gaukal greydon wamblie
Elva Stuller
First it is important to note that I have been playing the complete edition of SimCity with included expansion pack Cities of Tomorrow along with some others (see the complete list here). With the complete edition of SimCity in single player or offline mode, I have found the game pleasantly fun to play, slightly challenging (especially as one gets use to the various specializations available) but the game does not involve too much micro management to still have fun and for me the graphics and sounds have been a treat for the eyes and ears alike.
Another thing I like about SimCity is how well it seems to run on my lower end machine with a not-so-great graphics card (gts 250). Even with lower in-game graphics settings the game still renders a fantastic looking game. In Cities Skylines with mods, it takes a toll on my lower end computer and gpu. In CS on my computer the edges of buildings for example cannot be rendered smooth as in SimCity even with a mod to do it.
There are at least a few things I have discovered about SimCity that I do not like. For starters, SimCity comes with small map sizes available to build on. This can be frustrating when one just wishes to build a larger sprawling city rather than a small city that can only go up. The map size department is where Cities Skylines got it right. These types of large expandable maps are what SimCity needs to make it even better than it already is. However, I will note that SimCity allows for the creation of multiple cities that connect to each other within a region. This is a neat feature of the game because you can simply move around a region to create different cities each with its own style and specialization or you can simply create various (although small land wise) cities to try out new features. Cities Skylines on the other hand allows the creation of one mega city in a region which can get overwhelming with the micro-management necessary to keep the city healthy. This one reason as it sits right now, that if you want the best of both worlds you have to play both games.
Map size in SimCityAlthough SimCity now has a Single-player/offline mode which definitely should have been part of the game from the start, I do wonder why EA decided keep us linked so closely to an Origin account. In fact in order to play the game you must log in to an Origin account (where the game was purchased) and keep the same Origin ID as your mayor name for every city you build. This seems silly especially if you wanted to build multiple cities in a region under a different mayor name as was the case in past SimCity games.
One other thing that SimCity lacks is great modification abilities by users (such as is the case with CS) for mods in-game such as regions, expanded maps or more roads and buildings. I also wish the game speed was a bit slower or at least a mod was available to slow it down as is in Cities Skylines. The mod complaints I have are only minor because if SimCity was built with larger maps or with the included option to create larger maps in the first place the game would be nearly perfect without mods.
What will tomorrow look like? Build it today! SimCity Cities of Tomorrow offers the more than two million players worldwide the opportunity to futurise every aspect of their cities with the help of plausible future technologies, giving players an entirely new way to dream about their city of the future. New MegaTowers, new city specialisations, new future technology and new transportation methods will transform the way that cities take shape and evolve.
SimCity Cities of Tomorrow is an entirely new way to play the ultimate city-building simulation. Players have the choice to create a utopian society underpinned by clean technology under the auspices of The Academy, or encourage giant corporation OmegaCo to strip-mine natural resources and pollute in the name of making massive profits. These new specialisations are set against the backdrop of the all-new MegaTowers, massive structures that players build high into the sky and dwarf the rest of the city. With the right balance the MegaTowers become self-sustaining monoliths that cater to all of the needs of the Sims under one roof. When players have finished deciding whether they want their Sims to live together in harmony, or as members of an exploited workforce, they can rain chaos upon them by unleashing an all-new disaster exclusive to this expansion pack.
In the future, we will all live in a daze, stunned by the technology that will surround us. Our homes will be at the top of towers thousands of feet tall, all of them connected by shining bridges that cut through the sky. Automated drones will keep us healthy, keep us tidy, even make sure we obey the law. We will work in buildings that are great sentinels of metal and light. We will be so rapt, so amazed by the omnipresence of progress, that we won't notice that the maglev train has got stuck, that the school bus is circling like a shark, that our friends can't find the shops next door. Then occasionally, just occasionally, something will knock us out of that daze and we'll realise just how silly the future has turned out.
