaking playWow this "Always Online" nonsense completely wrecked this game to the point where we can't even play it. And in an attempt to fix the problems they actually disable many of the games features. lol I already did a chargeback to get my money and I will not be buying another EA game until they stop doing this nonsense. If you buy a single-player game then you should be able to freaking play it OFFLINE! This is just one of the many reasons why I think we're going to see another gaming industry crash... Companies are just getting out of control with all of the ridiculous decisions.… Expand
  78. Stumblebee
    Mar 22, 2013
    1
    The obviously glaring issue here is the forced DRM, which I'm sure you've realized by now that it's not even required. The whole "The game is multiplayer" excuse EA are giving is a lie, seeing as how many other multiplayer games show that a constant internet connection isn't needed.

    It's as simple as this EA want to force people to use Origin, simply to claim that people ACTUALLY use    The obviously glaring issue here is the forced DRM, which I'm sure you've realized by now that it's not even required. The whole "The game is multiplayer" excuse EA are giving is a lie, seeing as how many other multiplayer games show that a constant internet connection isn't needed.

    It's as simple as this EA want to force people to use Origin, simply to claim that people ACTUALLY use Origin, to use in their snazzy advertising campaigns that "Oh, 10 million people use Origin" when those 10 million people are forced to use Origin and more tha likely just use it to install their game and never buy anything from Origin at all.

    Honestly, you'd think with all the crap that EA have been getting, even to the fact that it forced the CEO to resign, that they'd stop stuff like DRM, DLC-mania and Microtransactions. What ever happened to make game, release game, get money? Rather than make game, try to grab more money, end up having lackluster sales, blame the developers?

    Anyways, rant aside and launch problems aside, this is essentially a $60 facebook game, it's SimCity Societies with snazzier graphics. I'd honestly recommend SimCity 4 to you guys anyways, better music, around the same graphics, more stuff to do, you can actually launch the game, plus it's like $14.00 on steam or something.

    Despite what people are saying, I don't think gaming is dead, I don't even think EA is dead, there's SOME glimmer now that the CEO's resigned and they got their largest kick in the ass so far, but I DO think gaming journalism is dead. Paid reviewers everywhere! Subjective journalism feuled by opinions everywhere!    … Expand
  79. FGRaptor
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    I’m not a reviewer or anything, but I figured I might as well try something like this. However, I can’t review SimCity because I only played about 30 minutes so far and spend about 1 hour trying to play it.

    What I have played was nice, although plagued by graphical glitches, bugs, and connection problems. The game looks nice and is actually more difficult than I imagined after playing    I’m not a reviewer or anything, but I figured I might as well try something like this. However, I can’t review SimCity because I only played about 30 minutes so far and spend about 1 hour trying to play it.

    What I have played was nice, although plagued by graphical glitches, bugs, and connection problems. The game looks nice and is actually more difficult than I imagined after playing the beta (demo) weekend.

    I don’t understand why you have to play the tutorial every time you join a new server instead if all menu options being available at all times though. This is the worst decision I have ever seen being made (probably not the worst), and I don’t know how this got through QA.

    The game is currently plagued by server problems and basically unplayable. The fact there are different servers instead of a one-server technology like The Secret World uses, is bad enough as it is. You can’t really play with everyone and your cities are saved to specific servers and this unavailable anywhere else.

    Maxis might have made a good game here, but it’s impossible to tell.

    I wouldn’t recommend anyone to buy this at the moment, as it’s equivalent to buying a not working product or entering a scam deal that asks for 30 quid in exchange for a good fortune. Personally I already feel cheated, having paid for a product that does not work. This is, in my opinion, a scam.

    I will update my view on it when the game actually works.    … Expand
  80. sota767
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    I was able to play the game a few hours after it released, and since then it has been nothing but connection issues and server errors. This always-on, cloud-saved, server-side-only design is completely terrible. SimCity always has been a massive game you played by yourself. Introducing a multiplayer mode and these other online components would have been fine if you could simply ignore themI was able to play the game a few hours after it released, and since then it has been nothing but connection issues and server errors. This always-on, cloud-saved, server-side-only design is completely terrible. SimCity always has been a massive game you played by yourself. Introducing a multiplayer mode and these other online components would have been fine if you could simply ignore them and play offline if you still wanted, but forcing everybody to go this route is insane and is causing the release of the game to be a utter failure.

