SimCity Societies

SimCity Societies
Developer(s)	Tilted Mill Entertainment
Publisher(s)	Electronic Arts
Series	Sim games
Released	PC 13 November 2007[1]
Genre	Simulation game (life and city-building)
Mode(s)	Single player
Ratings	PEGI: 3+/4+ ESRB: E10+
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows
System requirements	Windows XP SP2, or Windows Vista, 1.7 GHz Intel CPU, or AMD XP 2100 processor, 512 MB RAM memory, 2.1 GB free hard disk drive space, 128 MB video card, DVD drive, DirectX 9.0-compatible video card.
Input methods	Keyboard & mouse

SimCity Societies is a city-building simulation computer game of Electronic Arts (EA) and is part of the Sim games series. The game was developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment and was released worldwide on November 13 2007.^[1]

Announcement

On June 5 2007, Tilted Mill Entertainment, creator of Caesar IV, announced that it would be developing SimCity Societies instead of Maxis, which had created all preceding titles.^[2] Rob Humble, head of EA's Sims Division, indicated that EA representatives had asked Tilted Mill to create the game at E3.^[3] Fans reacted poorly on the official forums of the developer towards this game. Responses directly from the developers attempted to ease some concerns.^[4]

Gameplay

A city showing the day and night cycle within the game.

While previous mainstream SimCity titles could be best described as mayordom, or "God" simulators, SimCity Societies is different, as foreshadowed by the previews and statements from the developers,^[5] by being a 'social engineering simulator' rather than a city-building simulator. Public works and a tax system do not play a part in the game, instead you get weekly income from workplaces in the city. Transportation networks have been simplified to dirt roads, paved roads, subways and bus stops. Players do not build zones, a key element of past SimCity games, instead they have the ability to directly place individual buildings, something not seen in previous editions, and similar to Monte Cristo's game City Life. There are also six "social energies" which allow players to learn about the characteristics of the citizens. The six energies are productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledge.^[6] The city will look, and act, in accordance with the energies the players choose. Players may focus on satisfying one, several, or all of the energies. An improved version of the reward system introduced in SimCity 3000 has been included in the game.^[7] The game is "fully customizable" and allows the players to customize individual buildings, decorations, citizens and game rules.^[8] Prior to its release, when mentioning the depth to which the game will allow customization a Tilted Mill representative stated that those who were proficient in C# and XML will have easy access to every asset of the game and that basic tools would be provided for building editing.^[9]

Societies

• Authoritarian: Built up with a focus on authority, authoritarian cities are reminiscent of communist capitals such as Moscow or Bucharest, or the fictional London from George Orwell's 1984 - complete with surveillance cameras, secret police, propaganda ministries, opulent buildings for the leadership, and slum housing projects.
• Capitalist: Focus is on productivity and prosperity. Capitalist cities feature buildings such as department stores, skyscrapers, stock markets, corporately-owned tenements, and major company headquarters.
• Contemplative: Focusing on spirituality will make your city into a religious state. Buildings include cathedrals, pagodas, monasteries, evangelical centers, megachurches, and golden statues of Buddha.
• Cyberpunk: A futuristic city built with the use of knowledge and authority.
• Fun City: A city built up entirely of venues to maintain the happiness of its citizens. Buildings include ferris wheels, carnivals, zoos, casino hotels, and nightclubs.
• Industrial: Industrial cities are primarily made up of polluting industry, slum housing and factories to produce the various wares.
• Romantic: Focus is on providing prosperity to the Sims while maintaining cultural and artistic elements. Buildings include concert halls, opera houses, baroque fountains, and cobblestones streets.
• Small town: Focus is on spirituality. Buildings include windmills, sheriff station, butcher's shops, corner delis, town houses, and brownstone tenements.

Buildings

In SimCity Societies there are four types of buildings: power plants, houses, workplaces, and venues. Houses are where citizens live (Sims can also be homeless), workplaces are where Sims work (Sims can also be unemployed), and venues are places that provide happiness to citizens. Power plants provide power to the city, and generate income. There are also decorations such as plazas and sculptures.

Reception

SimCity Societies received mixed reviews, with gaming websites such as GameSpot and IGN^[10] criticizing the changes. GameSpot called this version of SimCity a "lackluster spin-off" and cited that the game was “way too easy” and the frame rate was mediocre even on higher-end machines. Third-party reviews reached as low as 3 out of 10 saying the game had completely rid of the "city feeling".^[11] However, GameZone praised the game for taking the simulation franchise in a "bright and bold direction".^[12] The released game suffered technical problems including crashes. As a result a second update was released designed to fix bugs and add new features to the game.^[13] Aggregate review sites result in scores of 63% on Game Rankings^[14] and 62 (out of 100) on Metacritic.^[15]

References

External links

• Official SimCity portal
• Official Electronic Arts press release dated June 12 2007