SC5 Beta, my review...

[poshbakerloo 186]

I played the beta last night and it was pretty interesting to see how it all worked out etc...

I know its a beta, so some of the things that I think should be in the game may be added later - I hope!

Good:

- Road building options, curves, straight, angled, arc, loop and square box. Its all very smooth and a lot better than CXL

- Full 3D graphics make looking around the city much more fun

- High performance engine! My Laptop is 5 years old with only a GeForce 8400M GS and the game ran very smoothly, at 1440x900 although only on medium graphics, but a lot faster than I expected.

- You can open and close services to save money, rather then having to demolish them!

- Sewage, finally!

- Expandable and editable buildings! No more having to build 2 schools next to each other.

- Sims, speak simlish - although the writing on buildings is English. Simlish is good as it keeps that sim humour

- Weather, although I think its more a graphics thing and doesn't effect game play

- Water table for placing a water tower!

- 1 for 1 simulation. All the cars visible are the actual number using the road so congestion is easy to spot.

Bad:

- Graphics, they are nice, and perform very well on my old laptop - but for me are a bit too cartoon like. Textures for roads are a bit too plain also. Water looks nice though.

- City tile size. I knew they were going to be small, but they really are small. I had a village of 2500 sims and it took up most of the space.

- No subways, no motorways =

- No grass, tree placement - so you can't build your own parks, only place pre made ones like the SC4 'large flower garden'

- Road options are a bit limited, no one way roads, no motorways, and GLR seems to be only placed on the pre places avenues?

- Access to the cities is from one point, I couldn't see any through routes, all roads link to the one motorway junction.

- No terrain forming, no God mode

I think I will buy the game, it is good, but not a serious city simulation game. Maybe it should have been Simsville like the game that was cancelled in 2001? It has some interesting features but lacks depth.