SimCity (2013) Review

The legendary city-building simulator series SimCity has returned to computer screens, making use of all the perks of modern technology such as online co-op play and extensive social features. However, the reboot can hardly be called successful: SimCity (2013) is full of subtle gameplay flaws, bugs, and technical issues like "Error 37". But let's start from the beginning.

Electronic Arts claimed it was thoroughly prepared for the launch of SimCity (2013). However, it learned nothing from Blizzard’s problematic launch of Diablo 3. For the first few days, players around the world were unable to connect to the game’s servers without difficulties.

To somehow fix the situation, it was necessary to triple (!) the number of servers, although the load on the initial game servers still hasn’t subsided. All these problems arose because you can only interact with your city on the server where it was created. If you join another region, you won’t be able to continue your previous game—you’ll have to start all over again.

Thus, having started a game on one server, you’re unlikely to want to move to another, since you’ll have to rebuild your city from scratch, find new partners for co-op play, and also figure out why something on the new server works differently than on the previous one. That’s why the first couple of servers are under such heavy load. If you have a lot of friends playing SimCity (2013), migrating to a free server becomes even more problematic, since not all of them will want to settle into a new region when there’s still so much work to do in the old one.

Of course, over time, the number of players will be evenly distributed among all the machines, but for now, the third and fourth servers are empty, so you’re bound to encounter problems with co-op play.

So, you’ve finally managed to connect to the system and launch the game. Don’t get too excited yet; there are still plenty of unusual situations ahead. For example, the reviewer built five cities, but only one of them is currently available for loading. Trying to load any of the others results in an endless loading screen, so you have to close the game through Task Manager. What happened to them, and whether they’ll ever be accessible, is unknown. At least, technical support can’t say anything useful except “we’re working to fix the problems.”

SimCity has loaded and offers to start the game with a tutorial? Give it a try, but don’t be surprised if, for some reason, you can’t complete it—and you can’t skip it either. Players have complained about numerous problems with the tutorial, and I also encountered a couple of unpleasant bugs, so in this situation, it’s best to exit and try switching servers.

After you finish the tutorial, you’ll be able to start a new game. The developers offer a choice of ten regions, each with 14–16 free zones for city building and 4–6 zones for major projects. To develop the region faster, you can immediately invite friends, and by helping each other, you’ll eventually be able to construct a major project. Choose the location for your future city carefully. Consider what resources the land beneath it is rich in, and what problems you might face. Made your choice? Great—claim the territory and start playing.

A modern mayor has a lot on their plate. The police can’t cope with rising crime, the factory doesn’t have enough workers to run at full capacity, and the local school is overcrowded with students. The roads are constantly jammed with traffic, while the sewage system can’t handle the load and waste threatens to flood the city.

All these problems can hit the player completely unexpectedly and catch them off guard. Funding just adds fuel to the fire: maintaining services is quite expensive, so a high standard of living will cost you a pretty penny. However, most problems can be avoided if you plan your city map wisely right from the start. You probably won’t get it right the first time, but over time, you’ll quickly learn where to build residential districts and where it’s better to set up production.

The developers have significantly limited the player’s imagination by reducing the map size to a reasonable minimum. Usually, a third of the map is allocated for housing (the green zone), a tenth for commercial buildings (the blue zone) and factories (the yellow zone), and all the remaining space is taken up by industrial complexes and extraction plants. Or stadiums and exhibition centers. This depends on the specialization you choose for development. If the map you selected has coal, oil, or ore deposits, you can profit from processing them. If the area attracts a lot of tourists, then it’s better to build popular spots like stadiums and cultural landmarks. If you wish, you can always build a small airport or seaport, as well as add a casino or a brothel.

As a result, building a city takes less than eight hours. During this time, the city will not only acquire its specialization but also grow to the limits of the map, housing 100,000–150,000 people. As you can imagine, providing such a population with utilities requires an adequate number of corresponding services. This is where you’ll face the main problem: when the city is almost fully built, it’s very hard to bring it to an ideal state. You simply won’t have enough land for that, since you can’t buy more and expand the map. And freeing up space by demolishing existing buildings is inefficient.

