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SimCity (A Diary of Video Games)

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DRTnOOber New Zealand476 Posts October 16 2012 01:26 GMT #1 SimCity Today we look at one of the most iconic games in history. Developer: Will Wright Platform: PC Release Year: 1989 Basic Plot There was no plot. You take on the role of an overseeing eye in the sky who has complete control to develop a city and maintain it. Gameplay The game involves creating and managing a city. In essence SimCity is a top down strategy game a little like Civilization in some ways, but less focused on units and politics and entirely based on the infrastructure of your city. The game included free form city building mode, and also a set of scenarios. Each scenario involved completing a certain objective within a particular time frame. The general gameplay involved: Zoning land as either residential, industrial, or commercial. Creating buildings. Setting a tax rate. Creating a power grid. Creating public transport options (and many others). It culminated in a careful balance between attracting more people to your city, but also keeping them happy and keeping the economy flowing. There are a whole lot of extra mechanics which add flavour to the game including crime rate and natural disasters (including Godzilla). Positives This was a deeply satisfying game to play. The sense of interconnectedness was a joy to experience. The freedom you had to customise your own unique city was also a real bonus. Without a doubt this is one of the most influential and important games in history, and if you've never played a SimCity before, you're missing out. Negatives Without reading up this is a very hard game to play. You have the freedom to create any city you choose by 9 times out of 10 your people will end up hating you, and Godzilla will end up rampaging through your city destroying everything in his path. Is this Godzilla I see before me? Memorable Moments I often tried a free map where I would try and create a beautiful city, but found it very hard to maintain the city in a way which satisfied my populace. I have a hankering to try this again; were any of the sequels particularly good? Are there any modern interpretations of this game which are really well made? Previous Game: World of Warcraft: Cataclysm Next Game: Age of Empires

Myles United States5162 Posts October 16 2012 02:41 GMT #2 I remember playing this in 3rd grade 20 minutes at a time. A friend and I would play the same save and after half the year we had a decent city going with a small downtown and surrounding suburbs. Of course then we did what every good SimMayor does and trashed the place with disasters. Oh, good times. Another time I had a city with an overtaxed nuclear reactor and the thing went critical and blew up a good chuck of my city and left most of it covered in nuclear fallout. I was shocked to say the least. And the sequels are very good and true to the name, except for Societies. The newest one's mechanics even look good, but Origin and everything related looks terrible.

surfinbird1 Germany999 Posts October 16 2012 07:14 GMT #3 Tornados everywhere! RAWR!

Ghin United States2391 Posts October 16 2012 08:29 GMT #4 Simcity 2000 is probably my favorite and it was fun for me to revisit it as an adult with a functioning brain and try to get a city working on the hard setting

OpticalShot Canada6330 Posts October 16 2012 14:27 GMT #5 SimCity 2000 was one of my favourite games during elementary / junior high. It was pretty hard building a city from scratch though... I mean, why won't people appreciate my industrial mega-complexes of super employment? =(

QuanticHawk United States32075 Posts October 16 2012 19:07 GMT #6 2000 is what really got me hooked. Didn't care much for the original. They were both hard as hell. Or maybe I was just too young?? Sim City 4 is actually a blast. The mods and add ons that you can download are what make it worth it. The new one (just called Sim City, I think) is already looking awesome.

ASoo 2864 Posts October 16 2012 19:34 GMT #7 I never played the original. SC2K was one of the first games I got really, really into (definitely sunk 200+ hours into it in elementary school), great game. Again, some things you just have to know to keep from ending up in city-abandonment hell, but that's part of the charm. Just reinstalled it a year or two back and built up a city to archologies...it's still fun as fuck. I played 3000, but never really got as into it...it wasn't bad, just sorta meh. I hear the newer one (4?) is fun, but haven't tried it. Far as I'm concerned, 2000 was where it was at. But then again, there's probably some first-game bias speaking there.

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