Last week on May 25, video game historian Damiano Gerli to𝕴ok to Twitter to reveal that a playable version of SimCopter 64 for the N64 had been unearthed. If you're unfamiliar with the original game (because let's face it, it's nearly as old as me), SimCopter puts the player in the role of a helicopter pilot, letting them fly above cityscapes and even load in SimCity 2000 maps.

SimCopter was released by Maxis on PC back𝓀 in 1996. As Gerli references above though, the N64 port of SimCopter🌳 wasn't even widely known among the gaming community, probably because it came out all the way back in 1996, and news on it would've been relatively hard to come by.

There is, however, one demo of SimCopter 64 out in the wild. Thanks to the Unseen 64🐟 video just below (as r𝓀eported by ), we can see there was actually a public demo of SimCopter 64 at E3, all the way back in 1997, and this seems to be the only footage of SimCopter 64 in existence. 

Also reported by Nin🥂tendo Life is the person who actually got their hands on SimCopter 64. It turns out Reddit user got hold of SimCopter 64 from someone who used to work in the games industry in Northern California. Could this person have actually been a developer on SimCopter 64?

In fact, a707northbayer reveals they might even try to duplicate the copy of the old game. There's no confirmation that they're actually going to go through with this at the time𓃲 of writing, but here's hoping they can replicate this piece of history a🥂nd put it out there for the world to see.

Check out our guide to the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best games like The Sims if you're curious about seeing what the rest of the genre has to offer.

The studio has expanded significantly in terms of headcount and geography since it was co-founded by Will Wright in 1987 and acquired by Electronic Arts in 1997. Though the original SimCity was highly influential, Maxis found its greatest success yet with the🍌 release of The Sims in 2000.

Since The Sims 3, the life simulating franchise 🦹has been co-developed by The Sims Studio, a sepa♋rate unit which is part of EA's main Redwood City, California campus.

Wright left Maxis in 2009, and the Emeryville location's two most not🍬able recent games, Spore and SimCity (2013), both found lukewarm receptions. Even with that in mind, it's still shocking to think that one of the most influential studios of all time is no more.

EA declined to specify how many employees will be impacted by the closure, but said that all of them "will be givဣen opportunities to explore other positions within the Maxis studios and throughout EA". SimCity lead scripter Guillaume Pierre was a bit less positive, that "everyone's ouꩲt of a job".

But, sadly, it needed to happen, because no one--not the gamers, not the developers, and definitely not the servers--was ready for the future.

First the catch-up: When Maxis' SimCity launched, it made an always-online connection mandatory, enforced because of the game's focus on sharing between players. It wasn't a veiled attempt at DRM so much as it was a go at turning the franchise into an MMO of sorts. But ambition outpaced feasibility, and the SimCity servers immediately shit the bed, leading to weeks of downtime, lost progress, and other disabled features. Maxis' reaction was to double down on its initial stance; in March, the went as far as to say that “The game was designed for MP, we sim the entire region on the server so this is just not possꦓible.” The excuses essentially boiled down to "If we don't make you play online, you can't take advantage of the online features."

And yet, here we are, . The reason isn't actually given in the blog post ꦉ(though it hints that it's more related to the newly discussed modding elements than the game's prior problems). But the new message is clear: In the game's next update, SimCity's online tethers will be removed completely. All the connectivity stuff will still be functional, but you'll also be able to take 🐬your city with you whether you're within Wi-Fi range or not, just like you could in SimCity 2000. Sadly, exactly like you could in SimCity 2000. It's like 1994 all over again--but only now with curvy roads.

What happened t🐼o social, connected gaming? What happened to cloud computing? What happened to the future? Well, it was sort of squandered. See, in an ideal world, SimCity's launch would've gone swimmingly--the correct number of servers would've been prepared, people would'v🎐e found themselves immediately playing online, and the district-based gameplay would've simply worked. We'd likely still be playing it a year later, because online and social play can extend the shelf life of games tremendously, and few people would be worrying about an offline mode.

But you've only got one shot at a first impression, and to say that SimCity botched its forward-thinking method would be a tremendous understatement. By failing to handle the launch (and, more importantly, the unapologetic PR following the disastrous release), Maxis failed to sell gamers on its concept of an always-online future. Instead, SimCity only reaffirmed reluctant gamers' suspicions--there are going to be times when I want to play this game I bought, and I'm not going to be able to. Having it happen at launch, when excitement for a release is at an all-time hig🎃h, was devastating, and put us in the position we're in today. A position whe🍒re an always-online game like SimCity isn't to be trusted.

There will, undoubtedly, be a time when always-online 🐎gaming is the norm--honestly, it could've happened already, if Microsoft didn't make the same mistakes with the Xbox One that Maxis made with SimCity. Hell, it could still happen this generation if Destiny and Titanfall pull off their launches💟. But always-online needs to be handled with respect and finesse. Otherwise, history will repeat itself--both in terms of gamers' adverse reactions, and what games will look like in the future.

Lets start with the Demolition Man side. By building an Academy, youre able to research n𝓀ew, environmental-friendly technologies to make the world a better place. Theres a catch, though--the technologies are all powered by one hive mind, and while it cant go full-blown Skynet, it can still go🗹 down, leaving your city to crumble under the weight of its advanced computers.

This brings me to the Judge Dredd side, in which crime and pollution are out of control thanks to Omega, a resource which can be used to make everything better. Omega will allow you to become blindingly rich, but it causes your people to grow fat and lazy--eventually sending drones to do their work for them and never leaving their homes. Both the sad/happy future will benefit from other changes to the game, like giant mega-towers and Mag Levs (monorails), and youll be able to play side-by-side with players who havent purchased the expansion. In other words, yes, its still an always-online affair, but we have to imagine the servers will ꦜbe ready by the November 12 launch.

Check out the following slides for additional images and more information.

SimCity may yet receive an offline mode. The latest iteration of the city management series was slammed for requiring users to play online when it launched in March, but Maxis maintained that an 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: offline mode didn't fit with its vision for the game ꧂(after abandoning the argument that🐈 server-side calculations made it infeasible).

Maxis Emeryville GM Patrick Buechner says the studio has been looking intoღ 🌄the possibility in a post on .

"Right now we have a team specifically focused on exploring the possibility of an offline mode," Buechner said. "I can’t make any promises on when we will have more information, but we know this is something that many of our players have been asking for. While the server connectivity issues are behind us, we would like to give🍸 our players the ability to play even if they choose not to connect."

Whether the offline mode is implemented or not, former fans may want to check out the game's state after seven months and seven major updates. U💞nfortunately, it looks like they can stop waiting for larger city sizes, one of the other most-requested changes.

"After months of testing, I confirm that we will not be providing bigger city sizes. The system performance challenges we𓄧 encountered would mean that the vast majority of our players wouldn’t be able to load, much less play with bigger cities. Some of the experiments we conducted to improve performance on bigger cities will be rolled into future updates to improve over♔all game performance."

SimCity's first expansion pack, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Cities of Tomorrow, will hit PC and Mac on Nov. 12.

The pack will introduce new regions, city specializations, and transportations methods such as mag-lev trains. It will also add MegaTowers, which allow for multiple kinds🤡 of zon𝓀es to be built atop another, stretching into the sky.

Each city will have to choose between embracing the eco-friendly, all-knowing Academy, or the consumeristic, exploitative OmegaCo--or perhaps a little of column A and a little of column B. Us, we're big enoꦺugh fans of Blade Runner and giant neon skyscrapers that we'll probably tolerate smog and miserable citizens.

The announcement made no mention of increased city plot sizes, one of the more common requests from series fans. At least you'll be able to wreck it all with a giant robot𒐪 attack, Cities of Tomorrow's new disaster, when you get bored.

SimCity will launch on Mac on August 29, EA has announced. The title will be 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:cross-platform compatible, so Mac and PC users will be able to play together in the game’s online world and jump back and forth into their cities regardless of which platform they’re using. Those who already own a PC version of the urban construction game will receive an a🃏utomatic entitlement for SimCity on Mac via Origin.

In early June, 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:EA delayed SimCity's Mac release from its previously planned June 11 launch to an unspecified date in August. Explaining the move, senior producer Kip Katsarelis said: “We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet. We want to ensure the Mac is a great experience for our players and that is why we are taking more time.” The caution was understandable given the game’s 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:disastrous PC launch.

In late July, EA Labels president Frank Gibeau revealed that the game had overcome its turbulent launch to surpass two million sales. He told : “In retrospect, our biggest takeaway is th꧟at we are lucky that SimCity has an enormous number of loyal fans. That first week after launch was really rough - an experience nobody wants to live through again. We💃've sold more than two million units, and the number of people logging in and playing is holding steady. SimCity is a success. However, underestimating demand in the first month was a major miss. We hope that the game and the service we've provided since then meets the fans' high standards."

EA has delayed the release of the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Mac version of SimCity from its previously planned June 11 launch to an unspecified date in August. In a post on the game’s website, senior producer Kip Katsarelis :💟 “We have made this tough decision because we do not believe it is ready for primetime yet. We want to ensure the Mac is a great experience for our players and that is why we are taking more time.”

The Mac version will be exclusively available as an Origin download and support cross-platform play with the PC edition, which has chalked up over 1.3 million sales since releasing in March. While the news will be frustrating to those waiting for a Mac version, EA’s caution is understandable given the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:disastrous PC launch.

Katsarelis also said Maxis is working on a series of multiplayer and multi-city fixes and improvements set to be included in title update 5 in a “couple of weeks”, and that update 𝐆6 will focus on RCI improvements.

