I wasn’t expecting it, but I received “SimCity Societies” for Christmas. And first off, I need to correct an earlier article about the game — it IS compatible with Windows Vista.
With that business out of the way, onto my review. I haven’t played very much yet, so I’m not really sure whether I like it or not… but I have some first impressions.
First of all, the graphics and sound are amazing. Much better than any other SimCity, no doubt. Sorry to mention that without actually including any screenshots — I’ll come back and add those later when I have more time. But I’m not a sucker for a game just because it has great graphics. My review focuses more on the “engine” of the game… the rules, the way the simulation handles your city.
Until now, every version of SimCity had you, as the mayor, laying out the general “framework” of the city. You basically decide which areas will be “zoned” as residential, commercial or industrial. You add in power, transportation, police and other public services. Depending on how well you do this, “SimCitizens” (later reduced to “Sims”) move into your city… and you watch your empty acres of “zones” develop into buildings. If you did well, the buildings eventually became skyscrapers. If you didn’t do so well (because of poor layout, or problems like high crime), then you might only get slum housing and burger joints — or worse, buildings that become abandoned. Part of the fun was sitting back and watching your city evolve on its own.
With SimCity Societies, they’ve really changed things up. Rather than zoning things and letting the Sims decide what to build — you open up a menu of buildings, and you pick exactly what you want to build, and where it’s going to appear. Where’s the fun in that, you ask? Well, each building will contribute to, or detract from, various elements in your city. For example, game’s the tutorial walks you through building cottages which each drain ”1 creativity point” to thrive. If you don’t have the points, nobody moves into the cottages. But you can build art murals which contribute 8 creativity points… so for every mural you build, you can build 2 cottages.
You then need to balance all this out by building places for your Sims to work, and “venues” where they can go for fun after work — like ice cream shops, parks, or even drama school. Not only do you have to worry about having enough places for your Sims to live and work … yes, you also have to make sure they’re happy. (Kinda reminds me of SimTower, where people got mad if they had to wait too long for elevators.)
You have to make sure your buildings compliment each other so you never have a shortage of creativity, productivity, educational or money points… everything has to balance out or certain buildings won’t succeed. And you need to keep people employed and happy so they don’t go crazy and go on strike or incite riots.
As you grow the city, more and more buildings become “unlocked” and you can eventually build larger things like skyscrapers, or add in bus and subway systems. For example, I can only use wind power right now, but eventually, I’ll have access to several other types of power plants.
Another neat thing which reminds me of SimTower, is the ability to click on any individual Sim and see what they’re up to. Each one has a name, and you can see where they work, what they’re up to, how happy they are… you can even have the “camera” follow them around as they go about their business. When you do that, a green diamond appears over their head, just as if you were playing “The Sims.” A simple click and you can switch through that person’s family members. Yep, the game even keeps track of families. You can even rename them if you want.
So far so good, right? Well, here’s what I don’t like about it. Once you place a building, that’s it. That cottage will always be a cottage forever, until I decide to demolish it and build something else in its place. The Sims will never expand that cottage into a mansion, an apartment building or a skyscraper on their own. Rather than being a mayor who creates a basic plan, you’re put into the role of a dictator, with absolute power over every single building in the city. First of all, this takes away the fun of setting up a city, putting the speed on “high” and then sitting back to watch it grow like a time-lapse video of a Chia Plant. Or even just watching your small town slowly become a thriving metropolis. Rather than setting up one section of the city and moving onto the next, SimCity Societies forces you to go back to “older” sections of the city and upgrade them manually.
I suppose there’s a slight element of realism to that, but I think (in both SimCity and real life) if someone owns property, they should be able to do what they want with it. They shouldn’t have City Hall forcing them to build their homes or businesses in a certain way. The city doesn’t own the property, the people do. City Hall shouldn’t be responsible for making sure there are enough ice cream shops and roller rinks in town to keep people happy. City Hall’s job is to establish a “commercial zone” and then let the people decide “hey, this town could use an ice cream shop” and they do it on their own. Or to establish a “residential zone” and then let the free market decide whether that land will be occupied by a trailer park, middle-class homes, or a 50-story tower of luxury condos.
Of course, for years now, I’ve played very little SimCity at all, mostly because it’s a game best played when you have hours on end — and I usually don’t. You can’t just play 15 minutes here and 20 minutes there. That’s like trying to read a long book, but only 3 or 4 pages every few days. It would be difficult to really get into it. For example, I started the tutorial, but couldn’t finish it. So I saved it and left. When I came back, the game picked up where I left off — as if it were a regular city. It didn’t “remember” that I was still in the middle of the tutorial, which means I’ll have to start all over again (if I want to learn everything I should know) AND it’ll have to be at a time when I know I’ll be able to get through the entire thing in one sitting.
Lately, whenever I do have hours on end… they’re usually being devoted to Super Mario Galaxy, which I also got for Christmas, and which I’ll also review one of these days. But not now, because I’m going to go play it.
Despite my complaints, I’m not ready to write off SimCity Societies just yet — I admit, this is a rather early review, and to be fair, I need to give the game more time to see if it “grows” on me. At least if I don’t like it, I don’t have to be completely guilty — Kelly said she only bought it for me because Target was offering a free gift card with purchase (and she kept the gift card).
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