SimCity Societies: new screenshots and impressions
by Jared Rea 
{ Aug 16th 2007 at 10:00AM }
Will Wright said it himself: SimCity is complicated. The series has always prided itself on its micromanagement but eventually, flexing the ol' executive muscle starts to feel more like work and less like playing god. No one actually dreams of being a city water commissioner, so why should you have to play one in a video game? SimCity Societies doesn't think you have to either.
In an impromptu presentation, the Sims team at EA walked us through their latest city builder with a focus on accessibility. The act of zoning is gone entirely, leaving players to place their buildings one by one in order to lay our their city. That may sound contrary to the overall goal, but the structures themselves are the characters this time around. Each building comes with its own stats and attributes that more clearly affect the citizens of your city. Your choices are also tailored to your current societal path, which leaves much less room for confusion while still allowing for creative expansion.
From there, it's business as usual, though more personal than ever before. With such a heavy focus on your citizens, its easy to understand the appeal of caring for the values and quality of life for your people as opposed to plotting out landfills and balancing budgets. For those who don't want to worry about money at all, a free play option will be made available from the very start.
SimCity Societies is due out for PC later this year. When asked about other platforms such as the Mac or consoles, nothing was confirmed nor denied.
In an impromptu presentation, the Sims team at EA walked us through their latest city builder with a focus on accessibility. The act of zoning is gone entirely, leaving players to place their buildings one by one in order to lay our their city. That may sound contrary to the overall goal, but the structures themselves are the characters this time around. Each building comes with its own stats and attributes that more clearly affect the citizens of your city. Your choices are also tailored to your current societal path, which leaves much less room for confusion while still allowing for creative expansion.
From there, it's business as usual, though more personal than ever before. With such a heavy focus on your citizens, its easy to understand the appeal of caring for the values and quality of life for your people as opposed to plotting out landfills and balancing budgets. For those who don't want to worry about money at all, a free play option will be made available from the very start.
SimCity Societies is due out for PC later this year. When asked about other platforms such as the Mac or consoles, nothing was confirmed nor denied.
Gallery: Sim City Societies
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Jerk Face @ Aug 16th 2007 10:07AM
Insightful Post of the Day:
Cool.
Dave @ Aug 16th 2007 10:08AM
Ridiculous. I cannot believe they have the balls to call this a Sim City game.
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 16th 2007 11:09AM
It's a cross between SimCity and the Sims.
dextro @ Aug 16th 2007 4:13PM
So SimVille actually made it out...
R.I.P. Sim City, guess EA will never take the change at improving on the great Sim City 4 and will instead do cheap sequels like this one intended only to make more money instead of a good game... It's a shame really... :(
rowd149 @ Aug 16th 2007 5:47PM
WTF man? They announced some basic gameplay details! It's not like they just handed you the game or anything! Wait until you've actually had a chance to play it to decide whether or not they've ruined a series.
9600baud @ Aug 16th 2007 10:11AM
So instead of laying zones and plumbing you simply place buildings. The overall goal (grow your city and keep its denizens happy) is still the same. I'm not sure how i feel about it but its definitly worth giving it a try before you bash.
megaStryke @ Aug 16th 2007 10:16AM
Hey, if I don't have to worry bullshit water and road maintenance, fine by me.
WiNG @ Aug 16th 2007 10:21AM
come on I want to play SimCity2000, where the hydroelectric dams never broke and caused no pollution, so I would pre landscape the whole map to be a crater in a valley of waterfalls, for endless green energy!!!
I honestly like zoning, I love draging that strip around. I would say SC4 is a little too complicated but they finally got things right with neighbors such as being able to buy electricity or export garbage. I mean after all my own city doesn't have its own landfill and solar power plant!
Bert @ Aug 16th 2007 10:22AM
Seriously who actually enjoyed the water management part of Sim City 2000? That game was so detailed oriented it ruined the possiblity of a casual gamer picking it up and desigining a quick and fun little city. IMO, the classic SimCity was much better due to it's less demanding requirements for a city to actually grow. I for one am very excited for the release of this game especially with the simplified gameplay.
blooh @ Aug 16th 2007 10:21AM
ever since 6th grade when simcity first came out I've never made a city that lasted more than about a half hour, so maybe I'll actually enjoy this new one
jesus_bon_jovi @ Aug 16th 2007 10:37AM
Some of those screenshots remind me of ReBoot...
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 16th 2007 11:10AM
Incoming game.
konajinx @ Aug 16th 2007 10:49AM
Ah, the purists are going to argue about this sequel all day, but this one really looks appealing to me, and it'll be the first PC game I've bought in ages. I like sim games, but accessibility always factors in for me over sheer "realism" when it comes to a lot of these things. I mean, I get that that's the overall point, but when a game does become more work than fun, I lose interest. It's nice to see that these issues were addressed here for the casual gamers who don't want to get neck deep into micromanaging.