Update 5 notes

• New: Historic Price charts for Global Market resources are available from the SimCity World button on the main menu.
• New: The Region Wall chat has been completely updated with a new look and new functionality! Chat functions more efficiently and it’s much easier to communicate with other players. Time stamps show on chat messages on rollover. Regional events are easier to read and can be toggled on and off.
• New: Added a filter for friends’ regions in the join region section.
• New: Trading control. Added feature to give players more control over their utilities. Players can now choose whether or not to keep their power, water, or sewage local. This setting can be found on the information panel accessible by clicking on the power plant, water tower, or sewage pipe or plant. Sharing with the region is on by default.
• New: Regional Missions: Added seven new regional missions: Drink It Up!, Plug In, So Stoked, The Wheels on the Bus, Ferry Dust, Station to Station, and Riding Coach.
• New: Regional Achievement: Added a new regional achievement, Field Trip!
• Gifting Improvements: Cash gifts are now delivered electronically, not by truck. This should improve the efficiency of gifting.
• Resource gifts: Resource gifts will happen more reliably. Multiple trucks can make deliveries at once if they are available in the sending city and the truck capacities have been increased.
• Great Works Improvements: Delivery trucks will mark their resources as dropped off as soon as they reach the Great Works, instead of when they arrive back in the city. This will make tracking time more reliable.
• Great Works Improvements: Update to have all resources at Great Works handled at the regional level. This will address players in different cities seeing different resources once the server has processed the region and cities.
• Great Works Improvements: Fixed an issue where an Arcology would maintain power from the region and fixed an issue where shoppers would not increase at the Arcology as it was leveled up. This will update in both existing and new Arcologies.
• Great Works Improvements: Tuned the Solar Farm.
• Regional Unlocks: The advanced coal mine unlocks regionally. Fixed issue where the Trade HQ sometimes did not unlock.
• Fire Advisor Trading clarity: Tuned the Fire advisor so they do not tell you that neighbors are sending fire trucks when your neighbor has no fire stations.
• Trading: School buses that travel from a neighbor’s city will show that city’s avatar.
• Regional Commuting: Fixed an issue where Sims would not be able to take transit out of cities with lots of streetcars or shuttle buses. This could cause some cases where commuting Sims could not return home and their homes would go abandoned.
• Garbage Trucks and Recycling Trucks: Fixed an issue that some cities experienced where garbage and recycling trucks do not leave their buildings or disappeared when trading service with neighbors. Existing cities who have trucks that have disappeared will have to demolish their missing trucks’ garages and plop new garages.
• Text Clarification: The “Out of Money” message now says “Can’t find work” when appropriate in rollover feedback and the approval rating UI. This is to clarify your Sims’ actual need.

SimCity servers will go offline tonight for approximately two hours ahead of the release of the hotly anticipated 2.0 update. A community manager for the game said in a post on the SimCity : “Choosing a time to issue a major update is never easy, but after looking [at] our peak player time, we've concluded 9pm GMT is t▨he best window for us to make the💃se improvements.”

As you can see below, tonight’s SimCity update will feature an extensive list of bug fixes designed to improve the game experience following last month’s 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:disaster launch. A few weeks ago, EA restored SimCity’s fastest gameplay mode, known as Cheetah Speed, which was disabled in early March as part of the company’s efforts to cope with overwhelming demand on the game. It has also confirmed a 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity release date of June 11 on Mac.

• Mayors Mansion: Mayors will now drive their fancy cars to work. Mayors will take their helicopter, limo, or sports car if the modules are present.
• HUD: Now colour-corrects when in a colour-blind mode.
• Data map: Data maps show the filtered colour when a colour filter is enabled (unless in a colour-blind mode)

• Cities not Processing: Mitigates some of the issues that were causing cities not to process. We are continuing to work on and improve this issue.
• Region Filters: Now sorts regions with available cities to the top
• Invitations: Invitations to join a region should be sent and received more quickly.
• Tourism: Fixes for unexplained fluctuation of tourists. Tourists more smartly counted on transit.
  • Cruise ships are now more effective at bringing medium and high wealth tourists in coastal cities.
  • New tourists will now decide to come into a city once leaving tourists reach train stations, bus depots, or cruise ship docs instead of waiting for those tourists to go out to the region first.
  • This change will reduce the downtime of tourist buildings.
• Casinos: Casinos tuned so that Gambling will be a more profitable speciality. Players can bulldoze and replace existing casinos to see effects of tuning.
  • The larger casinos now invite more tourists into the city which helps keep them full.
  • Note that existing casinos will need to be replaced to take advantage of this change.
• More Casinos: Raised module limit on Sci-Fi and Sleek Casinos to 6 modules.
• Region Play: Cash gifts can now be received in a bankrupt city.
• Education: Fixed school buses getting stuck at the high school. Existing Schools will fix themselves.
• Education: Fixed school buses picking up students at neighbouring cities that didn't have school bus stops.
• Education: Fix to more accurately track regional student population.
• Education: Fix where kids leaving the school bus stop would teleport to the nearest pedestrian path instead of walking directly into the school.
• Education: University wings now give the proper bonus.
• Recycling: Fix for the Recycling Center where it would sometimes stop working, recycling services will visit other cities.
• Air pollution: Fixed issue where air pollution would appear to come from nowhere. Fix issues where your regional air pollution would be reflected back into your box for a double penalty.
  • Fire Service: Fire Trucks don't clump, dispatch to fires more efficiently.
• Water: Water pumps are now capable of pumping water from rivers at a larger radius so they can take better advantage of the water table in a city.
• Disasters: Cool down for random disasters: Some players were getting hit too frequently with random disasters, this introduces a cool down where no random disasters will occur.
• Trade: Fix for trade ports that suddenly stop shipping.
• Transit: Street Cars and Buses go to high volume stops first.
• Transit: A city with residents and public transit will now provide the accurate amount of workers and shoppers to its neighbours.
• Transit: A transit vehicle stuck in a pick-up or drop off loop will now go back to a garage instead of trying to pick up more people.
  • Transit vehicles should recover automatically after the update. If players want to force the recovery, turn off the stops that are having looping issues, wait a few game hours, then turn them back on.
• Transit: Neighbours buses will now come in lower numbers into the city and do a better job at picking up local passengers first.
• Residential Tuning: Residential-only cities have failure state.
  • Buildings are prevented from going up in density when they don't have power or water.
  • The amount of happiness gained from low taxes, police, fire, and health outreach has been lowered.
  • Fixed some cases where buildings would not go abandoned when they should have.
  • Higher density residential buildings are no longer blocked from going abandoned due to not having enough money.
  • Happiness from low taxes does not double up every time it is given.
  • Losing happiness due to not having a job is more impaction.
• Budgets: Fixed bug that prevented systems like fire, abandonment, garbage, and sewage from turning on when they were supposed to.
• Audio: Fixes issue where audio will stop working after creating a large city or where phantom audio sounds play in a city.
• Demolish: Fixes issue that occurred when players demolished buildings that had service vehicles, delivery vehicles, or agents out in the city or region. Previously, the agents would be in a state of limbo and would not recover when new buildings of that type were placed. This will no longer happen.

We said in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity review: “SimCity's a mess of moving parts, occasionally clicking into place and allowing for br⛄illiant experiences before coming undone and tearing everything down. With updates to both server stability and the game itself, SimCity's wonderful moments may be able to overtake the bad ones to create the best game in the series. But if those don't come, EA's bustling metropolis may end up a ghost town.”

Electronic Arts is shutting down three of its biggest social games. The publisher announced that The Sims Social, SimCity Social, and Pet Society will all "retire" on June 14--SimCity Social is less than a year old, if you've been keeping track. EA s🍷ays it has a special offer in store to help move uprooted🍌 players to PopCap's social properties.

"After millions of people initially logged in to play these games, the number of players and amount of activity has fallen off," . "For peopleꦫ who have seen other recent shutdowns of social games, perhaps this is not surprising."

All three were developed by social studio Playfish. Its has turned into a memorial, as notes, with ea🌳ch game aside from Madden Social🅷 13 either shut down or scheduled for closure. And Madden Social 13 is an EA Tiburon project.

Electronic Arts purchased Playfish in 2009 for $275 million, but is refusing to comment on the studio's future. It doesn't look good, given the string of layoffs at 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:EA's Montreal social games studio and its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:🌳 customer support center in Galway, Ireland.

EA will launch the Mac version of SimCity on June 11. The game w🐼ill be made exclusively available as an Origin download and support cross-platform play with the PC edition, which has chalked up 1.3 million sales since last month’s release. Maxis GM Lucy Bradshaw said that all SimCity owners will be able to play together across the same servers and play both versions using the same Origin account.

"One purchase will give you both the Mac and PC versions,” she explained. “You only need to 𝓀buy SimCity once to play together across the same servers, regardless of which ver𝐆sion you're playing. We didn't want to make any compromises when it came to the Mac so we created a native version that is optimized for the hardware and OSX."

Maxis has also restored SimCity’s fastest gameplay mode, known as Cheetah Speed, which was disabled in early March as part of the company’s efforts to cope with the overwhelming demand on the game that resulted in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:a disaster launch. Add🌃itionally, Maxis said it’s working on update 2.0 for the urban construction game.

We said in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity review: “SimCity's a mess of moving parts, occasionally clicking into place and allowing for brilliant experiences before coming undone and tearing everything down. With updates to both server stability and the game itself, SimCity's wonderful moments may be able to overtake the bad ones to create the best game in the series. But if those don't come, EA's bustling metropolis may end up a ཧ🔥ghost town.”

EA Labels President Frank Gibeau says DRM had nothing to do with 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity's always-online requirement. In a interview he stressed that the game was c🔯onceptualized and built by Maxis as a massively multiplayer experience.

"DRM is a failed dead-end strategy; it's not a viable strategy for the gaming business," Gibeau said.ꦯ "So what we tried to do creatively🅠 is build an online service in the SimCity universe and that's what we sought to achieve. For the folks who have conspiracy theories about evil suits at EA forcing DRM down the throats of Maxis, that's not the case at all."

His statements match those of Maxis General Manager Lucy Bradshaw, who 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:shook off calls for an offline mode, saying "in many ways, we built an MMO."

Gibeau pushed the MMO angle further, though he admitted EA did not make that aspect--and its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:potential drawbacks--clear enough before SimCity's launch.

"At no point in time did anybody say 'you must make this online'. It was the creative people on the team that thought it was best to create a multiplayer collaborative experience and when you're building entertainment... you don't always know what the customer is going to want. You have to innovate and try new things and surprise people and in this particular case that's what we sought to achieve. If you play an MMO, you don't demand an of♈fline mode, you just don't. And in fact, SimCity started out and felt like an MMO more than anything else and it plays like an MMO."

