We've already examined the effects of SimCity's city size limitation after Maxis stressed the necessity of the restriction for a gain in performance . City sizes will remain fixed when the game launches next Tuesday, but in the words of Gandalf (who'd make a pretty great mayor), "Hope remains." Speaking to IncGamers , Creative Director Ocean Quigley says SimCity's team "could certainly make the city sizes larger" as a reaction to more powerful hardware setups.

"We need to keep in mind that SimCity is a mainstream game," Quigley clarifies. "It's not a game that's only going to run on high-end gaming PCs. It has to run in your dad's PC as well. We'll eventually get around to expanding the city size, but I can't make any promises as to when.”

Yeah, well, my dad just installed his second Titan , so there. In any case, the prospect of seeing my populace spread across the map in a wave of prosperity and garbage trucks feels exciting indeed. That is, of course, if Maxis' plans involves a substantial grid increase and not a fractional bump—I'd like to see the amazing GlassBox Engine roar with its newfound freedom, not mumble.