Game Details Developer: Maxis

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Platform: PC

Release Date: March 5, 2013

Price: $59.99

Links: Origin | Official web page Maxis: Electronic Arts: PCMarch 5, 2013: $59.99

When we got our limited review copies of SimCity, EA implored us to wait until the game went live so that we could authentically experience the full multiplayer experience and hence see everything that the game had to offer. Heeding the company’s advice, we wrote up our initial impressions but held off on a full review.

Then the game went live, causing the game servers to promptly collapse under the load. EA frantically brought new servers online, improved its server code, and disabled certain in-game features in a bid to make the software at least somewhat usable. All things considered, the launch was pretty disastrous. Customers demanded—though did not receive—refunds, and EA offered everyone who bought the game a free second game as compensation.

Despite those early concerns, we've now had sufficient opportunity to try the game in the live environment EA suggested, seeing how the regional and global trading markets work with a population of tens of thousands of other players. As you'll see, our thoughts on the game have changed somewhat since those early impressions, but not really enough to overcome our initial opinion on the game.

Continuing server issues

Kyle: It's kind of impossible to start this review without addressing the server concerns that are still affecting the game. Personally, I didn't run into as many problems as were reported by others. I had trouble getting the game to show up in my Origin library a couple of times, and I saw my server listed as “Full” once when I tried to log in. Otherwise, I was able to play as normal. Maybe I was just lucky with my play schedule. That said, I was still impacted by the server issues thanks to the elimination of the Cheetah speed option, which is in its sixth day as I write this. It may sound like a minor thing, but the game is considerably less enjoyable to play without this speed option. A large part of playing the game, after you have a relatively stable city, is using Cheetah speed to move time forward quickly so you can gain more money and rapidly see if there are any developing problems about to pop up. At the next step down, Llama speed, the wait for these things is frustratingly slow, to the point where I found myself wanting to play the game less. By EA's latest accounts, the server issues are almost completely fixed, so for the rest of the review I'd like to evaluate the game as if the servers will be working perfectly in the near future. But at this point, it still can’t be ignored. Peter: Yo, Kyle. I'm really happy for you, and I’mma let you finish, but SimCity had one of the worst launches of all time. OF ALL TIME. And we owe it to the readers, and ourselves, to really highlight just how catastrophic this launch has been. This broken server debacle couldn't have been more predictable. This is SimCity for crying out loud. It's one of the oldest non-console gaming franchises still around, if not the oldest. This is a game I remember playing and becoming hooked on almost 23 years ago in black and white on a friend's Macintosh Classic. Over the years, I've put literally thousands of hours into SimCity games, and that's excluding all those nights I left the game running (with disasters disabled, of course) to build up cash so that I could have abundant money by the time I woke up.