The SimCity Beta: First Impressions
By Robert Poplin
Enter Cities XL… With the exception of SimCity Societies (*shudder*), Cities XL was the first true attempt at a socialized, natively 3D city builder. Expectations were high, and before its release it was being touted by the internet hype machine as the “SimCity killer”. With features such as curved roads (lykohmahgawd), a completely 3D experience, and an online goods market, it sought to fix many of the long-standing issues that die-hard SimCity fans had with SC4. After its release, though, players quickly discovered that this wasn’t the SimCity killer that they were expecting. Game mechanics were completely different than SimCity (and not well-explained), and players really didn’t care to take the time to re-learn everything that SimCity had taught them. Coupled with a quagmire of bugs and technical issues, Monte Cristo was forced to close up shop and shut down the multiplayer servers.
Playing the beta for SimCity, I really got the sense that I was playing the game that Cities XL was meant to be, with some key differences (not all of them being favorable). Gameplay is centered on the new game engine called “Glassbox”, which takes the background simulation done in previous games and attempts to make the player more acutely aware of the direct and indirect consequences of their decisions (and it does a fantastic job of accomplishing this). For instance, plopping your water source next to your heavy polluters means that your citizens become more ill more frequently. As a consequence of this, your Sims call in sick to work. When they call in sick, factories produce less. When factories produce less, your local businesses suffer. When your businesses and factories can’t sell goods, they close up shop. When your businesses close shop, your Sims lose their jobs and your entire economy suffers. This all sounds very harsh, but I was very impressed with how those effects gradually became more severe over time, giving the player time to react to their tragic mistake of poisoning their citizen’s drinking water with whatever sludge was oozing from the local makeup factory’s waste output on that particular day. The game engine is incredible, and explaining every little thing that plays into how a city functions would risk boring the reader into narcolepsy.
Another new feature I really enjoyed was the ability to modify existing civic structures to meet the growing needs of your city. Instead of demolishing a clinic and plopping down what looks like “Surgery Land” in the middle of your town, you can expand that clinic to meet your town’s demands. Adding new wings and additional vehicles to structures increases both capacity and coverage, respectively. While this was a very nice feature, I found myself struggling to grasp how this system really worked. Watching my ambulances drive around town, I noticed that the coverage area followed it. This to me didn’t make any sense, unless perhaps it was referring not to the actual range of the vehicle but the range at which that vehicle was most effective. Hopefully some tutorial will take care of this issue at launch.
Much of the trade and city specialization system was disabled during the beta. The only specialization that users could demo was gambling. I really feel like this is going to become an essential part of building large cities, as building a city without any specialization and watching it grow is a significant challenge. The budget became very tight as the city demanded additional services, and growth even stagnated at some points while I was trying to meet this need. To become a successful mayor in SimCity, you’re going to need to play well with others.
Here’s the catch; cities are very, VERY small. A city in SC 2013 feels something like a borough or even a small town. The devs have made claims up to this point that the cities are close to what a small city tile in SC4 was like, but I think they’re even smaller than that. If I had to wager a guess, I’d say that each map is approximately 1 square mile. This means no more suburban sprawl and will make for some awkward-looking skylines. The beta only allowed players to play for an hour with up to medium density, so I didn’t get to see how a truly well-developed city skyline would look. I can say with confidence, however, that your cities will likely resemble one of these sticking out of the ground. Maxis have attempted to counteract the visual problems through the use of tilt-shift effects, but this really only helps draw your attention away up to a certain point. Map size is likely dictated by the processing power required by the game engine, but I feel that those with higher-performance machines should have the option of choosing a larger map. If there is one major disappointment I have with this game so far, it is hands down the map size.
If you haven’t been able to gather it by now, I’m neither wholly impressed nor completely disappointed by the beta. I think we’ll need to see the game in full swing before a final judgment can be made. The game’s engine is rock solid and provides countless hours of entertainment, but the limitations on city size could mean that players are left with too much to do and too limited a space in which to work. While I’m not convinced that a few neat post-processing tricks will fix the issue, I am interested to see how Maxis addresses this problem before launch (or more likely, how the modders handle it afterwards). I’ll definitely buy the game, but I’m not entirely sure if it will live up to my previous expectations.
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