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. Azorax
    Jun 27, 2013
    7
    To really review this game as it is now, you might think that most of the bad reviews are just because people are biased because of server problems. However I am going to compare this game to its predecessors with reference to its supposed 'cloud processing'.
    - It was fun playing with a friend, this was not due to the supposed multiplayer, but it was fun because we could see each other's    To really review this game as it is now, you might think that most of the bad reviews are just because people are biased because of server problems. However I am going to compare this game to its predecessors with reference to its supposed 'cloud processing'.
    - It was fun playing with a friend, this was not due to the supposed multiplayer, but it was fun because we could see each other's development and we strived to make a sustainable and still a good looking city.
    - Cities feel so so very small when we think about what the older simcities were like. My friend and I both agreed that cities should be bigger as it felt very crowded when we made high rises and large buildings and landmarks.
    - More maps and links. We see these maps are even more of an unnecessary restriction, why are we unable to connect every city and great work via road/railways, this would encourage us to play more in order to get every great work and create more cities since they are connected.
    - Ferries are so useless (imo)
    - I believe that they have attempted to (i forgot the word for it) re-make/re-publish this franchise a bit, however they should definitely remove the oh-so many restrictions this game has. Whether it be offline play, or large cities, or amount of cities on one map. I see simcity as a sandbox where I can create whatever I like and how many I want to make, and if you restrict me in this way, I really can't enjoy it to the fullest. While I do take into account that they may or may not be telling the truth that they require cloud processing and if restrictions were not placed then it might be too much, then they could spend more time seeing if they can utilise multi-core properly.
    - I feel that it was rushed and ruined by EA being their publisher. I feel for maxim.
    - Saying that, I have enjoyed the game for most of the 77+ hours (the is because origin booted me out and didn't save more of my hours) that I've played
    - 7/10 for me. I still put more hours into this game than most, though I don't know if the enjoyment factor was as much. I recommend picking this up if you are/were into simcity when it gets discounted/down to a low price    … Expand
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. DrMutomofobo
    Jun 23, 2013
    4
    In this version of SimCity you compete and cooperate alongside other mayors within a larger region containing several areas. Citizens, resources and economies all interact with eachother across the borders, and the decision of one city influences the development of another in quite an intriguing manner.

    This really could have been a great game if it hadn't been for the fact that it's    In this version of SimCity you compete and cooperate alongside other mayors within a larger region containing several areas. Citizens, resources and economies all interact with eachother across the borders, and the decision of one city influences the development of another in quite an intriguing manner.

    This really could have been a great game if it hadn't been for the fact that it's not. Not right now at least but with a couple of patches and an expansion or five it could be. At present there are so many issues that despite the new and interesting features and it's obvious potential overall gameplay suffers vastly. The 5000 characters permitted won't be sufficient for me to list the game's every shortcoming, so I'll just focus on the most essantial ones.

    First off, the area you're given is so small you can hardly fit a small town in it far less a metropolis. Nothing more to say about that really... if you like it cramped you'll marry this game and carry it's children no doubt. And these cramped buildspaces are particularly annoying seeing as how certain disasters (who seems to occur quite frequent) leave large portions of land uninhabitable for long (near infinite) periods of time.

    And to add to this misery of small build-areas, you can't even interact properly with the tiny patch of land you're given. Even the simplest of landscaping functions such as leveling/flattening the terrain in order to make more room for buildings has been removed and seeing as how the placement of buildings is dependent on the terrain the tiniest elevation can ruin any hope you have of properly planning the outlay of your city.

    How can you construct a city, if you're unable to interact with the terrain? Have you ever seen someone build a house without first adapting the ground? There are bulldozers in the game but appearantly these only work on removing buildings and rubbles of buildings.

    Even The Sims has terrain tools even in that game where you're only constructing houses they understand the value of this yet in SimCity where you're supposed to manage an entire city they've chosen to remove this option entirely.

    And speaking of stupid...

    The regions you choose are all preset. You are unable to create new ones like you could in SimCity 4, and the ones you're stuck with gets dull real fast. Especially seeing as how you can't even influence which areas of the region are made available nor the landscape within in these areas.

    Why anyone would take away the ability for users to customize or create own regions is beyond me. Adding such features can keep a game fresh for years without any effort made on behalf of the developers at all and well-designed user-content is a potential source of income too.

