No saving and reloading

[NBAFAN1 28]

I saw this article on GameSpy.

The new SimCity looks amazing, and I'm certainly still looking forward to it, but it comes with at least one major downer. As anyone who's played one knows, one of the simplest pleasures of any SimCity game, dating back to the 1989 original, is the consequence-free "What if?" scenario. The kind where you obliterate your city by triggering an apocalyptic wave of fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, and monster attacks, then time-warp it back to pristine condition by loading a saved game. When I asked Lead Producer Kip Katsaelis if the 2013 SimCity would allow that same pleasure in its Glass Box-powered cities, the answer was a simple, disappointing "No." The online connectivity Maxis has built in means that reloading saved games will be impossible, even when no one else has a city in your region.

The caveat, Katsaelis says, is that there will be a cheat mode that will disable achievements and let you quickly and easily build large cities for the purpose of wrecking. That's some consolation, I suppose -- after seeing a brief demonstration of a giant bowling ball inflicting physics-based damage to skyscrapers, I am very interested in watching cities get demolished in this new engine. But this is a prime example of how the benefits of online connectivity in new games can deprive gamers of some of the things we love most about their classic predecessors. Disasters will be far less fun if seeing their effects means potentially losing hours of progress.

At least we'll always have the old games for that, right

Just what are they thinking? How can you have a citybuilder with out proper saving?

  Edited June 5, 2012 by NBAFAN1  

[Haljackey 17,241]

Kind of a minor bummer, but at least it will be more realistic that way

I guess you could build a test city or something if you want to destroy it.

Still, it makes some of the disaster options unusable if you want to keep your hard work form being destroyed by giant lizard monsters.

[BurroDiablo 222]

I'm not too bothered, I like an unpredictable game, when a disaster hits you'll just have to deal with it, it adds to the challenge. As long as reconstruction doesn't become a chore.

[Ocram's Razr 963]

Oh well...

I won't be buying this at full price!

When I do play (they will offer a discount eventually), I will need to be extra cautious.

[Wiimeiser 434]

So cheats will most likely be like in Spore, right? That's better than nothing, at least.

[brynhyfryd 222]

What is the point of game saves if you cant reload???

This is the dumbest thing I have heard so far with this game as it totally defeats the object.

[croxis 150]

What is the point of game saves if you cant reload???

This is the dumbest thing I have heard so far with this game as it totally defeats the object.

The point of games saves is that you don't have to start over from the beginning when you exit the game, or have to type in a key code to get the right level loaded. Reloading is a metagaming "cheat"

  Edited June 5, 2012 by croxis