PAX Prime 2012: SimCity Preview

Simulation fans have been pining for a new SimCity since the release of SimCity 4 in 2003. Sure, there’s been games between then and now, like SimCity Societies and SimCity Social, but they just aren’t the same. They aren’t what PC gamers want from the series, and it looks like Maxis and EA have finally acknowledged that with a new title in the series simply titled SimCity.

It looks good, too. Not another middling offering meant to make what money it can between major releases, but a proper SimCity that doesn’t mind being cutesy and somewhat cartoonish in exchange for quality gameplay. While SimCity has never been overtly serious in tone, this new direction highlights exactly what proper SimCity has always been about: having fun.

As I stepped up to the demo station at PAX 2012 to get some time with the game, I noticed just how massive the machine was that I’d be playing on. It towered over me as I played, glowing green and showcasing the Nvidia technology that SimCity ostensibly "runs best" on. However, as I moved around the simple starter town that the game provides, I realized that it doesn’t really matter what machine you run the game on; the art style allows it to look beautiful on any machine, as the highly stylized nature of the visuals make the game seem totally scalable across a variety of machines.

The demo started with a short tutorial that introduced me to the basic elements of gameplay I would need to know before starting. Thankfully, it didn’t teach them through long text prompts and boring arrow pointers; it taught them by showing. I got an alert that said that local business owners needed more space to work and that they needed me to zone out more space in the city for commercial use. If it wasn’t for this demonstration, I would have had trouble later down the line when trying to build businesses on residential or industrial property without the proper zoning requirements.

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