ILL Tonkso's Review of SimCity

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

I got to play it today, I have to be honest, I didn't like it. WAY too simple, way too restricting.

Copied and pasted from my Work/Uni facebook group. Names and pics of others removed.

34 minutes ago ·

Daniel R Tonks

• Firstly, I feel like how die hard C&C fans must have felt. Just to let you know what to expect from this...
  
  I opened up the game, the first thing I noticed was that the map was bloody small, I mean seriously small. The game map does not get much larger. If you want to build a sprawling Metropolis (very possible in 4), forget it.
  
  I zoned a few buildings, standard SC gameplay right there, no grid which is something the community has wanted for a while. I noticed I was losing money so I clicked on my Power Station to lower its funding. In SC when you have a new city, it's good practice to lower utility funding to provide only what your city needs as otherwise you are just burning money... I was provided with the option to turn the Power Station on or off... no micromanagement in Sim City!? Surely not!
  
  Zones overlapped, the things like fire stations and town halls took up too much space. You can't build a dense compact city in this game, you seem limited to US Midwest. The modding community can get around this though.
  
  You had the option to add bits to buildings which was a nice touch, credit where credit is due.
  
  They added the option to build Tram Tracks on your roads (but only big roads and no off-street running like the community modded into SC4). Whilst limited it was nice to have, though the tram tracks didn't match up visually at junctions, offset by a metre or so. A minor irritation I suppose but sloppy.
  
  Overall, I ended up telling people they were wrong to play it. I became 'that' guy.
  34 minutes ago ·
  
  
  
  
  Daniel R Tonks Essentially, EA have taken a massive, in depth game where the community has demonstrated time and time again in the 9 years since Sim City 4's release that they want to build massive, sprawling metropolises and micromanage the $%&^! out of them... then turned it toy town Sims extension.
  32 minutes ago · Edited ·
  
  
  
  
  Daniel R Tonks Now I know many of you are reading this and thinking 'Dan, get a life', but when a game manages to maintain an active community of this magnitude (a community I play a huge role in might I add) 9 years after the games release, I cannot understand how EA can get it so wrong. They have aimed this at The Sims crowd, completely ignoring the crowd which got Maxis where it is in the first place. Total abuse of a franchise to milk as much as they can out of another. This is Sim City, a geeks city builder, not The Sims. Rant over. Skyrim time.
  29 minutes ago · How does it honestly play in a non ultra hobbyist way? I'm a casual player and I think societies was painfully $%&^!. Meta-critically, what do you think it would get?
  25 minutes ago · "Firstly, I feel like how die hard C&C fans must have felt."
  
  YOU'LL NEVER KNOW OUR PAIN!!!!!!!!
  24 minutes ago · I've waited for really niche simulators which have been ruined by spastic publishers.
  22 minutes ago · Can you still zone, build schools and raise taxes for the poor? Or do you have to place individual buildings and roads?
  21 minutes ago · Wait wasn't Sim city going to be a facebook game?
  20 minutes ago · That's already out
  19 minutes ago · Is it bad to the point where 4 modded is more worthwhile or is this game just a disappointment considering the improvements that could have been made???
  11 minutes ago ·
  
  
  
  
  Daniel R Tonks You can zone, but it doesn't always work quite right with the curved road system (this will probably be fixed to be fair). The taxes/micromanagement system seemed to be missing/extensively cut down. Sim City with Mods (and a Computer that can cope with that large a plugins folder) is infinitely better if you make sure you don't unbalance it.
  about a minute ago · Like
  

[Hamish 1,370]

I spilt what you had posted from the SimCity: Confirmed Features topic into a new one because it didn't quite fit the scope of that topic, and there are some really interesting points that you've made in this post that I thought it deserves its own discussion. Hope you don't mind.

Where did you get to play this might I ask?

Also, could you explain what you mean by zones overlapped? And was this a feature that worked well, or was it more of a bug in the current build?

And what do you think about it having no grid? Does it remove the limitations of SC4, or on the other hand, does it make aligning objects more difficult?

Nice review, good to see what a long time SC4 player thinks of this new SimCity.

[Haljackey 17,441]

Thanks for sharing Ill-Tonkso! It was a very interesting read.

I wonder how they'll fix some of these issues before release, if they ever do.

