SimCity: Difference between revisions

[[File:Southland-Jan__20_781232735690_350x263_9724.jpg|frame|[[Scenery Porn|Downtown]], there's no finer place for sure!]]

 

 

A [[Simulation Game]] released in 1989, and the first "Sim" game by Will Wright. It's been around for a while: it could be played on first-generation [[Apple Macintosh|Apple Macintoshes]] (i.e. the ones with black-and-white screens).

* ''SimCity 4'' (2003) was the second major extension; the buildings are rendered in 3D with high resolution, trimetric bitmaps, but the terrain was now a full 3D mesh, and the assortment of civic buildings was expanded (the schools, for example, were split into elementary schools, high schools and private schools), a maintenance cost was added for all the utility buildings, and the game was designed to allow for third-party mods. However, the greatest new feature was the regional gameplay: instead of playing with isolated cities, you could now play with an entire region divided in cities, you could get all your services from another city at a fair price, your Sims could live in your city but work somewhere else, and the demand in your neighboring cities would affect your own demand. A later expansion, called ''Rush Hour'', added more transportation options, such as ground highways, monorail, elevated rail, one-way streets, toll booths, and there are also many third-party mods, such as the Network Addon Mod, which adds more rail systems, elevated roads, and more traffic crossings. Aside from the in-depth city management options, the player also had the option to design the region from scratch. This extended to the possibility of using real-life satellite imaging to add real world regions in game. So far, due to its many, many hidden depths, this game is considered the best of the series.

* ''SimCity Societies'' (2007) was completely different from the previous games. Instead of laying out your zones, placing your infrastructure and seeing your city developing, you would place a building that generates a certain "societal value", which can be Productivity, Prosperity, Creativity, Spirituality, Authority, and Knowledge. These societal values were used to affect the look and functioning of your city: a lot of Authority, for example, would turn your city into a [[People's Republic of Tyranny|Stalinist capital]], with [[Sinister Surveillance|security cameras]], [[Industrial Ghetto|slum housing for the poor]], posh buildings for your leaders, and [[Secret Police]], while a lot of Productivity and Prosperity would turn your city into a New York-esque metropolis filled with skyscrapers and high-rise condos. The entire societal value system, as well as its long-promised full 3D graphics, greatly hyped up its pre-release value; however, the community found it [[It's Easy, So It Sucks|disappointingly easy]] and shallow, and the 3D engine was prone to grinding even hulking great PCs to a halt at higher zoom levels.

 

 

 

The series also spawned a number of spin-offs ''other than'' [[The Sims]], some of which are listed below. Most of them tend to be "''SimCity'' [[X Meets Y|meets such-and-such]]."

* ''SimEarth'': ''SimCity'' meets a planet. Take a terrestrial planet from formation to the point where its sun goes red giant, through the evolution of life and development of civilisation along the way. The "largest scale" Sim game, ''[[Spore]]'' excluded. Notable for coming with a [[Doorstopper]] of an instruction manual.

* ''SimLife'': ''SimCity'' meets evolution. Similar to ''SimEarth'', but focused in more on life and evolution.

* ''SimIsle'': ''SimCity'' meets the rainforest. Balance the demands of industry, ecology and tourism on a series of tropical islands.

* ''SimTown'': A "kids' version" of ''SimCity'' with bigger graphics, a smaller town, and more focus on individual citizens.

* ''SimSafari'': ''SimCity'' meets a safari park. Like Sim Park, but in Africa.

* ''Streets of SimCity'': Actually a major break from the resource simulation genre, instead being a driving sim -- with some combat elements thrown in, no less. Perhaps most notable for two things: you can upload ''SimCity 2000'' maps into it, and it was a rather remarkable forebearer of much later open-ended games like ''[[Grand Theft Auto]]'' (except that the player is stuck in his car, and it was naturally much more primitive; that said, it even shares many similar themes, if you can believe that) Sadly, it had a number of [[Obvious Beta]] bugs that kept it from gaining a wide audience.

* ''SimGolf'': Create your own golf course and then play on it. Various elements of design are the starting locations, hole locations, placement of water, rocks, sandtraps, trees, and other hazards, and even changing the gravity if so desired. Not to be confused with ''[[Sid Meier]]'s [[Name's the Same|SimGolf]]'', which was published by Firaxis.