    EA you're not defeating piracy, your defeating your customers. If there ever becomes a way to bypass the online component of SimCity 2013 (crack, private server, whatever) I'll use it in a heartbeat instead of dealing with this crap.    … Expand
  81. frame
    Mar 10, 2013
    1
    I'll adjust my rating once offline mode got added to the game. Currently it's unplayable and way too small. I did expect a lot more from this franchise.
  82. a20012322
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    I managed to play SimCity for a couple hours and it was ok at best and then I got disconnected. The regions are too small and I didn't have enough time to see what the resource specialization would do after running out or what the water table does when you run out. Does it ever come back I can't tell because the game stopped working. Now that the servers are limping along load times areI managed to play SimCity for a couple hours and it was ok at best and then I got disconnected. The regions are too small and I didn't have enough time to see what the resource specialization would do after running out or what the water table does when you run out. Does it ever come back I can't tell because the game stopped working. Now that the servers are limping along load times are now expected to be in the minutes scale and if you play solo you need to switch between cities more frequently which means you will be spending a lot of time in front of a loading screen. In addition for the foreseeable future "non-essential features" such as the leaderboards, social aspects, are non-functional. One of the worst gameplay changes they have made is the removal of the accelerated time mode which is critical to playing the game enjoyably unless you want to wait for a very long time for anything to happen. I have also lost game progress when the client randomly disconnects as there is not even a button to save to the cloud or a good way to warning you that you've lost your DRM connection and have two minutes before you get booted out.

    In addition trading when the servers were working took forever to complete and takes the resources away the moment you gift them and if you switch to the other city it can take tens of minutes to complete. All the while you can be waiting.

    The glassbox simulation system seems a bit strange in that technically it is all just flowery GUI for what is quite simple. For example electricity and water are treated as parcels when in reality that is not possible and more so for electricity. When you lose power and build back capacity it can take a long time for the city to react and similarly for water. The map size is also quite constrictive and the lack of terrain editing functionality is a fairly glaring omission. You can not also create your own regions as in previous games and automatic road connections can get quite fiddly at times. If your roads are even a degree off and running near the edge of the map it can present difficulties creating a smooth section of road.

    A lot of the focus of the new SimCity 5 seems to be centered around the roads and basically everything must be attached to a road or it will not function or even be placeable. (You can't even place parks without snapping it to a road) The automatic grid guides are also not very smart and don't tell you anything about how far apart is too much and the zone tiles give no indication of how much space will be needed for the larger high density buildings. Generated curved road is an absolute nightmare and the snaps go all over the place.

    In short, game design is a step backwards, game doesn't work properly, features have been removed that are critical to the game. And in a few years the game may just cease to exist if they turn off the servers.    … Expand
  83. sintri
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    Ignoring the fact that your city sizes are small as hell. The cities themselves function normally even without any connect to the internet at all so there's really no reason for the size limit or an internet connection at all. Also ignoring that portions of the game are still a mess, for one the sims look like crap and some of them are even missing models, and alot of the game assetsIgnoring the fact that your city sizes are small as hell. The cities themselves function normally even without any connect to the internet at all so there's really no reason for the size limit or an internet connection at all. Also ignoring that portions of the game are still a mess, for one the sims look like crap and some of them are even missing models, and alot of the game assets don't line up properly at all, floating utliltiy buildings, roads protruding over each other, service vehicles doing continous U-turns for no reason at all. Ignoring all that, bottom line is it's day 3, and most of us haven't even been able to log on once, and those who have spent more hours trying to log on than actual playing. So yea, not likely to be buying another Origin game ever again.… Expand
  84. Piata
    Mar 5, 2013
    1
    Always online, no true single player, no way to save and reload your games, extremely small city size, lots of microtransactions planned and no way of knowing when EA will pull the plug.