    As of now you can't even kick an inactive player from your regions your influence on setting up your own game is actually *that* limited. So if the person controlling your neighboring city decides he doesn't want to play anymore, you're stuck with his deteriorating community forever. And seeing as how one city's development influences the next, this can effect your area quite profoundly.

    So... To conclude...

    All in all I enjoy this game. At first I didn't. I got hung up on it's issues and comparing it to SimCity 4 which I hold very dear and this blinded me of it's uniqueness and it's potential. But after having played it a couple of days it's actually grown on me. It delivers many new twists and concepts that can be challenging and rewarding in their own ways but this fascination won't last unless they add more interactivity to the concept and solve some of the major and deeply annoying gameplay and design issues.

    Because this game *does* have plenty of issues the ones mentioned here are far from all of them and if it is to reach it's full potential they have to be addressed. Otherwise it will end up in mediocrity, be one of many games you buy, play for a while and then uninstall for a long period of time before you one dull day decide to reinstall it again hoping it's not as limited as you remember it to be only to find yourself disappointed once more.

    I won't recommend anyone buying this game at present, if I could do it over I'd most likely wait a couple of months when it's clearer in which direction it's headed but it's not so horrible I would warn against it either.

    I've already had my money's worth of fun and it's only been a couple of days since I got it, and despite all the issues and the fact that it lacks much of what I enjoyed from previous games it also has a lot to build on.

    Let's just hope whoever decided to leave out landscaping tools is long gone when they do, and that the sensibility of the rest is larger than the maps they've provided us with so far. Otherwise, this game is doomed.    … Expand
  5. Oligharch
    Jun 23, 2013
    3
    Wow. Im stating to realize just how delusional the critics are. I honestly doubt they played simcity 4. The maps are disgustingly small.The traffic is ridiculous, but i guess when you cram 300 000 people in 2 fuking squared kilometers, thats what you get. Extremely inadequate public transit systems (trams cause more traffic then they relieve) and busses never reach their destination, theyWow. Im stating to realize just how delusional the critics are. I honestly doubt they played simcity 4. The maps are disgustingly small.The traffic is ridiculous, but i guess when you cram 300 000 people in 2 fuking squared kilometers, thats what you get. Extremely inadequate public transit systems (trams cause more traffic then they relieve) and busses never reach their destination, they just get stuck in traffic. 3 out of 10. I regret buying this game. If EA thinks they can just nickle and dime us to death with stupid expansions that they removed from their origional appalling mistake of a video game, they are trully mistaken.… Expand
  6. oldbrokenlink
    Jun 21, 2013
    0
    i'm giving this game a 0 not because it deserves a zero if they fix it, but because it it currently stands it does deserve a zero.

    where should i begin. well for one thing this is the first game that i've paid $85 for preorder! and i cant begin to say how upset i am with maxis/ea for taking my money and giving me in return a broken unfinished game. that they admit will never be    i'm giving this game a 0 not because it deserves a zero if they fix it, but because it it currently stands it does deserve a zero.

    where should i begin. well for one thing this is the first game that i've paid $85 for preorder!

    and i cant begin to say how upset i am with maxis/ea for taking my money and giving me in return a broken unfinished game.

    that they admit will never be fixed because of their business decisions to have it this way.

    if you love cities builders this is not the game for you. its a game for the mindless masses who want to casually play a game for a short bit and then throw it all away.

    first its all online all the time with no ability to save locally or to play offline

    that may not sound so bad until you begin to run into problems where hours, days or more of gameplay gets rolled back or lost or is just inaccessible.!

    then there is the fact that the cities are tiny and i mean its a pure fiction to call them cities since they are little more than tiny towns.

    and the game play and game logic is more akin and in common with simtown than simcity franchise. its all fixed and fudged from the population to the game logic. there is no rci, things are just event driven to keep you entertained. and that is why traffic is always broken sim have no home or work address and other agents are as mindless and worthless and running around aimlessly. notifications are faked you can have the town covered with police stations and the sims are unhappy because there are not enough police because the game logic says when population hits some arbitrary point require them to build one more police station and it goes on and one and one. just look at the game logic source code that was released and you see how pointless and bad it is.

    worse its pay to win, since all the dlc are meant to give you an advantage over the base game and are not purely cosmetic. yeap they have us buying crest toothpaste to get dlcs to keep our sims happy.