 

* [[Abnormal Ammo]]: The beams that the alien monsters from ''SimCity 2000'' used usually set your city [[Death Ray|on fire]]. On some occasions, their beams [[Green Thumb|planted trees]], [[Kill It with Water|created surface water]] or even [[Windmill Crusader|build wind turbines]], while still destroying the intervening buildings and infrastructure. Perhaps they were [[Well-Intentioned Extremist|Well Intentioned Extremists]] who thought the Sims' environment needed some help?

** This makes the [http://www.dorkly.com/video/17907/dorkly-bits-sim-city-monster Dorkly video seem more accurate].

** [[It Got Worse|Even worse]], due to how the path finding engine works, [http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=22&threadid=75769&STARTPAGE=2&FTVAR_FORUMVIEWTMP=Linear#1404384 your commuters can be caught in an infinite loop] while ignoring jobs in your own city. Ever wondered why nobody wants to work in your city? This is probably why.

* [[Artistic License Economics]]: To make way for [[Rule of Fun]].

* [[Audio Erotica]]: ''3000'' had a sexy female voice cooing, "Reticulating ''splines''!"

* [[Berserk Button]]: Do NOT cut transit funding in Sim City 2000. [[Schmuck Bait|You will regret this.]]

* [[Bootstrapped Theme]]: Actually, there is no theme to represent SimCity as a whole, but, each game seems to get its own little theme via one of the pieces in the game:

** ''SimCity 2000'' has its own theme, which can be heard hidden (via an ice cream truck or building sound effect) in all other titles.

** ''SimCity 3000'' and its expansion ''Unlimited'' have a leitmotif (appropriately titled "Sim City Theme" on the soundtrack) which filters into many of the other tracks in the game.

** ''SimCity 4 Deluxe'' uses "Street Sweeper" as its opening theme, which leads some to believe to be the representation of the game.

* [[Bow Ties Are Cool]]: Dr. Wright.

* [[The Cameo]]: In the SNES ''SimCity'', you're able to erect a statue in Mario's honor. There is also a disaster where Bowser rips through the city looking for the portly hero.

** Also, ''3000'' had a dominant color for each zone type, density and income level. Mid-class apartments, for example, were brick red, rich houses had light green grass, heavy industry was brown, and small businesses had lots of pink esplanades. This remained to some degree on the ''Unlimited'' expansion, where the European building set, for example, had brown historic buildings as light commercial and light gray mid-class apartments.

* [[Command and Conquer Economy]]: averted; you place infrastructure, but the Sims will build structures themselves in properly zoned land.

* [[The Computer Is a Lying Bastard]]

** People demand Fire Departments even when disasters are disabled. No point in building them unless [[Harder Than Hard|Disasters are on]] (and in ''Simcity'', set them to ~1% funding until needed). ''[[SC 4]]'' replaced turning disasters on or off with most disasters only being there for [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]], but some disasters would still happen on their own.

* [[Corrupt Corporate Executive|Corrupt Civil Executive]]: Your advisors in ''Simcity 3000'' tend to give advice based or factors in their area of interest without any regard for the big picture, meaning they occasionally suggest somethat that's good for, say, public transport but would cripple the city as a whole. The manual [[Hand Wave|handwaves]] this but suggesting they may have an agenda (which only results in paranoia over whether their advice is trustworthy even ''within'' their area of interest).

* [[Cut and Paste Environments]]: Advanced to a large scale standard!

* [[Crapsack World]]: It can be built, if you really want to...

* [[Deadly Gas]]: In ''SimCity 2000'', volcanoes and chemical tanks that were destroyed by fire unleashed a big cloud of noxious smoke onto your city, which caused any building it touched to immediately abandon. The debug menu even had a disaster, called Toxic Spill, that spawned a whole bunch of them at once. ''SimCity 3000 Unlimited'' upped the ante by introducing the Toxic Cloud disaster, which dumped acid rain so potent that it ''[[Hollywood Acid|dissolved]]'' any building under it.

* [[Einstein Hair]] / [[You Gotta Have Blue Hair|You Gotta Have Green Hair]]: The SNES adapation's Dr. Wright has bright green hair.

* [[Everything's Better with Llamas]]: To an art form!