    Best save your dollars and skip this one.
  85. Hornybeast
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    Dear EA can i please play my single player game i purchased from you
    some may think i'm asking too much of a big company like EA to see me as worthy of playing their game
    but after parting with it would be nice to "have a go"
  86. ironikart
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    The server issues still 2 days after release is still a disaster highlighting the problems with online DRM. Even when the initial rush has calmed down and things level out, having your saved game tied to a server and being forced to login for single player is a joke. The game is relatively expensive and so far unplayable. I managed to get an hour in before complete server disconnection andThe server issues still 2 days after release is still a disaster highlighting the problems with online DRM. Even when the initial rush has calmed down and things level out, having your saved game tied to a server and being forced to login for single player is a joke. The game is relatively expensive and so far unplayable. I managed to get an hour in before complete server disconnection and had already filled the small size land plot. This might lead to some interesting optimisations to get the biggest population size, but no place to expand outwards without creating multiple cities in region. Maxis joins other reputable developers in the dog house...… Expand
  87. tigerpapa
    Mar 9, 2013
    1
    Damn online DRM I hate you When you bought the game and play it at once you will find the server error will make you mad Just like Diablo 3 ,I think it's not worse to preorder for the game Just wait to the discount
  88. Darmog
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    As a long time fan of the series this game is very disappointing. The cities are way too small. The AI for fire, police, traffic, and mass transit are terrible. The online DRM is infuriating, especially when there are server issues. The game crashes far too often, especially when selecting cities. They charge full retail price for digital delivery. It's hard to make any kind of decentAs a long time fan of the series this game is very disappointing. The cities are way too small. The AI for fire, police, traffic, and mass transit are terrible. The online DRM is infuriating, especially when there are server issues. The game crashes far too often, especially when selecting cities. They charge full retail price for digital delivery. It's hard to make any kind of decent large city without going bankrupt, how not to do so is not very apparent at first. Cities in regions only connect with cities in the same corner. There a few new and interesting concepts but all in all the game is a huge disappointed and not worth the premium price, especially for digital delivery. Oh, and launch-day content for extra cost, bad form EA. Put it in the game and add content later.… Expand
  89. kafkaten
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    The level of disdain that this company must have for its customers is unreal. To force paying customers into an "always-on-line" system for an ostensibly single-player game is already a dangerous, anti-consumer road for the industry to go down. But then to have that system be a miserable failure at launch? And this after a extensive Beta? Wow. I sincerely hope their sales take a hit,The level of disdain that this company must have for its customers is unreal. To force paying customers into an "always-on-line" system for an ostensibly single-player game is already a dangerous, anti-consumer road for the industry to go down. But then to have that system be a miserable failure at launch? And this after a extensive Beta? Wow. I sincerely hope their sales take a hit, because I'd hate to think that EA could get away with this kind of business practice and still make a massive profit.… Expand
  90. Belkanell
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    Impossible de télécharger, de jouer un jeu pourtant facturé 70€ dans sa version collector. Gros foutage de gueule de la part d'Electronic Arts. Ce n'est pas comme si il n'y avait pas eu d'exemples juste avant avec Diablo 3 ou même Guild Wars 2. Ce n'est pas le joueur qui doit s'adapter aux jeux, mais bien l'inverse.
  91. xaero1ne
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    well lets see, i may have been able to give this game a better score but since its now been out for almost 2 full days, i have yet to be able to play it for more then 20 minutes due to all the stupid errors and server issues. i though you guys ran a beta to prevent all this. good job EA, just know that i will NEVER, EVER, not in a million years, ever, pre-purchase one of your games. EVER!
  92. canie
    Mar 26, 2013
    1
    I bought this game about 1½ week after launch, I've not had many server issues, but I have had other issues. My city with 100.000 citizens only has about 10.000 workers and about 3000 students, what do the other 87.000 do all day? The lack of workers means that big cities don't generate much income compared to the cost of having hospitals, public transport etc. for 100.000 people.
    The    I bought this game about 1½ week after launch, I've not had many server issues, but I have had other issues. My city with 100.000 citizens only has about 10.000 workers and about 3000 students, what do the other 87.000 do all day? The lack of workers means that big cities don't generate much income compared to the cost of having hospitals, public transport etc. for 100.000 people.
    The traffic is terrible, really terrible, I can't get it flowing in spite of having many buses and streetcars.    … Expand
  93. MikeF
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    Garbage DRM, Windows only. Really? In this day and age, Windows is old news; cross-platform is the future. Get with the times Devs. These big game companies are dying, grasping for air with reboots and old content.
  94. Boelens
    Mar 5, 2013
    1
    The game itself, as I have seen is lots of fun. However, the restrictions are horrible. Cloud based saving, so you can't have your save files on your PC, small cities, and the DRM,always online Origin. This game could have been good, but they made it terrible.
  95. NickDaWOlf
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    The game itself isnt this bad, but the use of DRM for an experience which should clearly be one player is disgusting. I could live with the pathetic cant connect to server errors if I could play it single player while waiting for them to resolve their issues, but my patience has been worn thin by these greedy fools and their always online foolishness. From now on, any single player gameThe game itself isnt this bad, but the use of DRM for an experience which should clearly be one player is disgusting. I could live with the pathetic cant connect to server errors if I could play it single player while waiting for them to resolve their issues, but my patience has been worn thin by these greedy fools and their always online foolishness. From now on, any single player game with an always online requirement will automatically fall into the "Do Not Buy" category, even if its a classic.… Expand
  96. zaphod6502
    Mar 9, 2013
    1
    It seems games companies refuse to learn from past mistakes. Or maybe they keep retrenching employees after every game release who would have known better. And so SimCity joins the long line of failures because of lack of developer/publisher planning and heavy handed DRM schemes. UbiSoft learned a hard lesson from forcing DRM on people. And now EA will learn that lesson as well. If I can'tIt seems games companies refuse to learn from past mistakes. Or maybe they keep retrenching employees after every game release who would have known better. And so SimCity joins the long line of failures because of lack of developer/publisher planning and heavy handed DRM schemes. UbiSoft learned a hard lesson from forcing DRM on people. And now EA will learn that lesson as well. If I can't play a game because I am locked out of a server or I can't interact meaningfully with other players in SimCity because features have been turned off at the last minute well what is the point of selling me that game EA.

