Sim City 5…
Well, at least I think its a Sim City game…
Check out this link before reading on.
Seriously. WTF.
“SimCity Societies is to take a greater interest in the lives of its virtual citizens than previous installments have”.
Why? This is SimCity, not The Sims.
I don’t want to control Mark Markson and his wife, Mandy or their kids, Matt and Mary… not their dogs either.
I want to focus on where my CBD is, manage healthcare coverage, tamper with school funding and organise a bus transportation network, while linking up a sprawling metropolis of cities across the landscape, using advanced highway systems, trains and subway services.
What I don’t want to know is if Mark is happy with his choice of clothes, or their new washing machine. If I wanted to know this, I’d play The Sims.
All I need to know about my residents of Scottyville is if they can get to work on time, they have access to education, healthcare and aren’t too bothered about the looming pollution scenario.
All I want to do is drag out squares of road, zone up, and provide services.
That’s it.
That’s because the focus is on building the city. Not building the Sims. Or so it used to be.
Why EA have felt the need to blow apart a franchise that has succeeded in the same basic form for 4 complete series I’ll never know. I guess the corporate machine feels that The Sims makes more money than the SimCity franchise, so they may as well amalgamate the two.
All along I’ve been waiting for a sequel. Much hype has surrounded it and an enthusiastic fan-base has speculated the improved graphics, the polished city-building interface, increasing on SimCity 4’s already excellent simulation.
Instead, we look to be getting a relic of early-2000’s graphics coupled with a re-furb of SimTown.
It would be a shame to see the franchise ruined - and the last (if not only) proper city-building game abandoned for the sake of profiteering.
Hopefully I’m wrong, hopefully this is all just being talked up to encourage fans of the Sims to buy it. Hopefully you’ll be able to disable all the concerns about your Sims and get back to the job of city building.
I’ll remain optimistic. But I’m definitely concerned.
