Sim City 5 announcement expected this week for 2013?

Pyr0 wrote: »

I'll give it a week or two after release and we'll see a subway DLC or maybe included in a Pre-Order package..

I bet there'll be a mod out before long.

I could download this game illegally but because I love it so much I'm willing to give EA my money. However when it comes to charging extra for subways they can jog on. The mod will probably be better anyway...

cherryghost wrote: »

First impressions are its good. The beta has too many features locked out to make any more analysis on it though. There's a good few bugs too. UI and graphics are slick.

Would it be a day one purchase for you cherry

I did as I was too lazy to look around for better value. I think you also get something called "Plumbob Park" for ordering on Origin, which I'm sure will make all the difference.

€59 or €79 with some extra country packs like London, Paris, and I think Berlin.

It was pretty good. Most of the features were locked out, so you could only get a taste of the game.

Overall, it does kind of come across as dumbed down so far, from previous games. But that's mostly because, since all advanced buildings and options were locked out, they could only really show off how streamlined they've made the game.

The map is too small, in my opinion. I always liked having the large sprawling maps with my power stations far off away from the main city. But now, within the space of the hour long beta access, the map was full and my power station was surrounded. It's something I can live with, but hopefully the maps will expand at some point (probably an expansion pack, pun not intended).

The way you build a city is different now. Before, you'd place down you residential, commercial or industrial zones and link them with power lines and roads. Now the game is based around your roads. You put down your low, medium or high density roads and then designate either side of it as residential, commercial or industrial. Here's an example:



So you can see above that little squares were made by the roads and they drew in residential (green) areas in the middle. It's not a bad system, but I found that you end up having to try and create tight grids because in the example above, you're left with empty spaces in your zones. Sometimes large buildings may be built to take up those spaces, but you don't really get to control the size. And since land is in short supply, it can be a bit of a struggle to set out the right type of zone.

Another problem is the power system. Like before, you have to provide power and water. But now the roads act as the pipes and power lines too. This can be handy, as you'll always have buildings next to a road, but the power acts funny.

You place a water tower down by a road, and it pumps water to buildings. You may have seen this in some of the videos where it shows a blue line with circles running along them towards the buildings. It represents the flow of water and works grands.

But the power works the exact same way. And I don't think you've any real control over how the power "pulses" flow. When they hit a junction, they randomly take a turn and head off. I found this really annoying when I ran out of power and had to add a new wind turbine. Areas at the far end of the map had no power and after increasing the output, it still took five minutes for power to be restored to them. Considering power was immediate in the previous games, I'm not sure why they decided to change it here.

I haven't seen any terraforming tools and don't know if they just weren't in the beta, or if there's none in this game.

Those are a few of the things that bothered me. They're not horrifically offputting, just different enough from the previous games so as to stand out. There's plenty to like about the game.

The upgradable buildings are pretty cool. Rather than having to put down more firestations, for example, you just build an extra garage on to the side of the current one, or increase reaction time by adding a new alarm bell to it.

You don't have to micromanage the budgets for the buildings (which, to be honest, I missed), and you don't have to increase/decrease the radius of the area that schools/hospitals/police/fire stations cover, mostly due to the small size of the town.

With schools you now place bus stop in residential areas to get the kids to school. And the UI highlights what areas are within distance of these stops. It's pretty handy.

The UI is really good and easy to navigate. If there's a problem you can quickly see what it is and how to solve it.

The sims themselves are pretty cool. You can follow each one about the city as they drive to work, or hop on the bus and complain about it being too full or loudly exclaim "Simlent Green is Sims!". The city feels alive and for once, I actually felt guilty about placing a civic building in a residential area when it removed the home that was already built. Partly because I think I may have been losing a bit of income from them, but also because I watched as a construction crew came into town and built the house, then the moving truck came in a delivered the families stuff.

There's so many little things to see that it makes the game so much more of an ant-farm than before. It's really cool.

I'm really looking forward to playing the full thing. Currently, I don't see it as a replacement for Simcity 4. This would be something I'll be playing along side it.

To be honest, I can see the "limited" city space as a cool idea. I know it's a game and all but it IS a problem in modern day society; city/town planning that is.