    Shame on you EA. Once again you continue to feed your own stereotype of one of the world's worst game publishers.    … Expand
  97. Phorosis
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    Since I am an expat living outside of the US it was near impossible to download the game since Origin matches language payment by IP address. Luckily, Amazon offers a direct download which I was able to do no problem (reason for my 1 point score). After downloading the game, I was unable to even start the tutorial which continued to disconnect me, even after trying different servers. ISince I am an expat living outside of the US it was near impossible to download the game since Origin matches language payment by IP address. Luckily, Amazon offers a direct download which I was able to do no problem (reason for my 1 point score). After downloading the game, I was unable to even start the tutorial which continued to disconnect me, even after trying different servers. I have no choice but to wait until they fix the issue because as of right now the game is literally un-playable. This is the first time that I have ever seen this before. To actually hand over $60 for a game that doesn't even work. Of course I will continue to be patient and hope the issue gets resolved because I love the SIm City franchise but I will think long and hard before I ever purchase another game from EA.… Expand
  98. Tiller828
    Mar 6, 2013
    1
    I find it hard to believe that anyone can give this game a high score as of now. I havent even been able to play it period, let alone enough to be able to rate it. This is just another failed launch from EA,, and its starting to become habit.
    I did notice most of the positive comments are people not actually rating the game but giving their braindead opinions on why DRM games are great,    I find it hard to believe that anyone can give this game a high score as of now. I havent even been able to play it period, let alone enough to be able to rate it. This is just another failed launch from EA,, and its starting to become habit.
    I did notice most of the positive comments are people not actually rating the game but giving their braindead opinions on why DRM games are great, even though their launch fails everytime, so I guess that would explain it    … Expand
  99. Sh4rk82
    Mar 8, 2013
    1
    It 's the second day and still there are problems accessing the server. It 's amazing that a person who spends 60 euro for a game bought legally can not play for days. You should compensate all the fans who have spent money on not being able to play with their legal copy. FRAUD ...
    A server that show the word "available" get stuck for hours when authenticating with servers simcity. Shame!
  100. cameronrogers
    Mar 7, 2013
    1
    I bought it, but then took it back. Walmart DID allow me to take it back. Thank god they did. First of all, lets list the pros:
    PROS:
    Graphics Thats all. Now cons: -Small cities. EACH CITY is smaller then the small city in Simcity 4. Not a joke. -Aggressive Anti Piracy. It seems like EA wants to shoot themselves in the foot. This is just terrible. It requires the server to be    I bought it, but then took it back. Walmart DID allow me to take it back. Thank god they did. First of all, lets list the pros:
    PROS:
    Graphics

    Thats all.

    Now cons:
    -Small cities. EACH CITY is smaller then the small city in Simcity 4. Not a joke.
    -Aggressive Anti Piracy. It seems like EA wants to shoot themselves in the foot. This is just terrible. It requires the server to be connected too, so 24/7 internet is a must. Look online, the massive flood of people is causing the game to not be playable due to server requirements. Lol fail. -Server is basically DOA. You cant connect at all. I wanted to enjoy it, i really did. But you know what? Im 100% done with EA, Maxis and all franchises from this company. They ruined Dead Space 3 for me, now Simcity. Whatever EA. I will be sure to spread this review all over. You wont get away with ruining Simcity.    … Expand
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Awards & Rankings

2
#2 Most Discussed PC Game of 2013
21
#21 Most Shared PC Game of 2013

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
64

Mixed or average reviews - based on 75 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 26 out of 75
  2. Mixed: 39 out of 75
  3. Negative: 10 out of 75
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Jun 5, 2013
    65
    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]
  2. Games Master UK
    May 9, 2013
    68
    Hints at great things but is limited by small cities and promises it can't deliver on. [June 2013, p.80]
  3. Hyper Magazine
    May 9, 2013
    40
    There's more problems with this game than I have words. Looks great though. [June 2013, p.80]
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