* [[Exposition Fairy]]: Dr. Wright in the SNES port.

* [[Game Breaking Bug]]: The modding community of ''Simcity 4'' had to fix a raft of bugs that were never patched and severely harm large cities, including an over-simplified pathing system that grants the ability for commuters to get stuck constantly moving in circles between connected cities without ever getting a job anywhere or drive halfway across the map to get across the road, the Opera House having a limit of 1,200 R$$$ Sims after which it knackers the entire city's education rating, most industry-high tech buildings not actually employing any R$$$ Sims due to a math error...

* [[Game Mod]]: Hundreds of thousands of them, especially for ''SimCity 4'', are available on tens of fansites. The game is so modifiable, the Network Addon Mod qualifies as an unofficial expansion pack!

** The ''Urban Renewal Kit'' was an official expansion for ''2000'' that allows you to customise city layouts and building sprites and tilesets.

*** Also should be noted that in the Super Nintendo version of the game, Dr. Wright would be chased by Bowser, which would indicate that Bowser was attacking your city. Also, you could build a Mario statue in your city after obtaining a population of 500,000 people.

* [[Car Fu|Helicopter Fu]] - SimCopter let you win a criminal-catching mission by ''[[Vigilante Execution|crushing the suspect to death by landing on him]].'' [[Self-Imposed Challenge|Required very precise flying skills to do it without taking damage]], but [[Video Game Cruelty Potential|a definite guilty pleasure]].

* [[Loading Screen]]: ''SimCity 4'' features goofy loading status messages, such as "Deciding what message to display next", "Deunionizing bulldozers", "Retrieving from back store", and the ubiquous "Reticulating splines".

* [[Mundane Fantastic]]

* [[Nintendo Hard]]: The first game, and ''SimCity 4'' features the hardest money-management metagame ever.

** The ''Rush Hour'' / ''Deluxe Edition'' of ''SimCity 4'' adds difficulty settings, and even the easiest difficulty setting is still pretty hard. Forget the fact that you start off with 500 000 simoleans on this setting; if you don't spend them wisely and generate revenue within a couple of years, you ''will'' be bankrupt. On the other hand, the difficulty of maintaining a thriving city in ''SimCity 4'' is what compels people to keep playing it. Those who play a sufficiently large number of hours may [[Tetris Effect|see everything differently]], and maybe even have increased respect for every government in [[Real Life]].

* [[No Communities Were Harmed]]: Averted, many sample cities and challenge scenarios are recreations of real cities. [[Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe|Tokyo]], Los Angeles and various big cities from around the world are the usual suspects.

** There was also a really fascinating one in ''2000'' where you took over Flint, MI in the 1970s, just before [[It Got Worse|shit hit the fan]].

* [[Not in My Back Yard]]: In ''4'', how zones are developed and how desirable they are is a considerable gameplay factor: while uneducated plebes and the low-level businesses and factories they work for can pop up anywhere, middle and upper-class citizens and businesses will only want to set up house and shop in unpollutted areas close to their workplace/employees/customers and places with good schools, hospitals and other city-provided services. Places like landfills and power stations will drive away all but the most destitute of sims, while parks, plazas, landmarks and reward objects will attract the wealthy.

** One Sim's NIMBY may be another Sim's treasure. For example: farms hate heavy road traffic while commercial buildings absolutely love it since it brings more customers to them.

** The "Reticulating Splines" status is so pervasive, ''SimCity 4'' even parodies it, with the status "Gesticulating Mimes".

** In 3000, the news ticker often makes references to an apparent kitty kibble shortage. Said kibble manufacturers deny everything, but the kitties are increasingly unhappy as you play.

* [[Serious Business]]: Players have spent years at a time trying to recreate real cities, [[Big Applesauce|most commonly New York]], and in ''SimCity 4'', embarking on enormous region-wide building projects. Some of these are so intricate that players alter the game's programming specifically for them; all while writing elaborate backstories and plots for their worlds. Several fansites hold competitions for the best of these. Also, architecture students often use ''SimCity 3000'' and ''4'' to test the theories they have learned in urban planning class.

* [[Shaped Like Itself]]: The [[Obstructive Bureaucracy|Bureau of Bureaucracy]] building in ''Sim City 4''. [[Department of Redundancy Department|It's the bureau that handles bureaucracy]].