SimCity sold more than 1.1. million copies in its first two weeks of r༒elease, publisher Electronic Arts announced today, and about 54 percent of those purchases were made digitally.

The 🍸city building game had about as rough of a launch as possible, short of de-maಌgnetizing hard drives and setting screens on fire. But days of near-inaccessible servers and frequent interruptions couldn't prevent players from logging more than 15 million hours since release--which means the average user has spent roughly 14 hours in the city-building game since launch.

Those 1.1 million mayors will all be entitled to one of eight free EA games to make up fꦿor the launch difficulties. They won't be entitled to any offline modes, however, as Maxis General Manager made it clear 澳洲幸运5开奖♏号码历史查询:the studi🥂o's vision for the game is wholly online.

That the Steam-eschewing title still pulled in more than half of its sales digitally points🌱 to a thriving digital market, at the very least.

EA has revealed a list of games being offered free of charge to SimCity players as compensation for the title’s 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:disaster launch.

A🦩ny consumer who purchases and authe💧nticates SimCity by March 25, 2013 at 11:59pm PST will receive a token to download a digital PC version of one of the following games:

• Battlefield 3 (Standard Edition)
• Bejeweled 3
• Dead Space 3 (Standard Edition)
• Mass Effect 3 (Standard Edition)
• MOHW (Standard Edition)
• NFS Most Wanted (Standard Edition)
• Plants vs. Zombies
• SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition

SimCity🧸 owners will be granted access to a free game portal in waves beginning this Wednesday, March 20. All users will have until March 30 at 11:59PM PST to redeem th꧟eir free title. Check out for information on how to do so.

EA said last week that it was 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:nearing the "all clear" on the crippling seꦆrver♕ issues that have ruined the SimCity experience for many users.

We said in our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity review: “SimCity's a mess of moving parts, occasionally clicking into place and allowing for brilliant experiences before coming undone and tearing everything down. With updates to both server stability and the game itself, SimCity's wonderful moments may be able to overtake the bad ones to create the best gam🐈e in the series. But if those don't come, EA's bustling metropolis may end up a ghost town.”

It's been a rough couple of weeks for Maxis. Ire from SimCity players ebbed a bit when the game's servers caught up (for the most part) with consumer demand and 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:downtime and disconnections abated♛. Since then,ꦫ anger has shifted to the root of the problem: SimCity's need to always be online.

Maxis General Manager Lucy Bradshaw who question the game's need for constant internet access, those who berate it as thin justification for stri🌄cter an🐷ti-piracy measures.

"It didn’t come down as an order from corporate and it isn’t a clandestine strategy to control pl𒊎ayers," Bradshaw wrote. "It’s fundamental to the vision we had for this SimCity. From the ground up, we designed this game with multipཧlayer in mind--using new technology to realize a vision of players connected in regions to create a SimCity that captured the dynamism of the world we live in; a global, ever-changing, social world."

She listed the game's features which require constant connection with servers: interactions between c🌺ities, gifts between players, a reactive market, worldwide goals, and regionwide Great Works, to name a few. All of the former are multiplayer aspects.

"The game we launched is only the beginning for us--it’s not final and it never will be. In many ways, we built an MMO," Bradshaw concluded. "So, could we have built a subset offline mode? Yes. But we rejected that idea because it didn’t fit with our vision. We did not focus on the 'single city in isolation' that we have delivered in past SimCities. We recognize that there are fans--people who love the original SimCity--who want that. But we’re also hearing from thousands of people who are playing across regions, trading, communicating and loving the Always๊-Connected functionality."

Bradshaw seemed to acknowledge what modders have already demonstra🌠ted--the core experience of building a city . She told last week that significant essential calculations offloaded to SimCity's server make an offline mode impractical. But it's🦹 simpler than that:

Maxis' vision does🙈 not include an offline mode, and it's not going🅰 to make one.

On its most fundamental level, S🍎imCity has you slipping into the comfortable loafers of a mayor, tasked with 🐲drawing roads onto a plot of land, coloring around them with residential, commercial, and industrial districts, and surrounding them with government buildings. All the while, you'll need to juggle the wants of your citizens, listening to their demands and reacting to make them happy and productive. SimCity upgrades the basic city building formula at every turn in the form of beautiful visuals, curvy roads, and a new engine that completely changes how you approach building a city.

Maxis named the engine that powers SimCity "GlassBox" because it aims to be transparent. Whereas other games hide their inner workings, GlassBox puts them on display. This transforms everything that happens, from a building fire to a power outage, into bits of helpful, actionable information. It's because of this that the result of your work is immediate and apparent. Drop a park and you can see the land value increase, causing houses to immediately upgrade to larger, fancier estates. Create a new water tower and you can see the water traveling down the streets, spreading throughout your city. The people that live in your town look alive,💙 and you can follow them as they go to work, shop at stores, get stuck in traffic, and return home. It's remarkable, and makes it nearly impossible to stop playing once you've started.

Everything you do is instantly visualized, creating an 😼incredible feeling of accomplishment whenever anything happens. And if something is going wrong, that's apparent, too. SimCity's a remarkably dynamic puzzle, constantly shifting and evolving to challenge you in new, fun ways. It's fulfilling to observe a problem--say, a traffic jam--and find unique ways to fix it. You'll look inside the GlassBox, analyze the issue, and resolve it, feeling as though you've truly accomplished some🔯thing. But then there are times when things really go wrong, and it's here where SimCity's whimsy and brilliance fall apart.

This applies not only to the game's servers, which were barely functional at launch due to the always-online aspect of the game (and the fact that they were overloaded), but to the basic gameplay itself. Because everything is so clear--so transparent--it's frustrating when you're given contradictory information. When one graph tells you to build more houses because there are unfilled jobs, and another one tells you there's an unemployment problem, you're inevitably going to get annoyed. Sometimes you can learn how to ♒deal with the problems and ignore the game's advice, but it's frustrating when SimCity spends so much time screaming at you to fix things that aren't broken.

SimCity often misdiagnoses its own problems, giving you solutions that actually compound the issues. If a fire truck doesn't arrive in time to put out a blaze because it was stuck in traffic, the game may tell you to build more fire trucks--which, in actuality, will create even worse traffic. Other times, things simply break. You'll sometimes wonder why your poꦕlice force or firefighters have vanished, and wonder why building new stat🎃ions won't create any more. Because the game is always-online, and because there's no saved games, this can mean that your city is literally broken. Sadly, these types of problems aren't all that uncommon, and even a small glitch left unchecked can destroy hours of work.

This same system of potential toppled by issues causes problems with the game's Districts. Instead of creating massive, sprawling metropoli, you'll be building multiple small cities in a large area, breaking the zone into manageable chunks. It's a strong concept, making for more intimate, personal affairs and allowing for further specialization, as there's less pressure to turn every city into New York. You can opt to go all-in on a gambling town, focus on industry, or attempt to strike it rich by mining resources--and the ability to join into Districts with friends creates a truly social SimCity experience. While some might dislike꧂ being forced to focus on multiple small towns (or to interact with others online), make no mistake: SimCity posits creative connectivity ideas that move the sim genre forward.

But just as is the case with the cities themselves, Districts crumble when things don't line up. You'll stare in confusion as your citizens refuse to take open jobs in other cities, or wonder what happened when donations you offered to neighbors fail to show up. Some of the blame can be heaped onto the game's servers, but other issues come by design--it's simply🎃 too difficult to accurately work with neighboring cities, even though it feels like the game was built around it. When Districts work well, you'll be met with the most customizable, adaptable SimCity yet. When they don't, the game is outright dysfunctional.

SimCity's a mess of moving parts, occasionally clicking into place and allowing for brilliant experience꧙s before coming undone and tearing everything down. With updates to both server stability and the game itself, SimCity's wonderful moments may be able to overtake the bad ones to create the best game in the series. But if those don't come, EA's bustling metropolis m♌ay end up a ghost town.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity's crippling server issu🙈es are on their way out. Maxis general manager Lucy Bradshaw said crashes are down 92 percent from launch as of Sunday night in an , with almost 8 million hours spent lording over virtual cities so far.

New servers, optimizations, and client-side updates are whipping the always-online game into shape, but Bradshaw said a few more elements must come together before she'll issue an "all clear." Hopefully that includes re-enabling features like "Cheetah" speed and leaderboards, which were 💞澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:deacti♑vated in a patch to lessen server load.

T𝐆he good news continues for SimCity players--, Bradshaw said everyone who has activated the game as of March🧔 18 will receive a complimentary downloadable PC game "from the EA portfolio." Expect further instructions to arrive via email that day.

"I know that’s a little contrived--kind of like buy💫ing a present for aಌ friend after you did something crummy," Bradshaw wrote. "But we feel bad about what happened. We’re hoping you won’t stay mad and that we’ll be friends again when SimCity is running at 100 percent."

Oh, and started selling 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:digital editions of the game again. That's always a good sign.

In traditional SimCity fashion, an [un]expected disaster can easily wreak havoc upon your city. Everything thing from mꩲeteorites and tornadoes to rampaging monsters are at your disposal once you unlock them. Disasters become available once you complete the associated achievement. The requisiteꦓs for these aren't really explained so we've come up with this guide to help you unlock every disaster.

METEOR STRIKE

ACHIEVEMENT: "WHAT GOES UP..."

Description: Have 200 tourists arrive on flights at the Municipal Airport in a day to gain access to the Meteor Strike disaster.

This one isn't too difficult to unlock. First, you'll have to spend the $85,000 to pla🦂ce the Municipal Airport. The next step is to secure a large number of tourists. To do this, add a Department of Tourism to the City Hall, and then use the City Specialization menu to place tourist destin♉ations. As you place more destinations, tourism will increase until it hits the required number.

EARTHQUAKE

ACHIEVEMENT: "DUG TOO GREEDILY AND TOO DEEP"

Description: Mine 100 tons of coal or raw ore in your city to gain access to the Earthquake disaster.

This one involves a bit of waiting around. Under the City Specialization menu, spend the cash to ꦉconstruct a coal or ore mine. Once placed, it will mine at twenty-four tons per day. You can add additional shafts to increase this ♑rate, but in either case, this achievement will pop once you've extracted 100 tons.