I remember what happened to the C&C Franchise, and it's getting worse (Generals 2 is now being called simply C&C). Hope this doesn't happen to SimCity, although Societies doesn't really help

[Essex 322]

I think this review confirms everything I (and many others) was expecting from it. Thanks for the review.

[BurroDiablo 222]

Pretty much confirms what I've been thinking, still a few months to release but I'm past expecting miracles. Think I'll give the community time to work on it before I try it, if they're even allowed, but even that I don't out hope for going anywhere quick if great modders who helped mould SC4 into something so astoundingly varied are thinking twice about purchasing SC5. Thankfully there are still developers out there who haven't totally lost the plot and are releasing some awesome games next year.

Oh, and I was seriously bummed out about what happened to Generals II, but really the quality of C&C has been nosediving for a few years now and it was kind of expected.

  Edited September 28, 2012 by BurroDiablo  

[VeritaScientia 150]

Yeah, yeah, still a pre-beta reease he played, still not swayed by the negativity

[Hellken 1,658]

Daniel R Tonks

I opened up the game, the first thing I noticed was that the map was bloody small, I mean seriously small. The game map does not get much larger. If you want to build a sprawling Metropolis (very possible in 4), forget it.

Isn't the map size the same as a Sim City 4 Medium city (according to the designers)?

How big is it compared to a Sim City 4 Medium city?

[Haljackey 17,441]

Maxis/EA stated its 2km². but I think that includes 'the buffer zone'. You can't build anything in this buffer/edge but it does contain some civic services and infrastructure.

So maybe 1.75km² is a good estimate.

[SoftcoreGamer 352]

They have aimed this at The Sims crowd, completely ignoring the crowd which got Maxis where it is in the first place. Total abuse of a franchise to milk as much as they can out of another. This is Sim City, a geeks city builder, not The Sims. Rant over. Skyrim time.

LOL. The Sims Create-a-world tool is the most under-utilized official mod tool. I marked around with it. Despite the ease of use, The Sims players do not care a whale about even building a neighborhood. The ratio of user made "world" to user made wallpaper? 1: 621388000. The Sims crowd, who failed to be pushed online as "always-on connected neighbors", who WILL NOT collaborate on even picking up the trash in shared area, who're totally meh about creating better "world" for their sims, would suddenly switch gear and go sim cities with other people? Justin Bieber audition as U2 frontman? Magical thinking of an otherworldly magnitude. No matter how they dumb SimCity down, it's impossible to achieve the dumbness level of Create-a-world, which is not even Simcity1000 dumb. Oh....dear.

Soon millions will be wasted to mythologize the greatness of SimcityMMO. Realistically though, it is time to announce SIMCITY:SANDBOX 2013, standalone, complete version.Thanks to Simtroplois and all the moddes BATters, there are at least 20-50 million pent-up Simcity-Sandbox demand worldwide. We are worth something, Maxis.

[crazychickensc12 84]

That really is a shame to hear I was hoping that SC5 could take over where SC4 left off but with this community that seems almost impossible. Now its just up to whether the allowing of mods will be able to bring it up to our standards here. Not a problem though SC4 has so much to offer I could easily play this game for another 5 years.

[Wiimeiser 452]

Sonic '06 is better that this. Wii Sports is more complex and in depth. And Touhou is more easily accessible(and less girly).

[Hellken 1,658]

Maxis/EA stated its 2km². but I think that includes 'the buffer zone'. You can't build anything in this buffer/edge but it does contain some civic services and infrastructure.

So maybe 1.75km² is a good estimate.

I am not sure of the scale used in SC4. If the side of one small city is 1km long. Then a medium is 2 km long. So the area is 4 km²

So a Sim City (2013) tile is just half the area of a medium city in Sim City 4!

----

In any case the game is far from complete so let's not judge it now. They might surprise us with a 5 stack expressway interchange or maglev. You'll never know

  Edited September 28, 2012 by Hellken  

[Wiimeiser 452]

It's unlikely we'll see highways and freeways. Unless someone at Maxis (like MinamitsuOceanMurasa) confirms this

[mk11232 105]

Yeah, yeah, still a pre-beta reease he played, still not swayed by the negativity

How much lead time do you think there is between "pre-beta" and beta?? They are not adding anything major, groundbreaking, or mechanics changing from the final months of "pre-beta" and beta. Similarly they are not adding anything major, ground breaking, or mechncial changing from the beta to release. Maybe an addon will change things after-the-fact but these things take months to get into delivery stage and what you see at beta and near-beta is the final product. Only tweeking is available to the programmers unless they republish the entire development schedule

[Ion_Cannon 677]

Thanks for the information, sadly it confirms what many of us feared - too simple, too restricting, loss of freedom.