* [[Shout-Out]]: The very existence of the California Plaza as a landmark; some of the buildings in the game are named after Maxis staff.

** In ''SimCity 2000'', one of the buildings was styled after the historic Orinda Theatre in Maxis's then-hometown.

* [[SoCalization]]: Probably most blatantly in ''SimCity'' 4. The landscapes resemble southern California, right down to the brown, muddy rocks. The water is a tropical light blue. City streets and roads can be lined with palm trees, bus stops resemble the RTA and BART systems, all highways are three-lane concrete affairs.

** On the other hand, Maxis did send some members of the team to Europe to study the contemporary architecture of England, France, and Germany for the European building set in ''Rush Hour''. To a lesser extent, the European and Asian building sets from the ''SimCity 3000'' expansion are also aversions.

** A raft of [[Game Mod|Game Mods]] for ''SimCity 4'' will also change the vegetation and terrain textures. One adds snow at high altitudes, one that adds mountain forest trees, one that replaces the passenger trains with France's SNCF Corail trains, one simulates the landscapes of northern Mexico -- forest in the mountains, desert in the valleys -- and one that, quoth the mod's own description, "turns the water from light Caribbean blue to dark rest-of-the-world blue".

* [[Stop Helping Me!]]: Right after you load up a city in Easy mode, your city planner in ''SimCity 4 Rush Hour'', Neil Fairbanks, tends to pile [[Captain Obvious|obvious advice (i.e. create new zones to expand your city)]] on you in the form of [[Goddamned Bats|multiple pop-up windows appearing in sequence]]:

*clickclickclickclick* }}

* [[Super-Deformed]]: Dr. Wright is a very Japanese touch to an otherwise-Western game.

*** In discussing SimCity 4 the producers said they took out the plane crash [[Too Soon|because of September 11]].

** Demolishing a crowded bridge in ''SimCity 4'' will cause all the vehicles on it to drop into the water below.

* [[Quicksand Box]]: There are manuals and tutorials, but getting a city off the ground is no cakewalk.

* [[Ultimate Authority Mayor]]: You ''play'' as one.

* [[Video Game Time]]: The day-to-day business of citizens could be seen but it happened on a different time scale to the rest of the game so that day-to-day business was happening on a week-to-week time. In Sim City 4, they made the My Sim feature explicitly work on a different time scale.

* [[We All Live in America]]: Quite a few things work the way they do in the United States and not in other countries. For instance, it is the responsibility of the city government to fund and operate the police force, whereas in many if not most countries, that's the function of a higher level of government (e.g., in France, it's the central government, while in Germany, it's the state government). Of course, the developers had to use ''some'' country as a model.

** On the other hand, averted in a few cases (mostly for gameplay reasons). The city (which is the only level of government in the game) owns and operates all utilities (water, power, and sanitation) and all health facilities. Most of these services--with the exception of water supply--are usually handled by private companies in the US; there are a few places where the local government might own or have a controlling stake in a hospital, power plant, or garbage-collection service, but these aren't exactly the norm. Governmental ownership of most education facilities, however, ''is'' realistic (as it is in most countries).

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]: One of the first games in this genre.

* [[What the Hell, Hero?]]: Your advisors will call you out if you're not too nice or competent.

* [[Wretched Hive]]: If you legalize gambling and don't put around any police stations, your town will be on it's way to becoming like this.

* [[You Bastard]]: Done subtly in ''SimCity 3000''. When the commercial zones reach Astronomical land value, the ''Fountain of 9 to 5'' and ''TGIF Hang Spot'' show up.

** Also, one of the large factories in ''SimCity 4'' is called ''Dead Forest Paper Company''...

*** So what? [[Fantastic Aesop|You're God,]] [[Broken Aesop|you can always make more!]] (Well, [[Fridge Brilliance|until you run out of space]]...)

* [[You Fail Nuclear Physics Forever]]: in ''Simcity 4'', nuke plants explode with a [[The Deadliest Mushroom|mushroom cloud]] and leave behind a glowing crater, contrasting earlier editions that merely rendered the surrounding area uninhabitable. This may be the case, given that the effect [[The Coconut Effect|is expected.]]

 

[[Category:Sim City]]

[[Category:Video Game]]