UFO ENCOUNTER

ACHIEVEMENT: "WE ARE NOT ALONE..."

Description: Ship any resource to a Space Center Great Work to gain access to the UFO Encounter disaster.

This one will take some time to unlock. First, you'll need to open add a Department of Education - a $15,000 purchase - once you upgrade to a City Hall. Next, you'll have to open schools and community colleges until you reach 1,200 students enrolled per day, unlocking the University. Once you've built the University, you'll have to enroll enough students to unlock the School of Engineering. With that unlocked, perform the costly Space S🍸tation research project. With the Space Station built, you'll be all set to st𝄹art using the UFO Encounter disaster.

BIG LIZARD

ACHIEVEMENT: "WHAT'S COOKIN'?"

Description: Burn 100 tons of garbage in an Incinerator at the Garbage Dump to gain access to the Big Lizard disaster.

This one is really a matter of waiting♈. Once you've built a garbage dump, install an incinerator - this will slowly burn away trash. Once you've burned 100 tons, the achievement will pop. Install multiple incinerators to speed up the effect.

TORNADO

ACHIEVEMENT: "BLOWIN' IN THE WIND"

Description: Have 24 Wind Turbines at Wind Power Plants in your city to gain access to the Tornado disaster.

This is one of the easier disasters to unlock. Start by using a Wind Power Plant to power your city. Once placed, create a long service road - it'll need to hold 24 turbines, after all. Once you've got the road, simply start plopping down turbines. You'll need 23 in addition to the on💦e you start with, so be aware of the cost. Twenty-three turbines at $5,000 each will run you a total of $115,000.

ZOMBIE OUTBREAK

ACHIEVEMENT: "LABORATORY OUTBREAK"

Description: Add a Diagnostic Lab to a Hospital and have 15 Sims die in a day to gain access to the Zombie Attack disaster.

Start this one by following the same steps as the UFO Encounter disaster unlock. Once you've built the university, spend $40,000 to construct a School of Medicine. Once complete, perform the costly, but necessary research project to unlock the Diagnostic Lab. Attach it to a hospital, and prepare for things to get a little dark. To guarantee the fifteen Sim 🍌deaths, temporarily turn off all health, police, and fire facilities. This will allow sickness, crime, and fire to run wild, causing the required number of deaths and unlocking the disaster. Just be sure to turn them back on after!

RELATED CONTENT

• 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity Cheats
• 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity Review
• SimCity - 𝔍12 video game♈ characters who would be awful mayors

SimCity is a complex game, and the more you play, the deeper its mechanics get. Keepin🅰g a massive city afloat is far different from juggling a few residential blocks. Fortunately, you can do well for yourself by following a few 💟key principles.

These tips will help you start and maintain a growing city. As you expaꦯnd, they become even more crucial. 🐟Keep these in mind and pay attention to what's happening in your city, and you'll be a popular mayor in no time.

DO THINGS IN ORDER

When beginning your city, you'll need to start construction in a particular order. In or༒der, your first steps should be:

1. Lay roads.
2. Zone residential, commercial, and industrial areas.
3. Build a power station.
4. Build a water tower.
5. Build a sewage treatment plant.
6. Build a town hall.
7. Build garbage dumps, firehouses, hospitals, and police stations.
8. Build remaining services.

Follow these beginning steps to get your economy going. After 🌠that, start building whatever you need.

USE EVERYTHING

Of course, you need a bit of everything. 🐻Don't ignore firehouses, or buildings will burn. Don't ignore schools, or your Sims will never get educated. In SimCity, everything works like a giant game of rock-paper-scissors; ev♔erything serves a purpose.

As you progress, you'll require more than just one of each construct. For example, you'll need enough police stations to cover crime in all regions of the city. Think of each building as a web - each one can only cover so much ground. If you don't like web metaphors, think of it this way: divide your city up into districts (which you've proba🦋bly already thought about anyway). Do you have enough services in place to collect trash, fight fires, cure sick, and stop ꧒crime in each district?

SPREAD IT BEFORE YOU EDIT

Nearly every buildable𓃲 object can tweaked. Hospitals can have ♋more ambulances; firehouses can have more trucks. Don't get caught up in maxing out every aspect of these buildings so soon. The more sprawling your city, the more you'll need to place.

Each building has a limited response time: maxing out a firehouse in the northern part of town does no good if the trucks can't reach the southern 🌳part of town in time. Make sure you place enough services to adequately cover your city, then begin upgrading them.

ZONE BALANCE IS KEY

The bottom right corner of the menu shows three bars: green, blue, and yellow. These represent residential demand,൲ commercial demand, and industrial demand respectively. When you being your city, start zoning in a 2:1 ratio that f🍰avors residential. In other words, build twice the residential zones as you build commercial or industrial: the amount commercial and industrial zones combined should equal residential.

A𓆏s the city grows, keep an eye on these demand meters. If commercial demand starts rising, zone more comme🐎rcial space. Pay attention to the meters and build accordingly, and you'll keep your employment and income rates steady.

YOU WON'T BE A MILLIONAIRE RIGHT OFF THE BAT

Every city starts small; that's just the way it is. Don't expect to have tidal waves of money rolling in at the city's start. As you expand, costlier items become available, but everything starts in a﷽ meager state.

Tweaks to the budget and increases in commercial and industrial zone🐷s will increase income. Balancing the budget, which becomes more complex as you upgrade your city hall, is the best way to organize money coming in versus money going out.

IT'S OK TO BE A JERK (TEMPORARILY)

Of couꦇrse, the quickest way to increase city income is to raise taxes. Keeping them high, however, leads to unhappy citizens and a low approval rating. Fortunately, you can play a bit of tug-o-war to keep people happy while still creating an income spike.

Basically, your approval and happiness will be just fine if you raise 📖taxes temporarily. If yo🍌u need to build a new hospital, the $120,000 cost is going to hit hard. However, you can raise taxes for just a few days to raise that $120,000. Get the money, build the hospital, and drop taxes back to normal - the period of time in between won't damage your reputation much.

NO AVENUES? NO GROWTH

Eventually, you'll be trapped by the city's bound♕aries. You don't have quite as much room as you'd like. At this point, the only way to expand is through density, and that's where certain roads come into play.

Low ✱density streets and avenues wo🌌rk nicely for creating neighborhoods and linking areas, but the can't support larger structures. Medium density roads can support larger buildings, but only high density roads can support skyscrapers. You'll need a mix of all three types to keep your city expanding and running properly.

DON'T SWEAT RESOURCES

When claiming land in a new region, don't freak out over the resource meters. See what's available, and build your city accordingly. For example, don't rely on🎃 a coal plant for power if the area has no coal to speak of.

By the same token, there is no harm in dropping multiple types of power plants - if you have the money and workers to keep them running. You might ♌even find you only need the original plant to keep the whole city going.

LISTEN TO YOUR PEOPLE

Right off the bat, keep Thought Bubbles on in the settings menu (they're on by default). As you scroll around, you'll notice green and red thought bubbles. These offer hints as to how♔ to improve your city.

In the same vein, make sure to click on Mission Bubbles - the grey speech bubbles that someti꧒mes appear - when they pop up. These missions are usually very simple, and they come with a monetary reward most of the time. In addition, these are usually based on the current needs of your city.

KEEP MINI-TUTORIALS ON

Mini-tutorials pop up to help you out when things go south. It's hard enough to keep༺ a few blocks running smoothly, much less your entire city. Keeping these on will allow the game to notify you when you're missing something important.

By the same token, the blue info🔴rmation icon on the left side of any build menu will give you a complete rundown of everything those constructs will affect. Take a look at it if you're unsure how the new building will affect the surrounding area.

YOU WON'T GET IT ALL AT FIRST

Listen: we know SimCity can be o🌄verwhelming at first. That's just the kind of game it is, and it takes all players some time to grow accustomed to the mechanics. Keep these tips in mind, and you'll be fine.

In the end, the best city building comes with time. It's too bad you can't use Cheetah Speed to 💃learn it all more quickly...

We can't solve your SimCity woes, but we can help you kill some time while you wait for that server to connect. Introducing our gallery of Si𝕴mCity jokes, memes, and other images from the botched launch (as recruited from the likes of , , , etc...).

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:refund denials

Angry? Amused? Ready🦩 to give uඣp on gaming? Let us know in the comments...

For more SimCity launch news and opinions, read 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:EA, your SimCity is broke, 澳洲幸运ꦑ5开奖号码历♔史查询:SimCity marketing campaigns suspended, and our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity review in-progress.

We reported on Tuesday that the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity server situation was so bad, Electronic Arts invited players to request refunds. Rampant issues which prevented 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:the always-online game from working since its North America🦩n launch earlier this week c🅠ould be grounds for compensation. Not really.

The community manager's support forum post th🥀at extended the offer has since been edited, and reports that EA's server issues--which left players either unable to access the city builder, or repeatedly erased their progress--are not considered "exceptional circumstances" as defined by the publisher's customer support policy.

The circumstances must seem exceptional to Amazon: ওreports the online retailer has ceased digital sales of SimCity, though physical sales continue. Amazon has appended this message to :

"Many customers are having issues connecting to the 'SimCity' servers. EA is actively working to resolve these issues, but at this time we do not know when tꦺhe 🍸issue will be fixed. Please visit for more information."

SimCity senior producer Kip Katsarelis addressed the issues in an , saying more servers are being brought online to alleviate the proble♈ms.

"This team has put everything into this game and won’t stop unti꧂l things are smooth," Katsarelis wrote. "We ask our fans to be patient as our team works diligently to fix the issues. We share your passion for SimCity and thank you for your support and understanding."

If I can't afford to plop down another power plant, I shouldn't build any more factories. If my roads are already struggling with traffic, I shouldn't build more neighborhoods. The more I play SimCity, the more I re🌞alize that many of the game's online problems wouldn't exist if the E🔴lectronic Arts approached the launch with the same logic Maxis baked into the game itself. In a way, Maxis created a cautionary tale about ambition gone unchecked with SimCity, and then EA ignored its lesson.

