At the beginning of this month Simcity 5 came out, and what a mess it turned out to be. Instead of being a single player game they practically turned it into an MMO. You have to log into their servers to play and you can’t save your own games locally. The whole thing is done up in the cloud, like I said, what a mess. The problem is if you can get in the game, and get past any of the initial bugs on release, it’s a really good game. The simulation looks great, and takes everything into consideration. Workers, shoppers, the cars on the roads, all of it. Some of the patting can be messed up, but Maxis is working on that, they’ve release 10 or so patches since launch.

The game does run a little slow. Cheetah speed hasn’t worked since launch, and you can stand around waiting on your city to grow between build cycles. I also don’t like the limited city size. You can end up playing 3 to 16 cities on a map, but all of them are restrictive in size. And services, for the size cities can be it’s hard to raise enough money to afford all the services they want. The game can be a real challenge at times.

But for all the problems that come with the game, I’m glad I got it. It’s a great simulation, and Maxis is working hard to resolve the problems that have arisen since launch. And once they unlock things like cheetah speed, the game will be even better. Plus there’s the possibility of an expansion like Simcity 4 for a subway system, and maybe bigger cities.

- D

Currently Playing: Simcity 2013