Review Luitenant_Gruber 2/5 · Jan 9, 2024
Mediocre experience and a flop of a launch.
I think I do not need to explain that SimCity was a bad game.
The main argument for this was of course, the disastrous launch in which many players could not even play their eighty dollar “EA greed” deluxe game, because the servers could not handle it and you could not play the game locally. Although the issues were eventually …
I think I do not need to explain that SimCity was a bad game.
The main argument for this was of course, the disastrous launch in which many players could not even play their eighty dollar “EA greed” deluxe game, because the servers could not handle it and you could not play the game locally. Although the issues were eventually fixed, the fact that you must fear a new outage on the EA servers at all times, was a terrible taught and immediately killed the fun of the game (or what was left of it).
Another big issue was the save file corruption. After the billionth outage of the servers, I (and many others from what I understood) lost my save file and could start all over again. Why? Because the servers could not handle/register the file of course.
In the basis, SimCity is just a reboot from the SimCity series, running a new engine. Of course, the new engine offers more simulation, functionality and features than the last one from ten years ago, but it did not perform as well, which resulted in multiple issues. But besides the technical and “always online” issues, the game itself was also really bad. The mechanics were broken, the game looks ugly and “blurred out”, sound is “OK”, and the feeling of a alive and flourishing city was not present in my opinion.
Anyway, you start with an empty plot of land, place your first piece of road, and start building a neighborhood. You earn some money, build extra facilities, needs for your citizens and expand rapidly. You create industry, commerce, keep an eye on your citizen’s demand for electricity and water, the pollution levels and overall, manage your city into success.
The trading system with neighboring cities (other players) was really cool and, despite my dislike for this game, the best feature of the game. You could choose for yourself what kind of city you would become, which specialty or resource made your city famous and trade that resource with other players.
My worst experience with this game, besides the technical problems, where the graphics in this game. SimCity has relatively detailed structures, landscapes and facilities, but when zooming in, to watch your glorious city, all people and cars are under some layer of smog, bloom or blur. It looks terrible. It is just like I am watching a colored river of excrement, moving in the bottom of my screen. When zooming out, it looks kind of okay but compare this to Cities: Skylines, and the difference is night and day.
The sound is just “ok” and has nothing to offer, besides the memorable “SimCity ping sounds” from the previous installments.
The controls, interfaces and reports are simple to understand and a little less detailed and complicated then some other city builders.
To summarize, my fun with this game was killed right at the start, with the launch issues, server issues, always-online crap and save file corruption. When I could finally play the game properly, the motivation to do so rapidly dropped, and when the player base died out soon after that, and the trading with other cities became obsolete, I was done with it.
Although it does not matter that much anymore, I would not recommend this game to anyone. With the knowledge of today, the only way to go is Cities: Skylines.