SimCity's online issues are inexcusable. Not bad, not unfortunate, but outright inexcusable. As I write this, the servers are actually offline, preꦓventing me from logging in to check up on my bustling metropolis (B. Buttercup Forest, in case you're wondering). I need to log in, too--you need to be connected to EA's Origin servers at all times while playing SimCity, irrespective of whether your play session involves others or not. This time, it's telling me that my login information is incorrect, but also that the servers are down, and also that it's still authenticating with SimCity servers. Even if it did work, there's a chance I wouldn't be able to play my city--the server I signed up for, US East 1 (the only one available when I loaded the game up), is marked as "Bu🐠sy," meaning I might need to wait 30 minutes before even attempting to log into it at all. No, that's not a 30-minute queue, that's a 30-minute timer, letting me know when I'll be allowed to try and click play again. If the server is still full, I'm looking at another 30-minute timer.

And I've had it better than most people. I've got a friend who's caught in a loop right now, where the busy servers force him into repeating the tutorial over and over again, and I know others who simply haven't been able to log into the same server consistently. Another friend had his city simply vanish--something that actually happened to some people pre-launch when the servers were live for reviewers. We were toﷺld that this was a pre-release thing that wouldn't happen after the game was live. It did.

So far, information on exactly what went wrong is inconsistent, but every single excuse given has a SimCity in-game parallel that should have taught EA and Maxis how to plan better. Yesterday, SimCity's official Twitter that "Some servers are seeing a lot of traffic," and then suggesting that players try joining other servers--a less-than-ideal response, considering how joining other servers means abandoning any friends on your old one (not to mention the cities and districts you've been painstakingly raising). Meanwhile, in SimCity, when you've got too many people trying to go to the same place, the answer is to improve the roads, solving your traffic problem by fixing what you have, not abandoning it entirely. The other solution is to plan your roads better, refusing to allow your city's 𒀰traffic problems to get out of hand by anticipating who will need to go where, and when.

EA's Origin Twitter account had some 🐭, too. "Due to the high demand for SimCity, Origin has experienced delays impacting a small percentage of users," it said, drastically underplaying the problem. That's not really acceptable either--my town's citizens wouldn't be happy if I said that some would go thirsty because I had a high demand for water. The answer is to plan for needing water, instead of letting things get out of hand and then trying to do damage control.

When it comes down to it, SimCity's botched launch is unforgivable because EA and Maxis created the problem, allowing ambition to trump practicality. EA allowed itself to release a product that required a constant internet connection, without having the systems in place to make sure it actually worked. And it didn't work. If EA couldn't assure a smooth launch with a game this size being always-online, then it shouldn't have done it to begin with. Of course, the MMO sector--in which EA competes with numerous different games--has been running this kind of operation for ไyears, so it's not like they didn't know what they were getting in to.

Even though it's arguably better for it (the social aspects ad𝓰d immense value to the city-building franchise), SimCity didn't need to be an online game. It's as simple as that. Being an always-on, connected social experience was a choice that the developers made without the infrastructure to support it, and even if it had the best of intentions, that doesn't matter to consumers. No matter how much more advanced it would make SimCity feel, or how much better of a game it would be if it all worked, that doesn’t change the fact t꧂hat, currently, the game is functionally broken. If SimCity's launch was a city within SimCity, it'd be bankrupt within minutes, with indicators flashing all over the screen saying what went wrong--providing we can even log in at all.

You know that kid at parties who talks too much? Drink in hand, way too enthusiastic, ponderously well-educated in topics no one in their right mind should know about? Loud? Well, that kid’s occasionally us. GR Editorials is a semi-regular feature where we share our informed insights on the news at hand. Sharp, funny, and finger-on-the-pulse, it’s the information you need to know even when you don’t know you need it.

SimCity is live. Kind of. Our siste♌r site reports many would-be mayors are having a h♌eckuva time just installing the game--it's gotten to the point that Electronic Arts has offered to honor refund requests from afflicted players.

EA wasn't able to get pre-loads working in time for SimCity's launch on Origin (though they were for previous, less-anticipated PC games like 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dead Space 3), meaning many who pre-purchased slammed the server꧋s at once. Even 🔜players installing from a disc were unable to get up and running, as they needed additional files from Origin to complete the process.

Once the game was in𒁃stalled, players stared down significant queues to begin their mayorship. And yes, SimCity can be played privately, but yoꦦu still have to be online to do so.

“If you regrettably feel that we let you down, you can of course request a refund for your order at , though we’re currently stil♋l in the process of resolving this issue,” said a community manager in a .

While you're waiting to actually play the game, be sure to check out our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:review-in-progress or watch our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:RadarPlay.

Thanks to SimCity's release, we got to thinking: Which video game cha🐷racters would make particularly awful mayors? It's a tough call, really--these are fictional folks, many of whom have performed numerous heroic deeds. But one cannot run a city on bravery alone. These storied champions may have saved a world or two, but gods help us if they're ever put in charg﷽e of a single city's government.

The God of War is a pretty awful person in general. Not only is he a self-centered god killer, he's also completely out of touch with modern life. How could we expect him to run a town when his only notion of society is based on an ancient, militant city-state? His lust for revenge would probably make him blind to the needs of the people--and even if he did understand their needs, he could not possibly wrap his brain around hot topics like pollution, water fluoridation, and zoning complications. He'dꦬ probably just get super frustrated and murder everyone.

Good 'ol Mario has澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:held plenty of jobs over the years. But while gaming's most recognized hero is a man of many talents, he's definitely not suited for the lead role in municipal government. Why? Because delegation is a foreign concept to him. Think about it. When Mario needed a doctor, he studied medicine and became one. He plumbs his own plumbing. He even plays tennis with a baby version of himself (this conundrum is but one of the many questions we've always had regarding the Mario un💎iver🦩se) for the sole reason of preventing anyone else from having fun. His noble quest to sav👍e Princess Peach has turned him into a selfish dude. He would be unable to delegate tasks to his cabinet, instead opting to run a city all by himself, which would quickly overwhelm him and lead to one financial disaster after another.

"Mayor! We need a decision on the tax incr𝔍ease proposal right away!" P🐭ika? "Mayor, the citizens aren't exactly happy with the fact that we've exceeded our budget by a few million dollars..." Pika-pi! "Mayor! Protesters are swarming around City Hall! What do we do?" PIKAAAAAAAA! Pika CHUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU.

Good luck with that.

There's no doubt that Gordon Freeman has accomplished some truly incredible things, and for that he's a champion. But he lacks one very basic talent that all good mayor's possess: exceptional communication skills. Sure, he's a man of action, but he stares danger in the face 🥂with nary a peep. Actually, the guy ju𓂃st... doesn't talk at all. And when you're the leader of a city, you're expected to communicate to your citizens and the press on a regular basis--which is kind of problematic for a man who would rather crowbar a headcrab than talk politics. It's too bad Freeman's feats of heroism don't translate into city management skills.

Some could take issue with the possibility that DK may or may not be able to talk to humans, or the fact that he seems to prefer unfinished building to completed ones. However, our greatest issue with Donkey Kong as a mayor is that DKs preferred currency is bananas--like, actual bananas. Fans of Donkey Kong Country🅘 know DK stockpiles the yellow frui😼t, which is fine for him, but sustainable economies need more than high-potassium treats. If DK tries to enforce such an economy on the populace, hell end up with a textbook banana republic. On the plus side, if things get too bad, itll only take one jumping plumber to overthrow him.

Nathan Drake's a swell guy and all🅘, but there's something unsettling about electing as mayor a dude who murders thousands of others without an ounce of🅘 remorse. It just doesn't sit well, ya know? Even if you excuse Drake's vast killing spree as an overreaching act of self defense, then you have to consider his tendency to "stretch the truth." Anyone holding a public office is held accountable for both their actions and words--and even though Nathan Drake's habitual lying is usually an attempt to protect those he loves, it's not exactly good practice for a mayor. Then again, you know what they say about politicians: they're all liars.

The Commander Shepard you know would probably make a fine mayor. He / she is very likely an upstanding citizen, one who's fair and kind and can make the tough decisions that need to be made. Our Commander Shepard, however, was a reporter-punching jerkbag who hated the media and attempted (at least thrice) to sleep with every female Asari he had ever met. As mayor, this particular Shepard would rather drain the city's coffers on booze, stripp🌜ers, and mega fancy aquariums instead of road repair and other infrastructure improvements. And you'd better think twice before asking him for an interview.

Would you like to guess how this ends? If you answered "with a lot of alcohol," you're correct. Max would be an awful mayor because in the few occasions he might be conscious, he definitely wouldn't be sober. Some would argue that this could enhance his decision-making skills and the creativity of his policies--but we beg to differ. Max's constant drunkenness makes him a horrible role model for kids (though, admittedly, he'd probably increase the city✤'s police funding), and it would be hard to get him to focus on anything other than his booze-fueled reflections. For Max, "drunk" equals "notꦉ being able to walk," and that's bad news--mayor or no.

Isaac Clarke means well, he really does. But let's face it--the dude's a whacko. Would you put a hallucinogenic guy in charge of your city's future? Probably not. 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Dead Space 3 even showed us Isaac's not-so-🍒crazy side, and it was still disturbing. All he did was sit in his 100 square foot apartment, staring at a picture of his ex-girlfriend. Hardly mayor-like behavior. Imagine what would happen if he had a particularly bad day at the office, and had access to a plasma cutter. Not a fun thought, that.

As one of the few playable mayors in game history, some might think Final Fights Mike Haggar would have an advantage for such a role. They're not playing SimCity. His past experience raises a number of red flags. Not only does he do most of his work shirtless, but when his daughter is kidnapped, he goes vigilante and gets his friend to h🃏elp search for her instead of going to the cops. This is fairly disrespectful to the town's police, and he puts his own life at risk by searching. What good is Mike to the town if he gets stabbed to death by some punk while looking for Jessica Haggar? He certainly cant approve any new public parks while hes bleeding to death in some gutter.

"I'm sorry dad, I'm moving to Rapture. I hear Mr. Andrew Ryan treats his citizens fairly. He's a better mayor than you are a father."