While SimCity collapsed entirely under scrutiny, its first expansion Cities of Tomorrow merely teeters. Though it stumbles as it steps towards the future, it is at least heading in the right direction. Sometimes it makes a fool of itself but, though I'm loathe to admit this, I care less than I should. It's just so beautiful that I want to forgive it all its trespasses. It's a magnificent vision of the future, and the dystopian indignities it sometimes displays almost add to the charm... almost.
Cities of Tomorrow pulls SimCity into a future that lies somewhere between Star Trek and Blade Runner, a glowing fantasy of sleek curves and raging neon. It's a future where technology solves every problem, where bigger is always better and yet where suburban living can still survive, albeit bordered by laser fences.
It features two key additions, The Academy and OmegaCo. The former is like a university for environmentalists and in this verdant venue you will plant the seeds for a cleaner, smarter city, researching wave power, fusion reactors and sewage sanitsers. OmegaCo is much more concerned with profit and can turn just about everything in your city into a franchise of some sort, but will also use metal and oil to manufacture drones that can help out your city services. While the two aren't mutually exclusive, they're likely to lead you in one direction or another.
Standing proud in the cities of the future are the MegaTowers, buildings not so dissimilar to the out-of-town arcologies. These shining spires are constructed level by level, each of which can be residential, commercial or a utility of some sort, before being capped with a park, with solar panels or with a giant, gaudy, glowing advert.
These self-contained cities in the sky call SimCity's launch to mind, because it's not always entirely clear what's going on inside them. Residents on one level seem unable to find the shops on the next. Everyone who lives in one particular section of one of these gorgeous giants complains about a sewage problem that nobody else suffers from and which, because I can't find it, I can't do anything to solve.
At least things behave a little more logically back on the ground. SimCity has been patched since March and the sims of the next generation seem to have partly got their act together, though the game still suffers regular hiccups and has a new selection of spasms to add to its collection.
Since putting an Academy-granted booster on my solar power station, my power readouts frequently drop to zero. Thankfully, the lights rarely go out. The maglev trains, also a product of the Academy and running hundreds of feet in the air, have a tendency to stop working. Only a reloading of the city gets them going again. Then there was the meteor strike that took out my garbage dump: I never noticed because, even though no garbage was collected for days, even weeks, nobody complained about the mountains of waste all around them. Yesterday my community college taught 1,058 students, yet it only has space for 500. Perhaps I shouldn't complain.
And I often don't, because I'm constantly distracted. Time and technology beautify your city. Every time you drop one of the new structures, whether a humming Academy annex or a simple hydro station, it transforms everything around it into a futuristic reinvention. Roads glow, cars convert and buildings are mottled with solar panels. The future bleeds out from these buildings, gradually seeping into everything around them and - let me be quite clear about this - it often looks bloody fantastic.
SimCity was always a handsome game, but Cities of Tomorrow gives it touches of glory with some fantastic architecture and an almost psychedelic interpretation of the next century. It sounds wonderful, too, singing a jubilant call to tomorrow with arrays of howling synths and yearning, optimistic melodies.
This is how I've lost so much time to it, so very many hours. I can't say I wholly trust or understand Cities of Tomorrow - the game still has too many quirks and tics - but it's a treat for the senses. Sure, it's impossible to try to lay roads or maglev tracks without loudly cursing the placement tool at least once an hour, but birthing beautiful buildings from nothing accompanied by music that has all the energy and vigour of Vangelis is a soporific, almost sedative experience that makes the minutes fall away.
Frustrations come, though, and a bolstered building roster means you'll be even more stretched for space inside your cramped city limits. To get the most out of your Academy, you'll want to build its three annexes, all of which makes for a considerable footprint. Anything researched by the Academy also demands the resource it transmits, something called ControlNet, so you might want a few boosters for that too. The MegaTowers, meanwhile, are almost the size of a stadium.
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