subject: Simcity Societies Review [print this page] The trick, of course, is for the "something new" to be so awesome that we don't miss the old game at all. It's what we're hoping happens with Fallout 3 and Civilization Revolutions.
Unfortunately, it's definitely what did not happen with Tilted Mill's SimCity Societies. Though it can't be faulted for not being a SimCity game (except to the extent that EA irresponsibly branded it as such), SimCity Societies has enough faults of its own that we're not going to run short of things to criticize. While the concept is sound, the game mechanics are too arbitrary and confusing for players looking for the next great city building game.
Rather than forcing players to muck about with strategically placing police stations, setting tax rates and hooking up plumbing, SimCity Societies puts all the focus on managing societal energies -- six different ideals that are produced and consumed in varying quantities by hundreds and hundreds of different buildings. Balancing the competing needs of Creativity and Authority, Prosperity and Spirituality, and Knowledge and Productivity seems like a really engaging concept but it's handled in a way that's not very focused and doesn't even allow for any real gameplay.
To begin with, we're not entirely sure how energies are assigned. Some buildings consume energies that you'd think they'd produce. A bank, for instance, produces Authority energy, but a police station consumes it. I guess I can understand that a city expends Authority energy whenever a member of the community decides to become a police officer. Even so, the game's not even really consistent within itself here. An Alien Artifact Lab consumes Knowledge but an Astrophysics Lab produces it. Why they're different isn't really clear. With these sorts of confusing energy assignments, you'll spend most of your time viewing buildings not by their name or purpose but by their energy levels.
What's worse is that the energies only affect other buildings, leaving your Sims out of the equation entirely. Basically as long as your Sims have a place to sleep, a place to work and a place to play, it doesn't matter one bit whether or not they're living in a totalitarian police state or a hippie commune. It's true that some of your Sims will visit certain buildings and become Specialists of one type or another and can then influence other Sims but the extent to which this kind of indoctrination affects the big picture is pretty small.
There are even a few doubts about whether or not the different energy types impact one another. The Cyberpunk theme doesn't even have any buildings that produce Spirituality, for instance, which calls into question whether or not the need for a particular energy type extends beyond the requirements of the buildings you choose. And since a Cyberpunk city functions just as well without Spiritual energy, do you really need it in any of the other city types? The real deficiencies become apparent when you discover that simple things like bus stops and police stations don't even exist in most of the city styles. The fact that they're missing from the "Normal" city theme is simply hilarious. Fortunately, you're not ever limited to one building theme in the game, so you're free to mix and match for the sake of function or appearance.
by: Oyun indir
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