Modders can work wonders but it won't matter if the map size/buffer zone/ green space around every city is not able to be changed. The whole not being able to create a region just kills this game dead IMO.

[mk11232 105]

Thanks for the information, sadly it confirms what many of us feared - too simple, too restricting, loss of freedom.

Modders can work wonders but it won't matter if the map size/buffer zone/ green space around every city is not able to be changed. The whole not being able to create a region just kills this game dead IMO.

Remember modding isn't avaiable right away in the game, it will be an expansion of some sort. Also, EA hasn't stated what will be allowed for modding so until we know that we can't gauge how the game can be fixed by modding.

[MandelSoft 2,775]

Well, hearing this confirms my thoughts about the game. We've landed to the point where an unmodded version of SimCity 4 sounds more enjoyable than an unmodded version of SimCity 2013, despite of the game being 10 years newer. I think prayers won't help us at this point. Development has already reached a too far stage to change these things.

Aw well, Cities In Motion 2 seems to be a better successor to SimCity 4 and OpenTTD

[fatbuster 44]

They added the option to build Tram Tracks on your roads (but only big roads and no off-street running like the community modded into SC4). Whilst limited it was nice to have, though the tram tracks didn't match up visually at junctions, offset by a metre or so. A minor irritation I suppose but sloppy.

MaxisGuillaume has stated in his blog post that you will at least also be able to place tram tracks on their own without roads.

Also, even though you weren't able to click on a school and change it's budget directly from it does not mean that there wouldn't be any control over it. So far, from what I understand Maxis has had the budgeting/taxes mechanics disabled for the demos that have been shown so far. So far Maxis has not spoken about how it's going to work so I don't think fair to say that it's non-existent just yet. Personally I'm hoping to at least see general budget sliders on the budgeting screens like in older SC's.

[ILL Tonkso 1,239]

Wow, ok this got a little too serious. Please bare in mind that I did play an early build.

I played the game at the London Eurogamer Expo at Earls Court. I wanted to get a good feel for the game, see how it played, see how in depth the gameplay experience was, all in a relatively short window (10 min).

I would like to clarify at this point that I am not necessarily saying Sim City 2013 is a bad game, what I AM saying however is that it is not the game this community is looking for. Over the years, we have built up from an already quite complex game to something truly magnificant, though for the purposes of this 'review'* it is prudent to compare to the boxed product, not the community modded product we all know and love today.

One of the great things about the Sim City series has always been the control you are given over how financial resources are distrbuted and raised. When starting a fresh new city in Sim City 4, many choose to lower the funding for city utlities to cover only what they need and maximise their income. In Sim City 2013 I was unable to find this feature and was instead presented with the option to either shut down my Power Station, or turn it back on. If this feature is indeed present in 2013, it wasn't anywhere where I could find it clearly and intuitively.

Another major issue I had, was the size of the city I was given, and the lack of terraforming to boot. Long time fans of the series have prided themselves with creating sprawling metropolises, connected by a network of Roads, Railways, Highways, Subways and even Ferries. The city sizes offered by 2013 don't seem to offer this potential, though this could be rectified with a 'region' set up, such as that in Sim City 4. The lack of terraforming however presents an issue as players - as in the real world - have always found it necessary to sometimes bend the land around their will; cuttings for railways, land reclaimation for docks, etc.

The departure from the grid is welcome, on the roads tool you are presented with the option for freeform roads or straight roads. If you wish to build on a grid pattern, you can, if you wish to follow the contours of the land, you can. Zoning hugs the roads much more efficiently than in Cities XL, though this was occasionally prone to bugs, possibly due to the nature of the early build. The inclusion of Trams is nice, the community is particularly proud of its 'Ground Light Rail' mod and this demonstrates that someone at Maxis is paying attention. There were some graphical glitches here, but again this is likely attributed to the early build.