Garcia Hotspur is a rebel and hell never (ever) be any good. Thats why we love playing as the guy, but its also why the star of 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Shadows of the Damned would make a terrible mayor. Firstly, the tattooed, demon hunting, motorcycle rider would likely stop enforcing any helmet laws, creating a burden for families and health care workers alike. And because alcohol magically restores his health, expect gaudy liquor stores to crop up all over the community. The same goes for loud punk rock, strip clubs, and gun stores. Sure it sounds like a fun Spring Break destination, but think of the children!

An argument could be made against pretty much every video game character when it comes to whether or not he or 💧she would make a good mayor. Do you agree with our list? Which characters do you feel are even less qualified? Let us know in the comments below.

For more, be sure to check out 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询: and the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:top 7 dr෴amatic (but superb) c🐬haracter reboots.

So Ryan Taljonick, Greg Henninger, Hollander Cooper, and Sophia Tong will be starting their own districts, competing to be the absolute best--but we need your help. Add us on Origin and grab your plot of land. We will be having a friendly/malicious competition in the leaderboards to see who can create the greatest Radar Nation of them all, and adding more Radar dis🌞tricts as time goes on.

Hollander Cooper
Origin name: HollanderCooper
District: Radartopia

Ryan Taljonick
Origin name: RyantheEskimo
District: Radar Landing

Greg Henninger
Origin name: GregHenninger
District: Radaropolis

Sophia Tong
Origin name: soapymoose
District: Radarville

Check it out, anꦐd check back later this week for our rev𝔍iew!

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It also allows for fun stuff like leaderboards, challenges, and other social features. Being able to compete with friends to see who has the most money (or the most pollution) will add infinite replayablity, even when youve build all the buildings youve ever wanted to build. E♎A will also be rolling out City Log,🏅 SimCity's version of Battlefield 3's Battle Log, so you can keep tabs on your friends' activities, completed challenges, and more.

Before you can start building a city, you have to pick a region of the world to build in. These landmasses are made up of several plots of land, all of which can potentially be turned into cities. You can also decide who, if anyone, can build in your region. If you'd prefer to play solo, you can populate a private one; or, you can set one up so only Origin friends can build cities near your own. And if you're willing to risk getting trolled bܫy other players, you🌄 can join an open region and play with strangers.

Potential city sites aren't made equal, though. Some are near rivers and other bodies of water, while others reside on top of mountains or plateaus. Choosing where to build will often play a role in how you 💙build your city (which we'll coverꦚ later), and you'll want to look at resource maps to determine what kind of things your burgeoning metropolis will have in ample supply.

Here's where thinꦫgs get really interesting. Whether you're playing by yourself or with others, your city (or cities, if you choose to make more than one in a region) can interact wi🐼th and affect others nearby. For example, if you're building a city whose economy is built on tourism, you'll want to construct special bus terminals, ferry and train stations, and domestic airports so Sims from other cities can travel to your casinos, hotels, and other entertainment offerings.

Or, if you build an industrial town, you may want to export refined resources, such as electricity, w♛ater, or garbage removal. You can offer your surplus supplies to the global market, where other players can purchase them as needed--best of all, the prices of these exports will change depending on real in-game supply and demand data.

In past Sim City games everything ju☂st happened. Youd be told you need more residential areas, so youd build more residential areas. Youd be told you need more hospitals, so youd build more hospitals. In SimCity, everything happens for a reason, because everything is actually simulated. Residential areas are filled with actual Sims, who will actually drive to actual jobs and actually shop in 🍬actual stores.

If you need a new hospital, its because people are getting sick. If you need new schools, its because the Sims populating your residential district have children that can be educated to get better jobs. You can even track and monito🍎r any Sim in your city. Clicking on cars on any road presents detailed information about the name, desires, and destination of your Sims, and they'll stay in your city so long as they don't have economic reasons for leaving. Its resource-based, in a way, thanks to the games GlassBox engine. It makes this all easy to see and understand, creating a SimCity that feels more like a real💞 city.

Old SimC🅷ity players will be familiar with the RCI cycle, which refers toꦯ the balance between residential, commercial, and industrial zoning. But because your virtual cities are now populated by real virtual Sims, you'll have to take those Sims' needs into account when building.

Here's how a typical Sim's "life loop" works in SimCity: First, Sims need a place to live, and so they'll populate vacant residential housing. Each Sim's main goal is to obtain happiness (an actual, measurable resource), and it will do so by working to earn money, and then spending that mone♊y on commercial commodities. You'll also have to worry about ꦆkeeping industrial and commercial businesses happy. For industry, that means having workers and having places to sell goods; for commercial, that means having shoppers and selling goods. It's a delicate balance, and you'll have to learn how to maintain high levels of happiness for every single business and Sim in your city.

The reason this works is because youre able to rဣely on your neighbors more than you could in the past. If your city is short on something, just attach roads to the nearest city and import it from them. This is a symbiotic relationship, as youll be giving them something in return, be it workers for their industries, citizens for their houses, or shoppers for their commercial district.

Finally. For years, Sim City games have kept the roads straight, really hﷺampering any chanceღs of creating realistic (or artistic) cities. Now, roads can curve and bend, allowing you to make the city you really want to make.

That said, you still cant go too crazy--cars need to be able to make those turns, so the game limits your curvy roads within realistic limits, but itll still be nice to bend roads around mountains or create cool, circular cities. You know, if thats what youre in♒to.

If houses are burning down, you need to build new firehouses, right? Not in SimCity, which allows you to upgrade pre-existing buildings instead of building new onesꦓ. Firehouses can get new garages for more firetrucks, or other upgrades that improve their ability to serve the city.

This isnt limited to firehouses, mind you--every building you can place can be upgrade in SimCity, allowing you to focus on having a few great structures instead of a bunch of mediocre ones. Upgrading a building does increase its maintenance cost, though, so its not a free solution to all of your mayoral problems. Even 🐻things like roads and bridges can be expanded to increase traffic load without having to destroy already💮-placed routes first. Finally, Sims will know the pain of road construction.

In the past, the only en🐬vironmental worries you had in SimCity were things like, Will the resi🐈dential district get annoyed that I built a coal-powered power plant 30 feet from their backyard? Now, things are different, and the effects of your actions can change the environment in many different ways.

People still hate having their house near a coal plant--that isnt changing, but it can also affect the relationship with your neighboring cities. No one wants smoke blown in their direction, after all. Some buildings also passively create pollut🧸ion, so you need to monitor them to make sure those toxins dont end up getting into your water supply.

After we spent 30 minutes building up our mini-metropolis in SimCity, we heard a siren, the earth started to shake, and we watched as everything we had build was smashed by falling asteroids. It was a cool sight, and got us even more pumped for all of the changes coming to the game when it releases next Februarꦗy. What are you looking forward to from the sequel? Let us know in the comments below!

And if youre looking for more Sim-tastic coverage, check out 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:our excluꦓsive look at the Sims 3 Seasons and 澳洲幸运🔥5开奖号码历史查询:our favorite places to Woohoo in Sims 3.

SimCity, the reboot of the city-building game that kicked off the Sim craze, has a new release date of March 5, 2013 in North America and March 8 in Europe. The new dates announced on the game's today fall not too far after the original 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:February 2013 goal.

The PC game, which continues the draw-and-stamp design of the classic original SimCity and SimCity 2000, also further emphasizes individual citizens instead of just the buildings they live in--kind of like that game that got cancelled forever ago. It will be the first new main entry in Maxis' former flagship series since 2003's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:SimCity 4.

For more about the game, check out our recent feature on SimCity's various modes and how its 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:always-online multiplayer will affect the game.

It's not often you get an officially-sanctioned peek at a big title during this stage of development, and we're pleased to see the GlassBox tech being used to create deep links between the game's cosm🌱etic and interactive components. And if this is what the developer's willing to share, imagine what sort of tricks are being kept under wraps. Expect more details on next year's SimCity soon.

that unlike previous SimCity titles, the new SimCity’s GlassBox engine will allow for events to emerge more naturally. For example, fire stations will no longer provide a static box of coverage. Instead, the longer it takes the fire trucks to drive to a fire, the longer the fire will burn.
This is in contrast to the more rigid relationship between your city’s statistics in previous SimCity generations, that sees Sims’ happiness go up or down in direct proportion to the amount of pollution in your city, for example.

The result:൩ a much more complex system that treats everything from resources and businesses to Sims on the street as “agents.” Creative director Ocean Quigley isolated a group of vehicles and pedestrians to show how “agents” work.

“We’ve created all these people in here, and there’s no jobs for them, no houses for them, and no place to shop. They’re basically all miserable and would love to get out of here as fast as possible. So let’s connect their little maze to the outside world, and these people are going to abandon the city as fast as they can. So, all the l🐼ittle agents, they have an agenda, a mood, something they want to do. They hate it here, they want to get out, and so that’s what they’💖re doing,” explained Quigley.

It really puts things in perspective when you consider every object in your city will be one of these agents, responding to and interacting with other agen𒅌ts. It’s a much more complex system than what’s been done with any previous SimCity generations, but in a way it could make everything feel more real, organic, and lifelike.

Plus, there will be curvy roads! If you’re looking for more details, make sure to be on the lookout for the May issue of PC Gamer for 8-pages of more sim-tastic details.

Every time you place a building you plop it down, and a cloud of dust puffs up. Roads (which can now curve!) are caved into the ground. Sim City is a fully 3D game, taking full advantage of the powerful new engine, built for the ♐modern era of PCs.

The game will also take advantage of the connected generation. Your neighbors will actually be other players, and your actions will directly effect their city. Pollution can carry between cities, and you'll be able to work with your neig🐻hbors.

Which is another new element - consequences. Will you run a lean, green metropolis, or an oppressive mess of a city? Both will have their own challenges and💎 rewards, showing a powerful cause and effect system.

A new trailer wa🤪s shown off,💛 which we hope to have soon, and it looks brilliant. Stay tuned!

This version of SimCity offers nearly as many ways to destroy as it does to create, but given the amount of effort it takes to build anything worth dropping an asteroid on, the violence is best saved for the ready-made model cities that offer teasing glimpses of what could be possible with enough time and patience. It’s simple to play. Point the remote at the screen, draw a wiggly road, and paint some splodges of colour to show the zone (type of building) you want to go there. Hook the whole thing up to a power station, tunnel down to an underground view to add water pipes, then see how it develops.

