[Playing…] SimCity (2013)

Well, it seems that it has become fashionable to comment here on ComboGamer what are we playing at? And I'm not going to be any less, of course, because that's why I spend a lot of time addicted like a monkey. When I decided to do my part I was fully involved in not one, but four or five games at a time. It was not an easy task to choose just one. ¿Mass Effect 3? ¿Dishonored? ¿Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet? ¿Skies of Arcadia? None of them convinced me. I didn't feel like writing a bible or explaining what I like so much about it. Insanely, so I opted for the easy way: simcity. But not a simcity anyone but the simcity 2013.

I'm not going to tell you the story of the developer Maxis or his evil editor, Electronic Arts. This is also not the time to talk about the developer who gave birth to this idea, the legendary Will Wright. I'll leave that for another time. What I will do here is try to explain to you, in general terms, what the game is like and why I like it so much.

We'll start with the basics: what it is simcity. simcity It is a management game in which you have to create a city and develop it. It may seem like a simple and unremarkable concept, but like Mr. Wright's other great creation, The Sims, hides in its light formula some very complex intricacies, which are sprinkled with economy, resources and satisfaction of each of your inhabitants, who will spend your entire game taking you for granted. You don't get to know how bloody they are because you can't pick up twenty extra bins of trash.

The game is made with a new graphics engine, which they have called Glassbox Engine. The engine is amazing: It makes the city look more like a model than anything else. I'm not into taking catches, but this game lends itself to doing so. Not only because the cities become beautiful and impressive settings that you would photograph if you were a tourist in the area, but also because the game brings you a series of filters in the purest Instagram style that provide postcard-like touches.

The engine also allows something that would have come in handy in previous games, and that is the modular building. Before you had to set up several power plants to be able to supply greater amounts of energy. Now, you simply edit the building and voilà! You can add another module that doubles the supply capacity. This can apply to a thousand things, from increasing the size of the fire station to adding a ministry to the city hall.

Another interesting fact is the city specializations. We will no longer have six clone cities with the same production. Now you can dedicate a city to tourism, while its neighboring city specializes in mining. A total of six specializations (eight with the expansion of Cities of the Future) mean that you can develop the regions in very different ways.

But not everything that glitters is gold. And the most serious things come from another of the aspects that have been renewed in the game: the online. Because this game, gentlemen, was designed to be played online and it shows. Although after a year they released a patch to be able to play alone, playing online multiplies the possibilities to unsuspected limits. The interaction between cities is very important. Thanks to specializations we can have a tourist city, an oil company and a commercial port in the same region. The tourist will generate money at large, since the inhabitants of the other two will come to spend the summer. But this will generate crime, which will go to raid the other two cities. And to this we add the Great Works, community areas that will have to be built together and that will provide great help to the player.

This is all very good, but after the patch that released the single player mode it went to hell. Bugs cause many failures in both modes, ranging from sound errors to a very big one that prevents the Great Works from starting. To this we add a design flaw that in my opinion is logical but horrible: if you play alone, yes or yes, your mayor will have your Origin nickname and will be mayor of all the cities you found. It's horrible to see Mayor Serenion visit Mayor Serenion. I hope they solve it, because it is likely that a year later and with an expansion on the street this failure will still exist.

simcity It is the logical evolution of the saga. For some it may seem like a step back, but sometimes we must take it in order to move in the right direction. Its artistic style, its gameplay and the hundreds of hours we will dedicate to it will make the game worth purchasing. If you are big fans of city management games, it is the best option today. If, on the other hand, you only like them or follow the game through word of mouth, wait until it's on sale and you won't regret it.