BlindDog @ Aug 16th 2007 10:51AM
This is looking more and more like a City Life clone than a true Sim City game we all have come to know and love. Until I actually play it, I'm going to look at it like a City Life clone.
hvnlysoldr @ Aug 16th 2007 11:12AM
One of the most fun aspects I had with the original SimCity is nuking every square of land. Man I should do that on SimCity VC if they kept the glitch of people not moving if they don't have power.
Dale @ Aug 16th 2007 11:20AM
This actually appeals to me because I have the attention span of a gnat and managing the tiniest of details always annoyed me.
t_m @ Aug 16th 2007 11:29AM
I kinda enjoyed the zoning...
mr nimblewick @ Aug 16th 2007 11:33AM
If they port this to Wii, it will be an instant buy.
mr nimblewick @ Aug 16th 2007 11:34AM
If they port this to Wii, it will be an instant buy.
DjDATZ @ Aug 16th 2007 12:44PM
Meh...
wako @ Aug 16th 2007 12:51PM
doesnt look appealing at all...
I also dont like the graphics. Looks too cartoonish...
Jeff @ Aug 16th 2007 1:05PM
The whole point of SimCity - and what makes the series appealing - is watching your city grow organically based on the big-picture decisions you have made. If you're just manually placing individual buildings all over the place now, then
a) it sounds like *more* work, not less, and
b) everything that made SimCity appealing in the first place is gone. There's nothing organic about it anymore - it's a completely manual process.
I don't think it's worth dismissing it completely yet, but the more I hear the less I like.
mattydread @ Aug 16th 2007 1:18PM
I completely agree with you. My favorite part of Sim City is kicking back and watching my city grow on its own. What is supposed to change over time in this game if the buildings don't?
Meowzers @ Aug 16th 2007 1:58PM
I'm curious if they would make this game to be compatible with the Sims 2. I'd love to be able to create the landscape for my little demons. It's been years since I've played a Sim City, and I've been thinking of getting one recently.
Chris @ Aug 16th 2007 4:23PM
Silly me - when I read the name SimCity Societies, I was thinking this was going to be some type of MMO where people would collaborate and build massive cities. It would be interesting. It could turn into "Landlord Wars" or something :-p
GTG @ Aug 16th 2007 5:47PM
So far, no:
Zoning
Budgeting(?)
Utility management
Sooooo...where's the "SimCity" part of SimCity Societies? It's SimCity without much city planning sim other than being more like creating a emotion sandbox for "Sims"...a game where you micromanage virtual people doing the virtual tedium/things that you already do in life. The Sims also felt like "work" to me past a certain point because I could barely give a **** about telling virtual people when to **** for more than a couple of days. However, people can have all of the Sims they want, but I think it sucks that the Sims is creeping back into one of the EA/Maxis series I've always enjoyed for its engineering aspects. The focus, as hinted by the name, is now more on the people aspect rather than the city/engineering aspect. I don't want to build happy people town or scared people town...I want to build and maintain an efficiently functioning and prosperous city.
Ummmm...zoning was fun and one the most cool things was seeing what would develop based on your decisions. You come up with general plans and see what the simulation does with your decisions. It was all about trying to tweak/balance efficiency and development to keep the city prosperous and organized.
Though I guess this is the indication that I'm supposed to give up my sim gaming good times and watch everyone play Sims in the City. The tsunami created by watered-down mainstream appeal just pwned me again with the "thinking is too hard" and engineering isn't cool argument. I guess this is vicious payback for complaints that the system for managing water pumps/pipes was too tedious and flaky (which could have likely been greatly improved with some UI changes).
General D @ Aug 19th 2007 6:05AM
Head on over to Simtropolis and read the full preview from hands on point of view. No transportation networks, only a boxy road and a dirt road. No zoning, utilities, no diaganol roads, no kind of curves, no regional play, no terraforming, no Sim City as we know it. It's an alpha preview but November is just around the corner. How much change can they do. So in the so called sequel, we who love this game get nothing we been asking for for the past 5 years, plus what we have already gets stripped. This game is not a sequel to SC4! EA please remove the name Sim City from this title, it's insulting.
John @ Aug 27th 2007 12:23AM
looks retarded, whatever happened to a realistic city simulator? This looks like they're making it for kids. Well Maxis doesn't made it anymore, some other cheap douche company called Tilted Mill or whatever makes it now... great... no way in hell I'll buy this
ilovesimgames @ Sep 20th 2007 12:05AM
wow. I first saw this advertised when i was playing Sim City4 and tried to connect to the online part. What first draw me to it was that it was so personalized and there was so much new stuff, but i do look for similarities in series of any kind. Sadly, this is just so different from Sim City 4, that i might not buy it.
although some aspects of the game appeal to me, I would just miss the actual Sim City part of the game to really enjoy it that much. No terraforming?
No neioghbor relations and region play?
No zoning or basic-complex city management?
This is hardly a Sim City, maybe a Sim Sh***y