Everything you build costs money, which you earn back by charging taxes. You can sweeten the deal for the Sims by making their residential areas green and uncrowded, ensuring they can travel to work easily, and siting the dirtier parts of the urban machinery well away from the posh bits. Once you delve into the pop-up menus there’s loads of stuff you can add to the city,🐼 including the Wii-specific ‘hero buildings’ that influence the style of architecture around them. If you want a business district made from donuts and biscuits, the option is there.

Drawing directly onto the map means you can create strange shapes with your roads and zones, but the stickiness of the pointer makes everything looks like it was sketched in the back of a car as it sped over a potholed road. Luckily there are tools for doing boxes, circles and straight lines. Neat cities look better. Although the m🍃enus are easy enough to navigate, the game insists on pausing every time you access them. Fair enough when you want to design an area without having Sims mess it up before you’ve finished, but the enforced slowness can be annoying. Even at full speed, the pace is glacial.

Some of the challe🅘nges introduce gameplay elements that you might otherwise miss, so they’re more useful than ordinary tutorials. In a twisted vision of London 2012, one mission required us to build sports facilities to nurture a professional athlete, which we did at the expense of the city’s entire police, fire, education and public health budget. Because managing all areas of a large city can become a pain, it’s possible to employ assistants to do the donkey work for you. If you stick them in neglected areas they’ll build zones according to the residents’ needs. To test it out, we put six assistants in an empty field, drew a few roads ജto get them started, and within half an hour we had a city of more than 20,000.

More advanced players can enter contests, which are like advanced versions of the mission mode with online scoreboards for comparing your progress with other players. But if you haven’t got an internet connection for your Wii, you can’t play this mode at all. With a collection꧒ of galleries for viewing the landmarks you’ve unlocked, some flight-based minigames and the option to have multiple cities on the go, there’s more to SimCity Creator than most players are likely to see. The 30 built-in missions will be exhausted eventually, as will the challenge mode – for those with access to it – but the main sandbox mode is completely open-ended. Building something impr𒁃essive is difficult, but if frustration sets in you can deliberately set the place alight and then play the hero by managing the emergency services. Everyone’s a winner.

Sep 29, 2008

The theme of the new pack is to create a city that encourages tourism, bringing extra business from beyond your borders. You’re equipped with many new Venue buildings – Sim entertainment structures – from hotels and B&Bs to luxury resorts and theme parks, tailored to encourage tourism, and hence create a new revenue ൩stream. Some are uniquely for tourists, providing accommodation. Others are used by locals for free, but have an entry fee for out-of-towners. And that’s it. You’re paying considerable cash for a new game mode, and on top of the price of the original game, which it requires to run, that’s way too much. Especially when you co🍨nsider what has been added to SimCity Societies in free updates since its initial release.

The biggest flaw of the original Societies was just how frustratingly easy it was to play. In a single city you could unlock every achievement, reach maximum capacity, and have nothing but ecstatic citizens and a budget bursting at the seams, with minimal effort. Now called Creative Mode, this super-simple game is only one way to play. Strategic Mode ramps up the difficulty. The first and most significant change is building maintenance. Nearly everything you build now comes with a daily upkeep cost, which requires some extremely careful budgeting. Sliders enable you to decide how much you want to spend on building🎃 types, letting you gamble on their falling into disrepair, and the resulting economic and social loss. It’s a crucial addition, and rewrites how you approach the game. But when a bank makes 1,000 a week, but costs 672 to k🔯eep open, there’s no tricky decision to make.

Sims in the updated Societies will also work for longer, and spend more time visiting Venues, thus doing less in a day, and thus requiring more specifically targeted entertai🍌nment. In fact, the buggers are generally a lot harder to keep in a good mood. And achievements and monuments are now limited to one per city, sensibly encouraging you to focus on ❀a particular theme, as well as keeping the Jack Of All Trades achievement for those wishing to mix and match. The result is a very hard game, which after the simplicity of before is perhaps missing a rather vital space between.

The updates have made many other new additions to both modes, such as bui🔯ldings having particular influences on their surrounding area, and Scenarios that were inexcusably absent originally. There’s also a refreshing tendency toward silliness. Consider the Burgazoid 6000 disaster. A failed experiment in creating a more efficient cheeseburger creates a vast, laser bea✨m-shooting burger-monster that causes mini-earthquakes with every step. That’s the sort of thing we like.

What don’t we like? The most ridiculous part of Societies is still the ability to spam the map with various Decorations to increase points in various required categories. Need more Spirituality? Stick a dozen shrines in the bottom left of the map, miles from anything, and the points are still yours. A UFO crash site can still replace a school. And worst of all, the feedback makes little sense. A city built almost entirely of Venues can have enraged citizens rioting because they can’t find any෴where to visit. Why not?! And the engine still can’t cope with its own game, staggering with a medium-size city. Fix it!

The original Creative game mode, now sprinkled with Destinations’ tourism and the numerous improvements makes for a more distracting (if still overly easy) time. Getting anyone at all to visit your landswill takea few hours ofwork. Impressing them takes a few more. The Strategic game mode needs a lot more balancing – something I suspect will happen in the next update. If you want a challenge, it’s there aplenty. At the price, plus the money you’ll spend for the core game, Destinations is hard to recommend. That price for just Societies, on the other hand, gets easier to justify with each update. Societies still doesn’t compare to tꦕhe orchestrated intricacy of SimCity 2000, and that still isn’t good enough. But Destinations is even worse value for what it adds.

Aug6, 2008

"SimCity Creator is an open-ended, highly creative game with a sense of humour that a𒉰llows players to utilize the distinctive gameplay aspects of the Wii and Nintendo DS to create, enjoy and destroy epic cities," describes EA.

So, pretty much like previous SimCity games then, only in keeping with the mainstream appeal of Nintendo's latest harౠdware, EA promises this to be "the most accessible and light-hearted game from the SimCity franchise," designed for "families and players of all ages".

The Wii ♕game will pa꧒ck 13 cities with themes from US and Asian locales, with the option to take a helicopter or plane for a flight over your city creation before the series-iconic disasters destroy it all.

The DSཧ game takes on a historical theme, allowing you to build a city in ancient times, and evolve it through the middle ages, modern times and up to the present day.

Here are screens for theWiiandDSversions.

May 29, 2008

SimCity Societies: Destinations is the first expansion pack for EA's SimCity Societies and is set to release in May.

Adding a holiday theme to the original game, Destinations features a number of new locales that allows players to create "the perfect vacation spot".

No prizes for guessing that you have to lure in travellers from around the globe by building and managing a city or town based on irresistible attractions and amenities.

Destinations additionally features an enhanced map genꦗerator that'll identify each city's opportunity for diversiᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚon and the city can capitalise on that draw, explains EA.

It continues, "From sprawling theme parks and tropical beach resorts to country hiking trails, players can control more than 100 new buildings to create their customised destination."

SimCity Societies marked something of a departure for the SimCity series. You can read澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:our review here.

SimCity Societies: Destinations will set you back🌺 £19.99 (or $40)when it's released.

.

Feb 21, 2008

Nov 13, 2007

Would the hardcore SimCity communities please put away their pitchforks and torches? SimCity Societies is definitely an extreme change from previous mainline SimCity titles - did developer Tilted Mill Entertainment ever once 𒊎say that they wanted to do just another city management rehash? - but it also happens to be a wo🤡rthy branching off of the unbelievably popular brand. Societies takes a cue from The Sims by keeping gameplay light and simple but also playfully open-ended.

If you've seen any coverage on this game so far⛄, you've probably already heard the gist of it: Societies traᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚdes in the insane detail of laying sewage pipes, budgeting taxes, and other such fun tasks from SimCity 4 for a much broader "society" system wherein your city leans in certain directions based on the types of buildings you plop down.

Players are given two basic options: you can go wild and build whatever you desire and t﷽hen observe what type of city emerges. Or, you can filter the choices through certain city types ranging from the clown-and-candy-filled "Fun City" to the properly 1984-esque Authoritarian regime. While these focused options are fun for a limited amount of time, the real enjoyment comes in building a city one way and then taking a sharp right turn - flooding the streets of your Romantic setting with Capitalist landmarks, for example.

A whopping eight different resources (nine if you count population) act as the requisites to expanding your city. Power and Simoleons (i.e. money) will be familiar to anyone who's touched virtually any previous city simulation game. Unique to Societies, though, are six social values ranging from Productivity to Spirituality to Knowledge. Each building expends and produces a certain amount of one or more of these values, and the more your city uses any one value, the more buildings you unlock related to that valu🌼e. Greater Spirituality usage might grant you a new cathedral, while an overabundance of Prosperity could lead to bigger banks or office buildings.

Of the game's 500+ buildings, just under 200 are locked from the start, but nearly all of them were opened up after a mere 10-15 hours of c🙈asual play, so there's no huge barrier to what passes for progression in Societies.

In fact, that ease of entry is an important element of Societies, which is sure to pick up some fans from the same crowd that has made The Sims such an unabashed success. Yes, we're talking about the much-maligned casuals. Where SimCity proper required intense mental concentration to balance the many fronts of running a realistic city, Societies allows players to kick back and experiment with💯 very little worry of their city heading in a direction they don't like or falling prey to a disaster... unless they summon one.

While that's a smart move for the franchise from a bus♚iness stand point, it also severely limits the actual content packed into the game. There's enough fun to be had toying around with various society types to make the game worth a purchase, but the more you start placing the same buildings over and over again, the less inﷺteresting the game becomes.

Publisher EA's solution to thisꦜ is commendable: power to the people. EA claims that Societies is the "most moddable SimCity ever." Whether or not that's true, though, it remains to be se🅘en if Societies can pull in a dedicated enough community to keep new content coming. After all, the hardcore SimCity fanatics are unlikely to be pulled into this simplified game.

Oct 25, 2007

How diffic♐ult can it be to stimulate an economy and please everybody all the time? The original SimCity games tasked you with making a healthy dose of greenbacks by increasing the population and number of buildings despite the occasional tornado or Godzilla mucking things up. Not so in SimCity Societies, EA's radical reinvention of the franchise. Rather than crafting only one type of burg to rack up cash and Mayoral popularity, EA has given you𝐆 the tools to erect a city with a soul.