    finally the multiplayer the whole reason they say for all our troubles is broken, unreliable. i mean i dare not share resources because i dont want my firetrucks, police force, ambulances, garbage trucks, students, ect leaving town and never coming back! or worse if anyone in the whole region puts a vu tower all the towns in the reason are constantly overrun by crime! finally its not like you can share resources or send someone money or a gift realtime, it can take hours before they get it. so if you are playing with someone and they need firetrucks what is the point by the time they get them they are offline and no longer need them.

    worse in a couple years when the player count and sales are low and/or when they release a new version guess what like with the sims you have to buy it all over again and you lose access to all your cities! so much for years of effort to build your cities. no local saves and no ability to continue to play the game offline!

    finally, other than new dlcs and fix after fix or cosmetics meant to hide the problems the game is and will always be online only no local save and broken and faked and fudged because it's all ea/maxis business decision to have it this way.

    so there is no point in spending your hard earned money on this game and no point in even playing.

    get simcity 4, cities xl platinum even tropico 4 instead and save your money on this overpriced turd    … Expand
  7. tjgiannhs8es
    Jun 21, 2013
    2
    The game is kinda fun without all the issues with the connection and servers, etc. However, the space you have now is very limited and it is the biggest flaw in the gameplay as you can build a whole metropolis in less than a day. The mechanics are fun, but I cannot compare them to another simcity unfortunately. Also, stupid DLCs and crappy graphics (unless you have a REALLY powerful PC)The game is kinda fun without all the issues with the connection and servers, etc. However, the space you have now is very limited and it is the biggest flaw in the gameplay as you can build a whole metropolis in less than a day. The mechanics are fun, but I cannot compare them to another simcity unfortunately. Also, stupid DLCs and crappy graphics (unless you have a REALLY powerful PC) make it a complete letdown. It definitely is not worth ANY money, even for the hardcore fans as it will frustrate you more than it will amuse you.… Expand
  8. dam1306
    Jun 19, 2013
    0
    This game follow the CYBIECGM ideology ("convert your Brand in easy casual gamer money").
    It is a shame that a such great series, with such a great appeal, is ruined by the developing of social interaction (that no-one wants) instead of real city-building related functionality (Mass Transit! Mass Transit! Mass Transit!).
    I am very, very, very, disappointed.
  9. Jessrond
    Jun 19, 2013
    5
    Before SimCity came out, I was hyped for it. The idea of working with friends (and even strangers) to build a region was something I've wanted to do for a long time. I knew going in that the game would not be quite as detailed as SimCity 4. But at launch, and even a few months later, hardly any of the "online play" features have come to pass.

    You have to sign in to Origin to play, yet    Before SimCity came out, I was hyped for it. The idea of working with friends (and even strangers) to build a region was something I've wanted to do for a long time. I knew going in that the game would not be quite as detailed as SimCity 4. But at launch, and even a few months later, hardly any of the "online play" features have come to pass.

    You have to sign in to Origin to play, yet the region rankings and other leaderboards hardly seem to work at all. Disappointing. The game itself isn't terrible. The missions are enjoyable and the game maintains its sense of humor and excellent music that have been with the series for its entirety.

    But overall, it's just not what I was hoping for, and I still play SimCity 4 more than I play this.    … Expand
  10. Ericius
    Jun 18, 2013
    10
    Great game! If you liked the old sim city games Sim city 5 will be a great pleasure to play. It is very recognizable to the old games. This time though the game dives much deeper into detail and micromanagement. If you like to play fast without much eye for detail the game will work fine but you can dive as deep as you want. Making my first city is was just the beginning. After that youGreat game! If you liked the old sim city games Sim city 5 will be a great pleasure to play. It is very recognizable to the old games. This time though the game dives much deeper into detail and micromanagement. If you like to play fast without much eye for detail the game will work fine but you can dive as deep as you want. Making my first city is was just the beginning. After that you can start your own territory and claim all city area's and with that start this huge metropolis. If you like to play with other users you play an open area and help each other develop parts of the world. I understood that there were major start up problems so I waited until those were fixed. Since I bought it I experienced no bugs, flaws or crashes.… Expand
  11. montreal
    Jun 18, 2013
    0
    This game is a train wreck. I desperately wanted to like it but it seems every time I muster the energy to start again, the servers are down for an update or some other kind of silly reason. I'm not against online DRM when it doesn't prevent me from playing the game. Civilization V is a good example. It works every time. Simcity is just disappointing. And having just one road going into aThis game is a train wreck. I desperately wanted to like it but it seems every time I muster the energy to start again, the servers are down for an update or some other kind of silly reason. I'm not against online DRM when it doesn't prevent me from playing the game. Civilization V is a good example. It works every time. Simcity is just disappointing. And having just one road going into a city is unrealistic and dumb.… Expand
  12. zGeneral
    Jun 16, 2013
    5
    This is not Simcity
    The maps are tooooo small
    very limited road options.

