Ars Technica, for example, trashed the game. In a series of
what appear to be either tweets or text messages, Ars’ two reviewers, also fans
of the game since its inception, took the game apart, brick by brick, pixel by
pixel. They lament the change in gameplay – moving from creating the largest
city possible to being limited, they said, to tiny little plots of real estate
with all sorts of gorgeous greenery surrounding their cities that they could
never annex and flood with roads, houses, stores, and factories.
I’ve got to say Ars’ review nearly turned me off. I’ve been
a frustrated player of Sim City Social, EA’s Facebook-based game, where I
experienced similar limitations (and repeated Flash crashes) that have left me
frustrated overall with gameplay.
Then came Farhad Manjoo’s review over at Slate, and I feel like the new game is redeemed. Here’s what pulled me out of the pit of despair:
There’s also now
a fuzzier definition of what it means to “win” the game. “In previous SimCitys
there was one implicit win condition: Manhattan,” says Quigley. “Even though it
wasn’t stated as a goal, that was the goal most people assigned themselves—to
get the biggest buildings and the maximum population.” In the new game, there
are a number of ways to “specialize” your city in a way that might not
require huge population density. You can create a place like Saudi Arabia—a
city that mines all of its resources and sells it on the global market—or one
like Monaco, where the economy runs on tourism and gambling, or Silicon Valley,
pumping out electronics all day long.
In other words, they moved the cheese.
Winning past Sim City iterations came in two forms for me:
Creating the largest city possible or (and this option came up only in Sim City
4) creating the most perfect, most realistic region possible. I could vary city
size, yes, but always lurking in the middle of everything was the sprawling
megalopolis that spread out to engulf suburb after suburb until, well, either
my kids crashed into things or I got bored and started over in a new region.
This new style of gameplay, by contrast, seems to be
launching infinitely more challenges our way. Which is what we should expect.
Why get another rote monster-city generator, monster-region generator, albeit
with better graphics, when Maxis (or whoever the hell owns the franchise these
days) can move the gameplay to a different level entirely, challenging fans in
new ways? I guess if you want the old way, just stick with Sim City 4.
I don’t have a copy of the new iteration yet; I’ve been
waiting for release and now with tales of overloaded servers, I may wait a
while longer just to see what happens. I think I will go use my discount coupon
at Target to buy a copy this weekend, however. Just to see what the fuss is
about.
Here’s a reason not to rush, though. EA’s servers are backed
up beyond belief with new players trying to play the game. Why, oh why did they
have to choose an always (internet) on option for the game – especially one
meant for single players? Can’t figure that one out. They should have an
offline mode. Maybe I’ll hold off on my purchase until that happens. Will have
to check my coupon.
And the user reviews are devastating, but in that typical internetty the sky is falling way.
You’re going to get a lot of hate spewed on the Internet no
matter what you do, but it does indeed sound like most people are genuinely
disappointed. I pretty much left the PC gaming world after the arrival of Sim
City 4 – I don’t have a lot of time to play games, what with a full-time job, a
part-time job, and a family – and it sounds like the landscape has changed
quite a bit. The always-on the Internet thing sounds incredibly frustrating.
Despite what Manjoo says about shifting the cheese, there’s no real reason the
cheese had to be shifted so much to incorporate this much “social” element into
what has traditionally been a solitary game. Forcing collaboration on folks not
used to it is a bad idea.
All of this, obviously, is hearsay as far as I’m concerned.
I haven’t even purchased the game yet. Likely still will, but not right away.
I’ll wait a while before taking the plunge.
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