At the moment, I am not sold on it. Gameplay wise many of my criticisms can be resolved - more control over the allocation of finances (micromanagement), the implementation of SC4 style 'region' play - though many will likely remain unresolved. One thing that has come up time and time again is the necessity of a connection to Origin, as someone with an Internet connection that likes to drop out every few hours, this could lead to frustration and is known to be an unpopular feature in contemporary titles besides.

Alas, I will not be buying at retail price (maybe on a Steam Sale?), but if you get a chance to try it, do so. Much of this community will stick to 4 I imagine, though some of you may like it.

[NCGAIO 562]

The most amazing and still read that people are confident that they will release the ability to mod.

If the beta was already available would be the end point to analyze and so everyone would know about the limits when making your rental (after all this is the correct name of the service Simcity).

[Urban Cartographer 601]

I must agree with you, OP.

Maxis had really cut too many corners to create the new SimCity. I believe it should be called SimVillage Online, because that is a more accurate name. I understand that they need to tap into a new demographic, but why can they not release one for SC4 fans as well?

[Haljackey 17,441]

I must agree with you, OP.

Maxis had really cut too many corners to create the new SimCity. I believe it should be called SimVillage Online, because that is a more accurate name. I understand that they need to tap into a new demographic, but why can they not release one for SC4 fans as well?

It's not just that, EA/Maxis has had 9 years to get their act together. After a long wait and the SimCity Societies slump, the players expect no excuses. When a product is developed that doesn't live up to its name it can lead to the demise of a franchise and ultimately, profits for the developer.

So it's in mutual interest that the game developer gets it right, and listening to the community can help them figure out what the player wants. Good game = good sales and good reviews/advertising which leads to even more sales. EA hasn't been thinking this way in a long time, and their recent stock/financial losses and reputation reflects this. Time for a change... to bad it may come too late to be the savoir of SimCity (2013).

If it sounds like I'm beating a dead horse with these comments I apologize... just wanted to get my point across.

[kwetzel345 101]

Urban Cartographer, you are absolutely right. Some things were acceptable for cutting, but others were not. Unfortunately, Maxis decided to cut the non acceptable features, which really is a bummer. I know for myself that if they left at least some features in, I would be happy for this new title, but they did not do that. They took out all of both features(acceptable and non acceptable), witch really puts this game where it is in the community, which is not real accepting of this new title. Oh well, Simcity 4 is still great by all means and that's because of this community, so yeah

[Shaunathan 3]

I have to admit, I'm a little disheartened by this review. Honestly I was hoping Cities XL was going to light a fire under maxis but when that when fizzle I guess they decided they didn't have to pander to the sim/hobbist crowd.

honestly what we really need is some competition. If there really is 20-50 million people who want a more "hardcore" version of a city building simulator perhaps some competition could make some money.

[hotChocolate 95]

I had to admit, there was, somewhere deep in my soul, a glimmer of hope that the game might actually be good.

Was.

Thanks for sharing this. It'll save me quite a bit of money if other news haven't yet.

[nukeu123 307]

thx for sharing.... My opinion of this game is slowly fadding to a crisp black char...

BUT i will Still wait to pay after a few critics play and post on the internet AFTER release

[Tzar Aleksander III 1]

I will hold my judgement to I play a demo or the beta test it

[Hamish 1,370]

May I just remind everyone to discuss the topic, rather than each other.

Thank you.

[MrVegetable 2]

Cheers for the review, Tonks. It's such a shame that this had to happen to our series. I was so excited when I saw the annoucement, and it's all just been steadily destroyed over time. I can't imagine that there will be any overbearingly important features added at this point in the development cycle, especially if they're planning to run a beta programme in the next couple of months, so I'll personally be calling it on maintaining any hope of a turnaround before February. A real shame, as Glassbox actually looks like a solid engine. Wrap SC4 around it, and they had a strong start on the game we probably all wanted from the start.

[Frode789 70]

What annoys me is that you cannot make a realistic city with skyscrapers anymore. (if tiles are so small, and you have lots of space around the tiles that you cannot control) It just looks dumb with skyscrapers, and almost right next to it is tons of green forrests and small houses. Not like it's realistic that people would invest in towering huge buildings when the city barely covers a few km's, and there is lots of free area around.

  Edited September 29, 2012 by Frode789