Gaming Sim City: The game for the risk averse

Sim City teaches you to avoid risks yet without ever telling you how you are supposed to win.
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/pc/2013/03/06/sim-city-the-game-for-the-risk-averse/1

 

The original sim city was one of my favourite games when I was between 5 and 10. Strange how I ended up being a planning officer!

 

I've ended up being a pirate trying to get off this damn island.

 

All games have a point, but they're on a scale between "enforced by the game in a win or lose situation" to "made up by the player".

Even a literal sandbox has a point: manipulate the sand in ways or shapes that you find appealing.

 

SC2000 was OK for when it came out. 3000 was better, and 4 was the best of the series.

However the author has no clue about the SC5 it seems, if we study the last paragraph of the article.
Or else he could know that is far worse than it's predecessor as city simulation/building games going.

The Sim Village (err Sim City 5) has no option to load (there is no save/load just single instance), is really small, with many limitations, and coming with one of the worst DRM infected games ever.

Hell even Cities XL Platinum is better, even if has serious hardware recourses issues when your metropolis spans more than 6 mil population.

 

I heard simcity5 has a new disaster. Its called origin.

 

Seriously? Out of tiny maps, draconian DRM, no local save games, no offline mode and countless other stupid decisions (like no subway), you choose Origin as the worst of them all.

Wow...

 

A lot of those issues can be attributed to Origin. It's very existence incentivises EA to make a lot of the decisions you pointed out (DRM, no offline, no subways so they can sell you the DLC through Origin etc).

 

Well, that really was an article for the playstation generation.

I'd dive into a long, arch diatribe in the customary illiterate txtspk of console gamers, but I've long since given up on the idea that most of them are capable of using language. We understand what the problem is here; the problem here is that if a game is not essentially Call of Duty, nobody who owns an xbox will have any idea how to play it. This is not solely a problem with Sim City, this is a problem with people who were ten when Sim City 2000 came out and ascribe even the slightest positive attribute to things like Halo. I appreciate most people in that age range generally conflate "first-person shooter" and "computer game" and are generally terribly confused if presented with anything other than either Doom 19 or some form of driving game.

There are probably exceptions, and they're probably overwhelmingly female, fourteen, and currently bouncing around on a mat in front of a Wii working, subconsciously, on the thesis that pink is a state of mind.

In short, I'm not sure I'd have bothered writing an article explaining that 10 year old Playstation 1 owners don't understand Sim City. Of course they don't. This is the reason why modern computer gaming is getting less interesting at a rate of about 15% per annum.

 

I had most fun when doing the exact opposite, trying to build a city in a very mountainous landscape, or connecting dotted islands about the place, or building a couple of small settlements on a big map.
Point taken though, simcity 2000 would punish the heck out of you for doing this. (and keep you frm doing this)
But that's where cheats came in.

 

What is the objective? There is no objective. SimCity just is, and what you put on it is entirely up to you.
You want to create a pollution-free utopia, go ahead. You want to create a crime-ridden hell hole, fine. You want to create an industrial dystopia, nobody is stopping you.

I was about 10 when I began playing SimCity (the original) on the Amiga. Granted it was a bit simpler than SC2000, but by experimentation I worked out how it worked. I didn't expect to be told what to do and what the goal was. Truthfully, that was the fun.

The "goal" of SimCity is not to maximise population or cover the map. Those are self-imposed "goals". There is no objective so what are you trying to achieve by "maximising your population" or "maximising your power output"? These weren't objectives, so why is varying density districts or restricting yourself to wind power somehow "incorrect"?

My basic argument is, you project YOUR OWN needs and desires on to SimCity.
If YOU NEED rules and objectives and achievements and structure, and because SimCity didn't provide such props you believe it is lacking, then the solution isn't to "dumb down" SimCity.

My opinion is that the new SimCity (or SC5) has TOO MANY rules and restrictions in the way to play and not enough player freedom. EA has done too much to restrict my freedom in an effort to COERCE me into a co-operative social environment that I don't want. I don't mind the option for co-op IF I WANT, but the "private" experience is so limited and so lacking that it is largely pointless.

I'm not going to cry about SC5 and how EA ruins everything. SC5 is not what I want, but I'm not going to sulk and pout about what it is not or what it should have been. It is what it is, and I'm going to give it a miss. My sentiment on the subject is "f**k you EA", and that Maxis sold out so long ago that they are not worth my time or interest. I'd rather play some more SC from 1989 - good thing I haven't packed away my Amiga.

 

Loved the original Sim City (had both PC and C64 versions), haven't played on any since Sim City 2000 - hmm might have re-install the Amiga version on my A1200 and give it another go.

 

**** EA for destroying one of the most legendary franchises in gaming.

 

well you're not supposed to go broke, otherwise you can't continue.
But yes, agree with everything else.

 

If you're complaining about Sim City 5, it could be worse; it could be Cities XL.

 

Hilarious, sad, and true!

 

I'm still ticked about Command & Conquer! EA's new slogan, "Making great games suck for 5 years now!"

 

At least Cities XL you can play.

Sim City 5, the game is out 2 days now, and nobody can play. Because the servers are down.

 

Another Amiga Sim City player here - I remember upgrading my A1200's RAM (to 4MB I think) in order to play the new fangled SC2000 properly and it was still slow as hell.

And now I'm a Planning Officer and my job is like one of the more punishing "here's a completely Effed up city - try and fix it" scenarios. The difference being in real life it takes several years to get permission to use the bulldozer tool, and you can "lose" at any time because the Tories hate Planners on principle and want to get rid of us all.