Up and Coming: SimCity

Happy Friday eve everyone! I'm going to be looking at something a little different today, rather than the usual Action RPG games I ramble on about. Today I'm going to be having a look into EA Maxis' next instalment in their much loved SimCity Series. 

Just looking at this screen cap makes
me want to play this game again.

Personally, the last SimCity I played was SimCity 3000 back when I was around 9, I remember getting it fairly close to the release date in 1999 and, boy, did I spent countless hours building up huge metropolis' only to plague them with earthquakes and other natural disasters (Space Junk was a barrel of laughs). But for some reason SimCity 4 flew under the radar. I think this may have been because at the time I was playing my consoles more frequently, but who knows?

So after looking at what SimCity (5) has to offer, I was rather impressed, along with heavy graphical improvements and the features from the older games will likely be included, there will be a lot more being implemented such as resource gathering playing an important part; Senior software engineer at EA Maxis Dan Moskowitz has stated, "If you've built up an entire city on the economic basis of extracting a certain resource, when that resource runs out your economy will collapse.".

Online play is another feature that is being added, which will allow you and your friends to build up a region of cities which sounds pretty awesome. But recent complaints have spawned from critics about this, why you ask? Well... to start up the game you will require an Internet connection. While for many of us having a stable, broadband, Internet connection seems like a standard amenity, many people without will not be able to play at all. Once the game has started, you won't get booted from the game, which I guess is some good news for those who use dial-up still, or have a very shaky connection. But still if your internet is down you can't play a local game...? That just doesn't make sense EA!

With a Simulation Engine called
'Glassbox' fans are expecting good things!

On the plus side however it has been announced by maxis that modding will be supported in this game, which is awesome for any PC game out there. If there are bugs, you can be pretty sure some modders out there will make a fix or a workaround. Also, the amount of fun cosmetic stuff the gaming community comes up with is astounding, so this was definitely a step in the right direction.

A new dynamic simulation engine is also being incorporated into SimCity which sounds interesting, simmed units dynamically and randomly creating traffic jams whilst they actually travel around town or to work, now that's attention to detail! Especially considering that many people will be hoping to build cities with populations in the hundreds of thousands.

As for release date, all that has been stated is that it will be a 2013 release, so I guess we'll have to be patient for a year, but this game has definitely piqued my curiosity and will be a game I'd love to invest in when it gets released. But for now I will leave you with the announcement video, enjoy!