    I am not playing the game until they make larger maps and fix the roads it is a joke.
  13. cn2305
    Jun 12, 2013
    6
    Game appears to be good, but there are a moderate amount of issues with the game. The always-on DRM stops players from getting into the game, even in single player. Secondly there are a number of bugs in the game but there appears to be no way of fixing them, so this game has ton of problems.
  14. svtraptor
    Jun 9, 2013
    10
    Everyone should ignore the low scores this game has solved its online bugs and is great now! I fell in love with it and played 45 hours in the first month. Great DLC continues to come out. I recommend this to anyone who likes simulator games.
  15. LoneDutyer
    Jun 9, 2013
    0
    Always online DRM that can be disabled by deleting one line of code, terrible programming, unplayable at launch, lies and lies and lies, absolutely disgusting example of why EA is the worst thing to ever happen to gaming.
  16. Malorey
    Jun 9, 2013
    1
    Months after this game was released and it is still full of bugs and the only way you can get any enjoyment out of the game is by exploiting and manipulating the bugs in your favour. In the meantime Maxis/EA continue to release DLC for their broken game. A total travesty!
  17. Teewilliger
    Jun 5, 2013
    0
    You can shove your DRM where the sun don't shine EA! Oh yeah, and this game is a dumbed down piece of garbage too! Simcity 1,2,3, and 4 were better than this.
  18. Jakovas
    Jun 3, 2013
    6
    I love SimCity, this is a great game and really sates my desire for well polished sandbox city simulation, however it is a great game with some serious flaws.

    Online: A bit of a pain however I enjoy plenty of games with an always online requirement, my key gripes are; server fragmentation (you cant invite or join friends unless you are on the same server); Cities roll back sometimes    I love SimCity, this is a great game and really sates my desire for well polished sandbox city simulation, however it is a great game with some serious flaws.

    Online: A bit of a pain however I enjoy plenty of games with an always online requirement, my key gripes are; server fragmentation (you cant invite or join friends unless you are on the same server); Cities roll back sometimes costing you much time; cities corrupt still (as of 03/06/2013); and there is no support in place to manage these City Load issues.

    Game Objectives: SimCity is a playground, it is a bit small though and the simulation between Residential, Industrial and Commercial is a little nonsensical, however many a patch has come and gone an Maxis/EA are definitely on the right track. I'd like to see more options without investing in specialization, or at least some changes to help tie the profits and losses from both City management and business management together.

    Creativity: SimCity has rules, which makes sense as it is a game after all, however with the tiny plot sizes and bugs/design decisions around how cities interact and support one another, you will never truly be able to create a Solo region as all cities must be played to supply resources such as power, water etc. due to asynchronous design.

    For those on the fence, I'd say hold off and see what they do to address these issues, you may find they just throw content at the game and nothing really changes regarding the core issues, however if they change some mechanics and give players more options to create the City they want to build, it could be a late success story in terms of a quality.    … Expand
  19. Arco
    Jun 2, 2013
    5
    Sim City is a nice game, however, it's had a rough start. The maps are too small and sometimes it's just not enjoyable to play.
    Servers are unstable sometimes, game crashes.
  20. Father_death
    Jun 1, 2013
    7
    The score needs to be reset... This is kinda total I don't like EA but still this game is good people judged it by the starter not the actual game! people are idiots... this game should have a 8-10!
  21. lolfactor100
    May 29, 2013
    1
    SimCity is a very boring game that requires many monotonous hours before you get any good at it. I personally didn't enjoy playing it at all and will probably never play it again. I'm lucky that I didn't have to waste $60 on this sad excuse for a game.
  22. 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.
  23. Jerrika
    May 26, 2013
    4
    I tried to like this game. I really did. I spent a whole 32 pounds on this and I thought it'd be rude to not play it, so I gave it a go. What I got? A large laggy sack of disappointment. The Game itself has to connect to the Internet or you can't play, so I can barely play it. When you do start, you get an overly long laggy tutorial that has some useless features. And if you playI tried to like this game. I really did. I spent a whole 32 pounds on this and I thought it'd be rude to not play it, so I gave it a go. What I got? A large laggy sack of disappointment. The Game itself has to connect to the Internet or you can't play, so I can barely play it. When you do start, you get an overly long laggy tutorial that has some useless features. And if you play multiplayer, thieves and other can arrive from other players city and mess up yours. Things cost too much coins in game, so you can barely upgrade roads or build well needed things. And Sandbox mode isn't even Sandbox, you have limited money and not everything is unlocked. And the lag... oh I hate it. I am not one to care about graphic, but I had to turn off shading, shadows clouds etc to make it not lag. And then it looked like an Elementary School Drawing. Give this a miss. But the only good thing is that if your city sucks, natural disasters occur. So hey, you don't fell bad.… Expand
  24. DaveS
    May 24, 2013
    1
    The requirement for online play is not only annoying, it doesn't work. The fact that it exists ONLY as a way to enforce DRM is evident in that they didn't even bother to create a way to find servers with available plots.

