Quick Look: SimCity

This seemed pretty cool from what I had been reading before release but Jesus those cities are small. I mean, I had heard some people complain but I just figured it was people being oversensitive but no, those cities are just too small. The region idea is very cool but it seems more like a compromise for the cities being so small and it's a shame. Between that and Origin, no thanks.

Good god did this Quick Look kill my interest in this game. The DRM, the city size, the lack of loading saves, the bugginess, the road-centered layout, the load screens going from one region to another... this game looks nothing like what I was hoping for.

I was completely convinced that the media was exaggerating how bad this is, but for once they actually hit the nail on the head. There is just so much here that is a bummer. I can't even think of a better way to describe it. Just a huge bummer. I'm sad now.

For me this is hugely disappointing and had totally crushed my excitement for the game. At least GiantBomb is honest, so.... Yay! You saved me money! :D

I... preordered this. Ugh.

My first pre-oder ever....yeah...should have listen to what Giantbomb had been saying all along.

Don't pre-order anything.

I was actually thinking about pre-ordering this game because I love SimCity and just building stuff, but if you're confined to such a tiny space and can't alter the landscape, I really don't want to play SimCity 5.

This Quick Look convinced me to buy SimCity 4.

This Quick Look is already a couple days old, but just wanted to say that these are basically my thoughts on the game as well. With the plot of land given, it seems like you'll build up a lot of your roads and zoning within the first like 5 hours, then I assume work your way up to higher density stuff, generate enough money to do the add-on modules on your services and utilities, then just sit there grinding out materials for a regional project. I mean, Jeff built like 2 complete "cities" in 15 hours. That's ridiculous.

At least Tropico or Cities XL have the decency to be cheap as fuck, compared to this $60 game with basically the same scope (or less) and fancier presentation.

SlimCity.

I'm one of those people who doesn't care about the always on internet and I thought "this looks great!" First took half an hour to install because it was downloading updates apparently. Once installed and I launched it, another hour long download :/ Then got the wait screen because the servers were busy. Took a few minutes but then got into a game, the tutorial crashed on me, so I started a real game, only to find out that my computer has trouble running it with settings even on medium(and lighting off), and it looks pretty craptacular with the settings turned down.

You have it exactly right. You can make a completely dense city, but making every city the same way (packing it with a grid of high-rises) would be missing the point. The idea of this game is smaller cities supporting eachother with services and shoppers. You can have a rich, dense city that commutes over to your tourist city, which is powered by your industrial city, etc. It ends up being super fun.

No I am not confused. Playing tomb raider is probably a more enjoyable experience than playing a SimCity game with no terraforming and a limited city size.

After playing this game for 16 hours on one city, I GET what they are trying to do.

Instead of expanding outwards, your options are to work with what you have and rethink your city layout and make room for upgraded buildings and future expansion. By limiting the size of the map, planning/layout is a HUGE factor. This creates similar challenges from the older Sim City's but at an earlier stage. I also noticed that the zones grow instantly once the utilities have been set. It would be overwhelming to manage a gigantic city in addition to completing side missions from the SIMS.

In addition, the multiple cities allows you to take advantage by starting fresh and focus on other areas to help the cities share resources to work for the common goal. This adds a new experience how you can obtain resources instead of just constantly building additional buildings (expanding outwards).

Maxis could have probably do the same thing with more space to build, but I can imagine performance being an issue with their current engine. Maybe EA will release a DLC which you will have to PAY to remove city restrictions.

After playing this game for 16 hours on one city, I GET what they are trying to do.

Instead of expanding outwards, your options are to work with what you have and rethink your city layout and make room for upgraded buildings and future expansion. By limiting the size of the map, planning/layout is a HUGE factor. This creates similar challenges from the older Sim City's but at an earlier stage. I also noticed that the zones grow instantly once the utilities have been set. It would be overwhelming to manage a gigantic city in addition to completing side missions from the SIMS.