Before you could only build a city that was hardly distinguishable from other creations; something that was bland, shiny and looked virtually like downtown Los Angeles (read: soulless). Societies offers six values, or "Societal Energies" that will shape a type of city you're aiming to create. U﷽sing values such as Productivity, Prosperity, Creativity, Spirituality, Authority and Knowledge, you can create unique cities with differen𓄧t cultures and appearances. So, it's possible to build your envisioned cyberpunk landscape or oppress your residents Big-Brother style.

It's not necessary to dabble in each Energy value however, as focusing on specific areas will create particular kinds of cities. In addition to these values, you'll still need to popul🐼ate your city in order to bring money in. The larger🦂 the population, the more workplaces you'll need. Makes sense, right? However, in a slight twist, you'll need to care about your Sims' happiness so they'll get their lazy asses to work.

To make your residents happy, you'll install entertainment venues such as retail chains or dive bars. If your Sim becomes unhappy, then they'll skip work and go rogue. From there it's up to you to make them happy again. Maybe move them to a new house? Change jobs? Add a shopping mall in their neighborhood? It's all up to you and adds som☂e much needed depth to what exactly will make your city successful.

In addition to the 500+ buildings at your disposal, many of which are city-specific, you'll have access to "Building Cards" that more or less explains how the building works, how 🌄many Sims occupy it, if you💦're making money and any tips on what you should do to raise more dough.

With numerous goals and achievements to obtain based on city-type, this resurrection of the SimCity franchise appears to contain the most variety yet. We'll have a full review of Societies once it's released in mid-November. Watch this space for more info.

Oct 10, 2007

A new construction set of SimCity Societies screenshots has been accompanied by some educational news about the game. EA, it seems, has teamed up with BP (British Petroleum) to educate us on climate change.

"The low-carbon electricity choices and monitoring of SimCity's carbon emissions provide an entertaining, fully-integrated and accurate look at some of the causes and some of the major solutions available to combat rising levels of carbon and to help address the threat of global warming,%26rdquo; is the word.

SimCity Societies marks something of a departure for the series. Not only is it NOT in development at Maxis, city building is now all about dragging and dropping prefab houses, businesses, corrupt police stations and coffee bars onto a map - and your culture or urban persona you create is reflected in the music and detail of your city.

Look for it on November 13.

.

First things first: the name. This is, for all intents and purposes, SimCity 5. T🃏he very desktop shortcut EA u🅠sed to launch the demo was labeled so.

The Societies part is there to denote a shift of emphasis away from zoning - painting large areas of land with broad "residential" or "commercial" strokes - and toward choosing every building in your city personally, and focusing them into smaller districts - societies. It's m⛄ore about building communities of people and managin🐈g their mood than manually laying the pipework for your city's water facilities.

The idea came from Rod Humble, vice-president of EA's Sims division, and the influence is clear. Every citizen (Sim) in your city is now individually simulated, right down to the time they arrive atꦚ work. If they're mugged by a criminal - a product of your slum housing, no doubt - they'll arrive late and get less done that day.

And you can't have that. Societies is almost entirely about making sure all your people show up for work every day, and get the hell on with it. Like a lot of SimCity mechanics, it's a bit depressing if you think about it. Build a car dealers🤪hip, for example, and the Sims who visit it will be +2 happy for 28 days. That's all the happy a new car gets you, apparently.

Happiness isn't productive, anyway - any Sim who's more than merely content is veering dangerously close to the euphoria-induced insanity of not working themselves to the bone all the time. You'll soon fix them, though, with an Attitude Adjustment center. Sims emerge from this stark building feeling nothing🎃 - neither bad nor good - and that makes them the ideal worker-drone.

It also makes them Obedient - note the capital O. Attitude Adjustment Centers, Secret Police, and Ministries of Thought all boost your people's Obedꦉience, and building enough of them will even start to color your city. Your buildings become taller and more austere, lampposts have security cameras fitted,𝐆 everything else gets painted gray, and finally the sky itself bleakens to reflect your city's mood - or lack thereof. Soon Men in Black are rounding up your most creative and happy Sims and "neutralizing" them.

Obedience is one of six Societal Energies the game models - along with Industry, Wealth, Creativity, Devotion and Knowledge - each of which is useful to keep your people going through the daily grind. So the game, you might think, is a case of balancing these different needs of your people to keep your city running. Nope. Societies is being made by Caesar IV developers Tilted Mill, and that was a game in which there was a visual overlay mode to see the infrastructure pathways from each of your citizen's homes to shrines of each of the nine deities they had to worship every day. They are, if anything, even geekier than Maxis. But far from bringing that taxing nerdiness to the already very technical SimCity series, they're rebelling against it.

Societies' complexity is under the hood, and tinkering with it to get the most horsepower out of your city is a fine art - but not a compulsory one. You don't lose the game if one of these Societal Energies drops too low; your city just becomes less efficient for a w𒆙hile. Tilted Mill wants to move away from the management model where the player spends all his time trying to keep the scales perfectly balanced. They'd rather give you more breathing room for creative expression and fun, instead.

Is there a creature on Earth more misunderstood than the humble town planner? They work hard all day, toiling for hours in the fields, trying to find that idyllꦿic spot out in the sticks to place their town%🍌26rsquo;s fire station, and then they sit up all night stylus-tapping missiles into the face of hospital-munching giant apes. And for what?

After a few hours designing your dream town in Sim City, however, you%26rsquo;ll want to send your own town%26rsquo;s council a bouquet of flowers and abox of Sees candies. Because appeasing the whining inhabitants of your haphazardly designed city is next 🌞to impossible. But then, it%26rsquo;s not r🌞eally about them, is it?

Buildings can now be rearranged and combined with other structures, avoiding the cloned look of previous SimCity creations. There's a staggering 350 types ofꦛ building, with huge variety, and your choice of structure can directly ꧟affect your city's society.

"Sometimes I build an aggressive ওpolice☂ state where stragglers are dragged off to reconditioning centers and emerge ready for work," Rod Humble, studio head of EA's Sims Division, relishes in telling us. "Other times, I build a green community in the tropics, where the citizens grow their own food."

Above: There are even more images of SimCity Societies in 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:our gallery

As you combine buildings, you produce or consume a resource 🅘called "social energies." Experiment with these energies -including industry, wealth, obedience or creativity - and you can guide or coerce the𒆙 path of your city's society.

Your choices will be visual♏ly obvious as you progress - slap down ferris wheels, gingerbread houses, or chocolate factories to create fun-filled worlds. Build your own haunted village, complete with spooky houses, or pursue future technologies and forge huge metropolises.

The behavior of your citizens can be influenced, too - for instance, play around with the consequences of rebellion, or investigate what you can achieve with a compliant, unquestioning workforce.SimCity Societies is ambitious, but the resultswil🍷l be limited only by your imagination.

June 13, 2007

Balancing budgets, reducing pollution, and addressing traffic congestion sounds about as exciting as watching grass grow. But Will Wright's SimCity proved that building and managing your own city could be both﷽ fun and addictiꦫve when it released in 1989.

The new version - scheduled to release in June 2007 - injects an assortment of DS-centric gameplay features, adding some flare to this pocket-sized iteration of the PC classic. You'll blow in your microphone to put out fires and kill rampaging monsters by tapping on them with your stylus. We also saw a special event where Santa Claus came to town. Tapping him with the stylusꦍ will force the jolly St. Nick to drop gi🎃fts for your sim-citizens.

But despite the new bells and whistles, SimCity DS is still the same classic city-builder at heart, and looks like it'll be the perfect distraction to keep you occupied during long commutes. For a sneak peak at some of the game's new special events click on the Movies and Images tabs a♊bove.

This first image from the upcoming SimCity DS finally gives us 🔯a glance at how the game will use the handheld's dual-screen setup. And, though it might not be heart-stoppingly pretty, we can confirm that the game makes 𒐪effective use of DS's stylus sensitive screen and microphone.

From scribbling your signature on important documents to huff-puffing on the microphone to blow out fires, SimCity DS may also feature multiplayer - publisher EA tells us that there's a "wireless data exchange" in the works. Will we be s๊wapping city blueprints? Flogging unwanted buildings? Or maybe passing on unwelcome visitors? It's clear as mud at the moment, but we'll soon find out.

EA reckons SimCity DS will be launching this summer - and they should know, being the publisher 'n all - which ought to make 🌊it the perfect long-haul journey companion.

February 28, 2007

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Add $1000

weaknesspays - Get 1,000 added to treasury

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Start/Stop The Clock

stopwatch - Stop/start the clock

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Change Mayor Name

hellomynameis -💎 Change the mayor name to 🥀a name you supply. Replace the bracketed entry with your entry

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Toggle Zots

tastyzots - toggles zots.

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Advisor Head Swap

DollyLlama - causes🍃 all the advisors heads to swap to llama heads.

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

No Water Requirements

howd🅘ryiam - Water requirements for buildings removed

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

No Power Requirements

fi൲ghtthepower - No power requirements for buildings

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Change City Name

whererufrom - change♎ city name follow with new name you want to apply. Replace the bracketed ent✤ry with your entry

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

All Rewards

you don't deserve it - Get all rewards free

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Change Magnification

sizeof - Make magnification 1-100. Replace the bracketed entry with your entry o🃏f 1-100

PC | Submitted by beau

Faster Money

Type=weaknesspays but before you press enter press and hold shift witch will keep the cheat box open after pressing enter then press the up arrow on💙 your keyboard witch will bring up the p🦩revious code(weaknesspays) a repeat to hearts desire

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

All God Options When You Are A Mayor

When you are in the Mayor mode, you can't use all of the God Options. If you want to use them, Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift at the same time, when still holding, click with your left mouse button on "God Options" And you will hꦫave them all.

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Hide Empty Zone Color

zoneria - Empty zone color hidden

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Hide Empty Zone Color

Zoneria - Hide Empty zone color

PC | Submitted by oscar van der

Set Time

whatimeizit - set the time of the day follow w♒ith a space and the time you wish to set. Replace the b𒐪racketed entry with your time entry