    On to the game. Graphics are well done. The fact that there really is no proper connection to the RCI demand from teach category (e.g. the nonsense of having all    The requirement for online play is not only annoying, it doesn't work. The fact that it exists ONLY as a way to enforce DRM is evident in that they didn't even bother to create a way to find servers with available plots.

    On to the game. Graphics are well done. The fact that there really is no proper connection to the RCI demand from teach category (e.g. the nonsense of having all residential cities) is just bad mechanics. Traffic is still horrible, and impossible to manage. Linking the density to the rods is also poorly done, since you cannot choose to have roads that eliminate traffic, without also allowing more density, thus increasing traffic.

    You can't build a decent size city unless it is building consumer electronics because there is no way to generate enough money otherwise. This becomes a boring thing you have to do in one city in the region generating money, to have any chance of building up other cities for fun.

    Cities are absolutely too small. There is no way to create real city. You are making little towns that (sort of) interact, when tho online thing decides to work.

    Traffic is still out of control, even after a couple of patch attempts. Basic problem is that vehicles STILL don't make a decision based on the highest-capacity, lowest traffic route. Poor path finding. is inexcusable because they had to KNOW how important it was for SimCity4.

    Eventually traffic just chokes everything. I didn't sign up for SimTraffic-jam.. Real Life provides that one just fine.

    I keep trying to play it after each patch, and I keep being frustrated, disappointed and saddened. I really wanted to like this game.    … Expand
  25. coochnader
    May 21, 2013
    0
    Horrible waste of time and money.
    Oversimplified and yet tedious to do anything with the user interface.
    As others have said, cannot play offline. While this is crap, the game itself is a much bigger disappointment. They have severely limited the type of buildings. About 30 minutes of tedious game play and then you'll be asking "That's it?" Go buy Sim City 4 and you'll be much    Horrible waste of time and money.
    Oversimplified and yet tedious to do anything with the user interface.
    As others have said, cannot play offline. While this is crap, the game itself is a much bigger disappointment. They have severely limited the type of buildings. About 30 minutes of tedious game play and then you'll be asking "That's it?"

    Go buy Sim City 4 and you'll be much happier. At a loss of words for whoever was in charge of product direction on this 5th sim city.    … Expand
  26. MaxGayLord
    May 16, 2013
    5
    Look, I'm not saying it's a bad game, but it's a bad game. SimCity had potential to be a great game, but Maxis and EA flubbed up with the DRM and the many under the hood mechanics.
  27. shoti66
    May 15, 2013
    0
    What a catastrophe. EA has destroyed yet another game. I have been playing Simcity since the first in the franchise. I bought all of them over the years and still play SC4. I love SC4 for the mods that all the fans have developed. No more of that stuff for this latest iteration of the game I'm afraid. No! Now they'll make you purchase any extra content after you've paid full price for aWhat a catastrophe. EA has destroyed yet another game. I have been playing Simcity since the first in the franchise. I bought all of them over the years and still play SC4. I love SC4 for the mods that all the fans have developed. No more of that stuff for this latest iteration of the game I'm afraid. No! Now they'll make you purchase any extra content after you've paid full price for a broken game. This is a huge scam and someone should take legal action.

    Unfortunately I couldn't bring myself to buy the latest offering from EA. Luckily I had read the reviews before I went to purchase so I knew how badly EA had stuffed this up. I mean come on, SC was NEVER a multiplayer game. The people that play SC don't want to interact with other players. They play so they can be God and build their own cities without relying on someone else to supply the essentials.

