SimCity 2013

After more than ten years since the last installment, Electronic Arts will launch SimCity on March 7, capable of running on PC and Mac. It will do so with two versions, a limited edition that we can consider basic, adorned with a pack of heroes and villains, and another Deluxe that will include three city models extra (British, French and German). The official price of the first is 61, 50 euros and the second will cost 81, 95 eurosI find SimCity an expensive game, but the product features justify the price.

Private Beta Installation

Do not expect a technical analysis of the product from this brief review. The conditions in which the test, to which we will return later, have not allowed the game to take the pulse to that level. What I would like to be able to convey is the emotions that SimCity has provoked in a retired player, who is not impartial about this game.

I signed up for the private beta program in December, as soon as I heard about that possibility. I received an email this weekend from EA Spain with the subject "PLAY NOW", like that, in capital letters. Inside the email the steps to install the game and try it were explained. Having an Origin account, I only needed to download the executable of the same name, follow the indicated steps and redeem the personal product code supplied to download SimCity. The private beta can only be tested during this weekend, until 12:01am Sunday PST.

The first disappointment came with the installation. The servers were completely crashed It took me more than an hour to download, with continuous interruptions. Whenever one occurred, reconnection was automatically attempted every two minutes. When the process was finally completed, on the first attempt to validate the product, the server was still giving problems and here, to my despair, the next attempt was scheduled for 20 minutes later. It took several hours before I was finally able to start the program.

The next disappointment came from the pessimistic diagnosis made by the team program, “insufficient resources”. We are talking about an Intel i7 2600 at 3.40 GHz, with 8 GB of RAM… Ah! The graphics controller Well, on that same computer "SIMS 3" fly.It couldn't be. With the default settings, navigation was really fluid, to the point of being almost unmanageable. I then tried to assign the maximum quality in detail, lighting, shadows, etc.

Indeed the graphics transition would get stuck from time to time. Of course, the scenario that was on the screen was incredible. There was no choice but to lose an hour to install another more powerful graphics controller and its drivers (Asus GTX550 Ti with DDR5 memory). Now! Of course, graphics hardware is essential to get all the features of SimCity

An hour playing with SimCity

With everything more or less under control and looking for a time where the yankees should be sleeping, another attempt to start a game of one hour, time to which it is limited play with the private beta In addition to many years having passed since the last game, the graphical interface of the program has changed to the point of recognizing a single tool: the bulldozer.The rest, still remaining the basic philosophy of the program that I knew, is another world. The way of playing as well.

Because it is the first game, with that time limitation, I have spent a lot of time guessing how to play and where the tools are. After the first clumsy steps I have managed to connect the highway with a simple road layout and compose a basic population with residential, commercial and industrial areas, an electric station and another water supply, in addition to the town hall.

Once you establish the zones, they began to populate autonomously It is curious how the residential area has begun to grow, with moving trucks approaching the new automatically generated buildings Zooming in on the houses, soft background music mixes with the almost real noise of people that are being established.It looks like a chicken coop.

This contextual sound effect is maintained for any stage element. In the electrical station, for example, from a degree of zoom you can hear the hum that causes a transformer station. As the first one that can be installed works with wind energy, we will also perceive the noise of the blades of the wind turbine being beaten by the wind. The realism is such that it is convenient to take into account the direction and intensity of the wind when locating the station, so that the energy efficiency is optimal. With this detail you can imagine what the rest of the game is like.

Image | EA

SimCity Interface

Regarding the interface, most of the functions are grouped at the bottom of the screen, in a bar that occupies the edge bottom and part of the sides.In the upper right area there are more controls, including navigation and configuration options. The game mechanics are more logical and restrictive than in previous versions. Things have to be done step by step, and until an action is “approved” (for example, building the town hall), it cannot be done.

Another thing I've noticed is the strong influence of “The Sims” The language of the characters, the currency (simoleons), the way of communicating the requests of the population, etc., are remarkably reminiscent of the famous EA game. Regarding navigation with the mouse, holding down the left button enables three-dimensional navigation The central wheel: zoom, and with the right button we carry out translations. I point out another detail here, if we raise the point of view too much, we will do it above the cloud layer.

Image | EA

A first balance of the test

You can imagine how soon I have run out without a budget due to lack of experience and I have had to passively assist the growth of the first nucleus urban, not being able to do much else until the time limiter has tripped. I also confess without shame that I have surprised myself with the Visa card in hand to make the previous reservation Fortunately I stopped on time, because it scares me.

SimCity is the only game that once hooked me to the point where I spent a whole weekend playing it with my son. If that version was able to annul me like this, with the new one it could be ruin. If you've already had the chance to try this game, you're going to love the new version If this is your first time playing SimCity, you've got a whole world ahead of you to explore.

A great product without a doubt.

More information | Sim City Video | Youtube