SimCity Series

Game Central not only previews the new SimCity, they also interview some of the people working on it. I am so jealous right now. Please Maxis/EA let us eventually interview you as well. hehe

It all looks exactly as good as you’d expect from a modern day SimCity, but Maxis also emphasized the hidden complexities behind its ant farm like exterior. The demo started with most of the town out of power and placing down a coal-fired power station you can see little oval icons moving out from it towards the town. These are information ‘agents’ giving an at-a-glance view of how much power is being generated and where it is going.

The crowd of protesting sims outside the town hall are a less subtle clue that all is not well and so the power station is quickly upgraded and electricity pylons are pulled around the screen with a satisfying ‘boooing’, until their optimum location is chosen.

GC: So curved roads are a big new feature for the game, which is interesting because from a British perspective the original always seemed quite abstract in the way the cities were designed…

JH: Right, because American cities are more grid-structured than European cities, right?

GC: That’s right. But now that you have them does that affect the gameplay at all? Are European gamers going to be making their lives difficult for themselves just because they’re building a city based on what they see in real life?

BB: It’s pretty much cosmetic, it’s just the look. So the houses that were built on the curved road [in the demo] could actually still be built on a straight road.

JH: But it’s all part of the city planning, it’s part of the game. So certainly the curved roads behave the same way as the straight ones, except that they’re longer, so if you plan your city well you can build whatever you want. But just because you’re using curved roads, you won’t be making things more difficult for yourself.

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