    And what's with this always on DRM? No. Just No. I will not but a game that is dependent on servers to function If I pay upwards of $80 for a game I want to be able to play it whenever wherever and for as many years as I like just as I do with SC4 which is now going on 10+ years.

    The contempt that I have towards EA for ruining this fantastic game is monumental. I have sworn to NEVER EVER buy another EA game just on principle. I hope they sink in a quagmire of their own making. When they go bust I'll through a party cause it'll mean that they won't be able to ever again ruin another game.

    And the map sizes???? They should have called it Sim Suburb. EA couldn't have done any worse if they'd tried.    … Expand
  28. PCgamer68
    May 14, 2013
    1
    I won't buy a single player game that requires always online connection. I wanted to buy diablo 3 but never did for the same reason. People that bought the game and are complaining about the always online connection....why? I really wanted to give blizzard (diablo 3) some money, heck, I would have given them a $100 for a single player game that didn't require an always online connection. II won't buy a single player game that requires always online connection. I wanted to buy diablo 3 but never did for the same reason. People that bought the game and are complaining about the always online connection....why? I really wanted to give blizzard (diablo 3) some money, heck, I would have given them a $100 for a single player game that didn't require an always online connection. I loved diablo 2. EA is doing other stuff (origin) that has made not buy their games despite me wanting to. This might not be fair but I give this a game a big ZERO because of this. EA/Blizzard etc must think everyone is weak minded and will accept stupid requirements because of past games success. Then again, looks like they are still making a lot of cash off these games anyway.… Expand
  29. adbksdb
    May 14, 2013
    3
    Foreword: this review does NOT take into account DRM, server problems or comparison with older titles of the series.

    For me, city simulators have always been about building immense megalopolis that fulfill my dreams AND are realistic, sometimes recreating real-life cities. This is completely impossible in this SimCity, because of the ridiculously small map size, the pre-made regions    Foreword: this review does NOT take into account DRM, server problems or comparison with older titles of the series.

    For me, city simulators have always been about building immense megalopolis that fulfill my dreams AND are realistic, sometimes recreating real-life cities.
    This is completely impossible in this SimCity, because of the ridiculously small map size, the pre-made regions with fixed city placement (with empty landscape in between) and fixed intercity transport network, and the lack of realistic skyscrapers and such (you can't have realistically sized skyscrapers otherwise they would pretty much look oversized on the tiny map).
    I reckon that most players are not interested in creating realistic cities but they just want to have fun with the simulation. Well this game is really bad in that respect too.
    The agent-based simulation? Great idea, but all in all what I see (and interact with) in the game are the *effects* of the simulation, and it really doesn't matter if it's the single citizens who are simulated, or just the overall city data. Moreover, as everyone knows, the agent-based simulation has been really poorly implemented and it's still full of bugs after 2 months and many patches.
    Even if they completely fixed all the bugs and the sims' idiotic behaviour, the tiny map size would still hamper the depth of the simulation: you can have the most advanced transport pathfinding and traffic simulation in the world, but what does it matter if the longest road in your city is not even 1 mile long?
    The game still shows great promise but unless they *at least* fix all the bugs and add way larger map sizes, it will remain no more than a (very expensive) facebook game.

    And there is one last thing to consider. I have my simcity4 cities on a usb key. If I wanted I could reinstall the game and play with the cities I made 10 years ago. While I highly doubt simcity5 servers will still be online 10 years from now...    … Expand
  30. MrRelyt
    May 13, 2013
    1
    This game is by far the worst Simcity, ever and, I love the Simcity franchise but this is just unacceptable. The Simcity franchise was initially a single player game, but now that this game is only DRM, the game is dependent on server's. EA most have done this to reduce, or entirely prevent pirating of Simcity, but really it will just prevent die-hard fans from ever buying the game.This game is by far the worst Simcity, ever and, I love the Simcity franchise but this is just unacceptable. The Simcity franchise was initially a single player game, but now that this game is only DRM, the game is dependent on server's. EA most have done this to reduce, or entirely prevent pirating of Simcity, but really it will just prevent die-hard fans from ever buying the game. Further more, another terrible problem in my opinion is the city scale, the cities are way, way to small. It allows good players like myself to create an entire city, to the city borders in under 2 hours, which is terrible. Simcity fans want to spend countless hours on one city, without limits. The game is also a dumbed down version of the other Simcities, it is extremely easy. Overall this is a bad game. Recommendation: DO NOT BUY.… 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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