SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
Creative Games series is continuing with City Building Games. This type of game is among my favourite kinds of games because you can get pretty creative building your city, depending on which game you are playing. At the same time you learn how to manage traffic, services and balance residential, commercial and industrial zoning, anything you can think of to do with city planning. So there is both a creative aspect as well as a strategical aspect to these kinds of games.
There are many city building games to choose from but the two games I will be looking at in this and the next part of Creative Games are SimCity and Cities Skylines. In this part I will be telling you about the SimCity franchise.
History of SimCity
I called it a franchise because it is a series of games and has dominated the game world for similar games for decades. Other games have tried to do what SimCity does but they have remained the best and most popular city building games for a long time.
SimCity was originally designed by game developer Will Wright and is published by Maxis (which is now a division of Electronics Arts). It was first published in 1989 and has since been released in many different versions for both PC and console games. It was also the inspiration for my absolute favourite game The Sims.
You can read more about the history of the franchise here.
This video from YouTube shows you a complete overview of the game series.
The latest edition of SimCity, some call it SimCity 5 or SimCity 2013, did not do as great upon release as the previous games in the series despite the fact that it was supposed to be a reboot of the series. Gamers were actually advised not to buy the game because it required a persistent internet connection to play and the forced multiplayer aspect of the game really put me off the game until they implemented the single player and offline modes. Despite these start problems, it is definitely my favourite of the series with the improved graphics and simulations.
Gameplay
The games that I have played myself are SimCity 4, SimCity Societies + Destinations, and my favourite, the latest edition, SimCity: Cities of Tomorrow.
The best way to learn how to play the game and to see if it is anything you want to try is to search YouTube for gameplay videos of the different games.
Are you interested in SimCity 4 then check out this playlist by haljackey. Now, he doesn’t play exactly by the rules but you can still learn a lot from his videos.
Another video guide to help you with SimCity 4:
A fun Let’s Play for SimCity Societies: Destinations by XUrbanSimsX
YouTube gamer Skye Storme has several playlists of helpful videos that can inspire and guide you through the gameplay of the latest SimCity game here.
Modding
Modding is possible for the game. Best site for mods that i have found is Simtropolis. They feature mods for many of the SimCity games. I have not played a lot of modded SimCity and there is enough to explore in the vanilla game. But if you want to expand your gameplay remember to backup your game as mods can break the game and will definitely make it slower to load. Make sure your PC can handle the extra workload you are putting into the game.
This Summer I will be starting my gaming channel on YouTube and will be featuring one or more SimCity Let’s Plays so I hope you will take a look and give me some feedback when the time comes. I will be making an announcement when the channel starts up.
Check out more about the SimCity Games here.
You can buy them through Origin here: SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition, SimCity Societies, SimCity 2013.
Next installment of Creative Games will be in week 11 and it is about my absolute favourite city building game Cities Skylines.
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