For players like this, the developers came up with mega projects, such as an international airport or an archaeological complex. It’s almost impossible for a single city to handle such a project, but several cities can easily manage it. For this, you’ll need to allocate certain resources—for example, send metal structures, TVs, or people to the project’s construction.

The bonuses from completing such projects are much greater than those from trading goods between cities. However, they also require a lot of effort and time, so you’ll need to prepare well before starting construction. A text chat will help coordinate players’ efforts, although you’ll need a knowledge of English, as most players use it for in-game communication. Still, you can always gather Russian-speaking players by inviting them to join your private game.

Just so you don’t get too comfortable, various disasters will occur from time to time, varying in strength and duration. Naturally, the damage will be different, and sometimes even significant. A tornado can destroy a freshly built stadium, while a giant lizard can trample several residential districts. Disasters happen quite rarely, but you’ll always feel their impact. Like them or not, they add noticeable variety to the gameplay.

Bugs are always unpleasant, and it’s doubly frustrating when you expect to see a AAA game, which SimCity (2013) is supposed to be. In the first days after release, players discovered so many problems that Electronic Arts had to offer everyone who bought the new SimCity a free game as a sort of moral compensation. However, this didn’t really improve the situation. I personally contacted technical support twice, describing in detail the gameplay errors I encountered. Let’s hope the developers fix them quickly.

For example, players often faced a situation where all police or fire trucks would drive in a “train,” one after another, to a single call, instead of responding to emergencies as needed.

It’s also surprising that all emergency services using sirens get stuck in traffic just like regular vehicles. No one gives way to them, so if your city’s roads are jammed, the firefighters simply won’t make it in time. Considering Maxis claimed that the behavior of each unit in the game would be calculated individually, this result looks very odd.

Another questionable gameplay decision is the automatic construction and upgrading of buildings in residential, commercial, and industrial zones. Now, buildings decide on their own when to upgrade to the next level. Of course, the player can help by improving the quality of life, but this takes away the ability to fully control the situation. For example, you might have 6,000 unskilled workers living in private houses. As soon as you provide them with all the amenities, their homes will upgrade to apartment buildings, and the population will drop to 3,000! At the same time, industrial buildings require more workers with each new level, but their number, annoyingly, is always less than needed.

Overall, players encountered a lot of bugs, so if something isn’t working as it should, or as you expect, try another server. It’s quite possible that things will work fine there. The game often loses connection even with a free server, and sometimes the Origin client crashes, causing a full game restart.

The developers kept their promise, and the graphics in the game are quite decent. At the same time, the game runs without performance drops on most older computers. It’s also pleasing that the developers have prepared a wealth of various buildings, so it’s hard to see the same structures repeated throughout your city.

The quality of cooperative play directly depends on who you end up with for joint region development, but so far the community is quite adequate and friendly. Even if you’re a beginner, you won’t be bullied for it—on the contrary, you’ll get helpful advice.

Once you get the hang of using city specializations, start trading extensively with other players, and build a mega-project together, the game will reveal itself from its best side. The thing is, you can manage several cities at the same time, using the resources of one to develop another. The optimal setup is four or five players in one region—then there’s enough space for everyone, and each can develop whatever they want. For example, heavy industry in one city and tourism in a neighboring one. Or you might focus solely on tourism while your partner improves industry.

Over the past 10 years, city-building simulators have changed significantly. SimCity (2013) tries its best to keep up with modern trends without losing its unique features. In some ways, it succeeds—it captures the spirit of the earlier games in the series and requires players to adapt the city’s pace of development, respond to situations, and complete various mini-quests.

On the other hand, SimCity (2013) has lost a significant degree of seriousness and control, adopting many simplifications. CitiesXL, for example, is a much more complex and deep game, requiring players to thoroughly understand the underlying processes and strategies for city development. Plus, the city there is hardly limited in size, and can house 5 or even 10 million people.

So, if you want to quickly build a city with minimal mental effort, the new SimCity (2013) is your choice. But if you like to keep everything under control and carefully plan the development of each individual district, try the competitors—like CitiesXL.