SimCity 2013 - Review

NOTE: This review was written by The Advanced Gamer, another site we are collaborating with.

Everyone has played Sim something if you ever had a PC in your life. SimCity started it all. If you liked SimCity I-IV then you will love SimCity V. Maybe.

You play the god-like mayor of the city of your dreams. You design it literally from the ground up. Build streets, zone residential commercial or industrial areas.

The good news: The game is still fun after all of these years and the graphics look better than ever. The new edition of multiplayer modes adds a real community feel. You can share resources, "Simoleans", and even city services. If you're a fan of the other little known Maxis/EA franchise The Sims you know micro-management is the name of the game and SimCity is no exception.

The bad news: The game is full of bugs, that is if you can even get in to the game, because that new multiplayer addition also doubles as DRM and you cannot play even a single player game without being online and connected to their servers. Doesn't sound so bad right? Except that the servers were down almost instantaneously and they didn't come back up for primarily the entire first week. If you were lucky enough to get logged in after the 20 minute wait time (at best) then the game played fine. However your city did not save and you will have to go through the training city each time you log in. This game would have been great if it was not a glorified beta that I paid 60 bucks to be a part of one day.

ADDENDUM:

2 weeks later and the bugs persist, but just not as many of them. It took almost a full week before EA had enough servers that you could reliably even launch the game due to their multiplayer experience. Your city will always be broke because as soon as your city runs smoothly zombies attack, and you will be destroying and rebuilding half of it.  That doesn't sound so bad except now you are in for another 30-45 minutes of economic recovery.

With all the things going wrong for this game, and all the hassles one would wonder why the game is getting a 4? The sad fact is I'm still playing it bugs and all. I'm putting in the constant time of rebuilding and recovery.  I am enjoying the challenge of trying to beat the SimCity's AI of destruction.