In addition, the multiple cities allows you to take advantage by starting fresh and focus on other areas to help the cities share resources to work for the common goal. This adds a new experience how you can obtain resources instead of just constantly building additional buildings (expanding outwards).

Maxis could have probably do the same thing with more space to build, but I can imagine performance being an issue with their current engine. Maybe EA will release a DLC which you will have to PAY to remove city restrictions.

Yes. If I get plopped down on a peninsula with some hills on it, I want to be able to build a port on that shore and some fancy living places or an industry on top of those hills. Having them be arbitrarily out of bounds is the worst feeling when you're trying to be creative. None of the previous city builders I've played have had terrain that you can't build on or choose what to do with. The entire visible world, from edge to edge, was a canvas to work with. And I remember liking making use of that space for artistic purposes back in SC2K, setting up little port towns, villages near forests and suburbs linking into a larger city center just because I could. And because that's how I'm used to cities looking, in the world that I live in. They sure as hell aren't perfect squares in the middle of a desolate landscape with a single road leading to them. Inefficient planning, sure, but I had fun trying to make things look organic like that. Like real cities often do.

I mean, come on, two square kilometers? The place I live in now takes up more space than that, and it has less than 80,000 inhabitants including the surrounding suburbs. I don't think that even qualifies it for city status. And this game has "city" right there in the name! It's like if RollerCoaster Tycoon didn't let you build roller coasters...!

I gave last year's Hitman a chance as my first foray into that franchise after a lot of promising previews, only to be severely disappointed. I had a lot of deja vu watching this Quicklook.

If that's moving up, then I'm moving out.

seeing this makes me wish for a new Transport Tycoon.

You guys do realize that you spinning the camera like that for the first 30 seconds (as you have in several other QuickLooks) is not only annoying, but more importantly makes it impossible to link the video to people who have no idea what Giant Bomb is? Because the first few seconds they look at it they think its an unprofessional video made by a 12 year old who's opinion has no value... shame.. because your QuickLooks can be very educational as far as purchasing decisions go.... but with spins like that I find a lot of people dismiss them and close them down a few seconds in...

All they have to do is open up the regions to allow one player to build anywhere (aka force a private game that you can't invite anyone to and remove the city size limits) and this game would be great. I hope the backlash means a patch is coming.

The one thing about this game that fails to make any sense is the disasters like the giant lizard or the zombie attack that you can not only start voluntarily but also pick where. To me it'd seem like this is something that should happen in the game to force players to keep up with some choices like excessive radiation but it shouldn't have this much freedom in the game. Right now looking at those options, after the first time, it seems silly to ever use them on your city.

@duxa: Holy shit get that stick out of your ass.

My biggest problem with this game in its intended format is the city size limit. Sure the launch has been a bigger trainwreck than I remember Diablo III being, but man. I really wanted to play this game until I saw the city size limit.

Nice little look at the new Sim City. Some of the new stuff I do like, especially the filters. I'm still not completely sold on it. I am watching this after it has released and has been having all those issues. I'll wait another week or two to see. Otherwise, mildly impressed. Looks fun.

This game seems extremely complicated yet streamlined, but the cities are so small that all that complexity kind of goes to waste.

I wonder if people are going to be able to mod this game to allow you to just make huge cities, or if that's something out of the realm of possibilities for a modder.

That would be awesome but I'm guessing that it wouldn't be possible due to the always online thing. Here's hoping though.

I am curious what exactly happened during development of this game that lead to this outcome. There seems to be a lot of QA issues/bugs, to the point that the game gives the impression (I haven't personally played it) that it may have been rushed to market before it was ready. Maxis does not have a reputation for releasing buggy unpolished games, so..? I realize the publisher looks to be a part of the blame for that, but even so, Maxis has been tied to EA since 1997. They have put out many excellent games since that buyout. It's only the last few years that EA has been pulling some flagrantly anti-consumer moves.

Wow Cities Skylines is so much better.