(PC) SimCity Societies

Overall Rating of 5

You’ll love:

• Societies itself is better now
• Many new Venue buildings
• Adds considerable challenge

You’ll hate:

• An overpriced add-on
• Flimsy and irrational
• Doesn’t change any core mechanics

Read the review at GamesRadar

I wish the game was a stand-alone product instead of packed in with games I already own or via digital download only.  I cannot believe why they decided to not release it separate…

On top of it all, the visuals are still lovely, but the engine performs much better, though it’s still prone to a little chugging as you scroll across a city that is crammed with structures and decorations. With all of this content and more–new city themes, disasters, and so on–SimCity Societies: Destinations improves a game that had plenty of room to grow, and in the process, makes for a likable, charming experience that you can get lost in. It has its flaws, but it hits more than it misses.

SimCity Societies Destinations earned a 7.0 Rating

All that aside, though, not much else has changed. The game still has the same general look (with a few new effects – more on that in a moment), the same sound and plays the same. Destinations does add a new layer of challenges and makes city planning a bit more involved, but in all honesty, because you could create a viable town with the free downloads and the tools in place, catering to tourists is not a must-have addition.

Of course, the game does have some fun stuff. There are new disasters that can be unleashed in your town and some of the effects that go along with the tourist attractions are a decent bit of eye candy.

GameZone gives SimCity Societies Destinations an overall 7.8 score.  Not bad for an expansion of a game that did fairly poor when it was released.

Well, SimCity Societies Destinations should now be available for Digital Download, as well as packed in with The SimCity Box in a retail store near you.   How does it rate?  Well…not looking good according to 1Up…

Sadly, though, urban planning isn’t the greatest challenge the series faces. In spite of five patches and this expansion, Societies still suffers from the occasional crash, slowdown issues when cities get large, and a totally inadequate zoom-out range (likely artificially induced to help mask the framerate problems). Since the graphics engine is more Prius than Corvette, it boggles the mind how the dev team can go through this many iterations and still have such a staccato game.

Anyway, other than the “Come to Lovely Simtopia!” angle, Societies remains the same as always, expansion or no. Your resident Sims can’t visit any of the tourist venues (although vacationers don’t face equivalent restrictions with normal buildings), so you’ve still gotta build your burg along pretty much the same lines and with pretty much the same tools you have always used — only now you have to leave some space for tourist stuff. Many new buildings (and new gameplay modes) are already available in free patches, so if you’re not interested in Destinations’ vacationing layer (which, to be fair, adds another honest-to-goodness challenge to the game), you don’t really need to drop another 30 bucks — unless you really, really missed that monster-attack disaster.

1UP reviews SimCity Societies Destinations (Bargin Bin)