Sim City is Back

Uncle Peter · 07-03-2012, 16:08

Announced at GDC, due for release in 2013

http://www.simcity.com/en_GB

About time too! Been waiting for this for an eternity. The reigns have been handed back to Maxis thankfully.

**Rob** · 07-03-2012, 16:16

We will have to see. Unfortunately the previous couple of versions of the game seemed to loose track of the core basics that first made the genre so good, i.e balancing simple needs of population against the income that could generate to get as big as possible. I have no idea what the most recent ideas of creative and all that other zoning stuff was supposed to be about.

**Kymmy** · 07-03-2012, 16:22

Got an EA mailshot for it today

denphone · 07-03-2012, 16:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Uncle Peter

Announced at GDC, due for release in 2013

http://www.simcity.com/en_GB

About time too! Been waiting for this for an eternity. The reigns have been handed back to Maxis thankfully.

Yes l have fond memories of the earlier versions so lets see how good this one is.

Uncle Peter · 07-03-2012, 16:37

There's an article on Kotaku which pulls together a few bits and bobs from various sources:

http://kotaku.com/5889310/leaked-pic...ty-5/gallery/1

Loosely and imperfectly translated, the details seem to indicate players can look for an increasing level of complexity, detail, and personalization from the next entry in the franchise, as well as more connection to the online, multiplayer sphere. Regions built from multiple players' cities can be susceptible to, for example, fluctuations in the cost of necessary commodities like coal.

I like this idea very much... Providing the developers haven't bitten off more than they can chew. If the game really is only 30% complete can't see it making an appearance in the first half of the year.

**Stephen** · 07-03-2012, 16:38

Always been a huge Simcity fan and although I still play Simcity 4 it wasn't the best, got a bit too complicated and lost the basics that made the game fun.

Played all the way from the Simcity on the SNES console, 2000 on the PC and various other versions, most recently the iPad version but the Sims killed the franchise and I hope they have learnt their lessons and go back to basics on this one.

boroboi · 12-03-2012, 19:39

OH MY GOD!!! I've been waiting for this for bloody years.

Last Sim City game i played was Sim 4, played the lot of them, but Societies was [Mod Edit] dreadful, then moved onto Cities XL it being the only obvious sim on the market, but even that has it's flaws. It will be interesting to see if the new Sim City will be able to vastly improve.

**Hugh** · 12-03-2012, 20:31

Do not use asterisks to avoid the Site swear filter - this is against Site T&C's.

boroboi · 12-03-2012, 21:08

I didn't, the swear filter blocked out the swear part, just not the ing on the end of it.

Uncle Peter · 21-08-2012, 17:07

Noticed on the official site that the release date is now pencilled in for next Feb. A nice bonus for the usual black hole after the Christmas releases.

**Damien** · 21-08-2012, 18:52

I am really excited for this. It's going to be at the Eurogamer Expo. I might stay in their booth all day

Uncle Peter · 19-02-2013, 00:48

Well not long to go now but reading through some of the feedback on the closed betas there have been some pretty mixed responses. The main gripe seems to be that the size of the maps is not conducive to creating a sprawling metropolis like you could with the large maps in SC4. Still willing to give it a shot though.

Uncle Peter · 04-03-2013, 16:02

Couple of early doors reviews in:

http://www.polygon.com/game/simcity-...update_3815485

http://venturebeat.com/2013/03/04/a-...-of-simcity/3/

9.5/10 and 90/100

**Matt D** · 06-03-2013, 20:29

^^ Polygon is quite a trustworthy site for reviews, certainly better than some of the other sites.

This is out over here on Friday (US release was Tuesday).

Reviews so far are good:

http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/si...critic-reviews

The user reviews at Metacritic are awful... however it seems to be because of people bitching about the Diablo III style always-online DRM and EA's servers having problems at launch. This is why I don't usually trust user reviews at Metacritic, as people often deliberately score games very low to bitch about things (Diablo III's DRM, ME3's ending and the presence of same-sex romances, etc.).

Uncle Peter · 08-03-2013, 16:17

Ouch, the Metacritic user review average has now sunk to 1.6 and out of the dozen or so positive reviews I sampled out of interest these bear all the hallmarks of professional shills on the EA PR payroll. Safe to say that the release of this game has been an unmitigated disaster.

Eurogamer haven't reviewed it yet and I've a feeling they're going to pan it. There are already a number of mixed critic reviews starting to pop-up, presumably from those who weren't invited to play the game before the general release debacle.

Must admit I wasn't aware that this game did not support offline play and for that reason, if no other, I'm sure many will be giving it a very wide berth.