SimCity

« A fantastic city simulation that meets all expectations. So perfectly balanced it makes it easy to pick up and enjoy, but proves to be very difficult to master. Funny, addictive and with great options for both co-operative and competitive online play - Sim City is a clear candidate for Game of the Year. »

« A near-perfect fusion of the classic simulation game with modern social and online play elements. It is in every way the fully realized evolution of the franchise and a much welcome iteration, perfectly engineered to dispense the maximum amount of fun in the most efficient way possible. [Editor's Note: this quotation and score are from the original Polygon review. Metacritic, per long-standing site policy, only accepts a publication's first review/score for a given game.] »

« What SimCity offers is so much potential for so much expanded and persistent gameplay that its mindboggling. All I can actively offer you is what the game offers you upon firing up, and in that sense it’s a fricking addictive affair. »

« It’s a joy to see SimCity return in a better form than it has ever been. It is wonderfully complex, but very easy to play. The title is a massive undertaking and it has come together beautifully overall. »

« EA has listened to the community, improved, brought back what was good, improved again and made the most marvelous city creator you could ever imagine. »

« We've chosen to rate the game, not the service so far, and this new SimCity is a pure joy to play, a different but worthy re-imagination of the franchise. »

« SimCity is a fun and addictive game that offers an intuitive simulation interface that will help you create thriving cities that can interact and trade between each other. Even though it's launch was smeared due to server overload, once you start creating, you won't be able to stop. »

« The world’s biggest simulation franchise is back with a vengeance. We’ve all grown up playing SimCity, and it’s finally time to get back to living the life of a virtual city planner. Whether you play the game alone or with friends, SimCity proves to be a great deal of fun. »

« [SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.] »

« In my opinion, this game Has alot to offer, the main thing why it didnt work out was that you couldnt make your city border bigger, this game sadly ruined the popularity of the entire SimCity franchise, what i love in this game is that unlike how in cities skylines, you could add upgrades to a building (eg: Police station) and make it from being small to have more things, sadly you dont have alot of space to advance your city further, this game needs a good remaster, where they do add buying more city land or just a Simple update if you know what i mean. »

« It's not terrible until you put a building down where it shouldn't go. Then, after spending tons of money on the building, you can't move it to the correct location. You have to bulldoze the entire building, lose all that money and time spent getting it. I only spent about an hour creating my city and all was well until that. It's too small of an issue to overlook and after having lost all the money I saved I went ahead and deleted the game entirely, I dont want to know what miniscule issues are left untouched »

« Despite the complications it initially had upon launch, I'd say this is a pretty damn good city builder game. The graphics were pretty good for the time, and the implemented mechanics allowed for a lot of different dynamics to be pursued by the user, from tourism to industry. I do believe the game could've been a lot better if they added expansions to the city, so that you could further develop it, instead of being forced to buy the DLC to be able to grow it. It also has a great aesthetic to it that Cities Skylines couldn't accomplish. I prefer this game over Skylines in general. Shame there really might not be another Simcity. »

« It's a disgrace in this long-established IP. EA has completed ruined this game, even after the patches and DLCs. »

« Mediocre experience and a flop of a launch. I think I do not need to explain that SimCity was a bad game. The main argument for this was of course, the disastrous launch in which many players could not even play their eighty dollar “EA greed” deluxe game, because the servers could not handle it and you could not play the game locally. Although the issues were eventually fixed, the fact that you must fear a new outage on the EA servers at all times, was a terrible taught and immediately killed the fun of the game (or what was left of it). Another big issue was the save file corruption. After the billionth outage of the servers, I (and many others from what I understood) lost my save file and could start all over again. Why? Because the servers could not handle/register the file of course. In the basis, SimCity is just a reboot from the SimCity series, running a new engine. Of course, the new engine offers more simulation, functionality and features than the last one from ten years ago, but it did not perform as well, which resulted in multiple issues. But besides the technical and “always online” issues, the game itself was also really bad. The mechanics were broken, the game looks ugly and “blurred out”, sound is “OK”, and the feeling of a alive and flourishing city was not present in my opinion. Anyway, you start with an empty plot of land, place your first piece of road, and start building a neighborhood. You earn some money, build extra facilities, needs for your citizens and expand rapidly. You create industry, commerce, keep an eye on your citizen’s demand for electricity and water, the pollution levels and overall, manage your city into success. The trading system with neighboring cities (other players) was really cool and, despite my dislike for this game, the best feature of the game. You could choose for yourself what kind of city you would become, which specialty or resource made your city famous and trade that resource with other players. My worst experience with this game, besides the technical problems, where the graphics in this game. SimCity has relatively detailed structures, landscapes and facilities, but when zooming in, to watch your glorious city, all people and cars are under some layer of smog, bloom or blur. It looks terrible. It is just like I am watching a colored river of excrement, moving in the bottom of my screen. When zooming out, it looks kind of okay but compare this to Cities: Skylines, and the difference is night and day. The sound is just “ok” and has nothing to offer, besides the memorable “SimCity ping sounds” from the previous installments. The controls, interfaces and reports are simple to understand and a little less detailed and complicated then some other city builders. To summarize, my fun with this game was killed right at the start, with the launch issues, server issues, always-online crap and save file corruption. When I could finally play the game properly, the motivation to do so rapidly dropped, and when the player base died out soon after that, and the trading with other cities became obsolete, I was done with it. Although it does not matter that much anymore, I would not recommend this game to anyone. With the knowledge of today, the only way to go is Cities: Skylines. »

« SimCity's offline mode is much like the online mode, but without the support from other players. While the maps may be larger, the game play is not much different. SimCity does offer a lot of downloadable content to mix things up. While this is not the same SimCity that some may remember, it has its own merits that are worth checking out. »

« Not good, not fun... It looks pretty and includes some good new concepts to city builders, but the obligation to specialize your city and the tiny space for build your city, kills the possibility to play as sandbox »