h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Today is a good day.

A very good day. Something happened recently that could well bring about a change in how people use computers, and how they think when they use them.

I'm not talking tosh about a fruit flavoured fondle slab, I'm talking Sim City.

There's a new SimCity out next year. A *new* one. Not some daft SimCity Societies that was trading off the brand, but a proper new SimCity.

It's been nine years since the last SimCity, and that will be ten before the new one is released. But from 1989 (yes, that's an 8 in there) until SimCity4 was released in January 2003, SimCity not online defined a revolutionary new game genre, it ruled it. Completely and utterly dominated the building genre. To start with there wasn't anything else, it was truly unique. But over the years, mostly since Maxis (and parent company Electronic Arts) took their eye off the ball others have come along providing the new features game players started to expect but SimCity didn't provide. True 3D graphics, multiplayer, bendy roads. Cities XL was the best of these for a while, and other games including Anno 2070 (which I'm playing and loving) owe a huge amount to SimCity.

Maxis got swept away with the success of the Sims, and everything seemed to be focused on that. It's no surprise really that The Sims 2 was released in 2004, became a massive success and no-one heard from SimCity again. But with interest in The Sims waning, SimCity seems to be back.

The new version is being touted has having true 3D graphics, it'll need to if they expect to sell any copies. It seems you can pick and choose buildings this time too, rather than just zoning (although zoning is still there) and there's bendy roads. The other thing that's being touted as a new feature is multiplayer:

"Work together with friends to build a region for the first time! "

Direct from the website.

Thing is, back in 1996 Maxis released SimCity 2000 Network Edition. I remember this, I had a copy. It had multiplayer back then. The one and only edition of SimCity that had it. So multiplayer isn't in for the "first time" but it is a seriously welcome return.

I bought an original edition of SimCity for my Amiga. I still have it, in its box with that horrid anti-piracy sheet of codes. I still occasionally play SimCity 4 whenever I have spare time, because until Anno 2070 came out nothing could compete with it for shear addictiveness. Nothing came close.

SimCity was a truly revolutionary computer game. Rather than running around killing things, players were encouraged to build, to watch the cause and effect of their actions, to think. To many companies try to pass off what they do as revolutionary, a real game changer, again. That's evolution, not revolution.

With the launch of the Raspberry Pi and the excitement that's grown around that, the ability to hack, to experiment, to build, the re-emergence of SimCity, and the growth in the number of kids looking to build things again I can only hope that we're starting to see a change in the way that people use computers.

Your fondle slabs? You can keep them and the kleenex you feel the need for. I'll continue to create.

I remember playng sim city wit my friends in elementary school. No idea which one it was. I also played the first Sims. We used the money cheat and got as much money as we could to then build the best house possible. With the expensive wallpapers and a swimming pool and stuff.

And the new Anno is great, isn't it? I just never have time to play it. So much to do. So tired in the evenings.

I still think sim city 2 was better than three!

Possibly because it remains the one sim game with a true win (against the standard theme of sim games)

How can you pick buildings? I wouldn't have the patience

It took me forever to figure out my pathetic growth rates in sim city - I never took my roads as close as i should have...I assumed sims more willing to walk
...and you can tell i'm british...i still can't construct a decent public transport system


Must say that i'm not an Anno fan myself

You know what would make a nice mobile app? An updated Sim Ant. I enjoyed Sim Ant because it was limited to one house and one back yard. The only problem is they balanced the game too much in favor of the red ants. You really had to do some serious handicapping (lawnmowers, kids with magnifying glasses and shoes, etc) to give the black ants enough of a start to have a real battle for the house. Usually they got routed out in the middle of the garden.

If I had time for games now, I'd probably really enjoy the new Sim City.

I liked 2, I liked 1 a fair amount when I played that ...


an interesting one was A-train .... it was sim cityish in that you built a city, however you were basically in charge of the mass trainist system and the city built itself around you. Very complex ideas

One of these days I will get the Amiga out again and all the great games I still have for it (I think Sim City is in there), but the greatest is still The Settlers.

One of these days...

I was a sim-tower fan, but it did become a tad repetitive for the last twenty floors...and annoying as hell if you built a non-removable building one "slot" (about half a cm) out of line...meant every single other floor was out of line

I may not have been the best builder, i got bored with paying to have my fires put out and chose to fight them by hand
I also never got to see how much destruction a terrorist bomb did..my security personnel were too quick by far
(thinking about it, i doubt they'd have programmed it that way nowadays)

I remember A Train, I loved that.

settlers ??


Pah

Populus

populous was a great game, one of the first big ones I played

I was awful at any level with a time limit...quickness in games is not my forte

There was another out around the same time as Populous (I still have the original box for that on a shelf with a load of other obsolete software) that had a good/evil heaven/hell theme. I can't remember if it was called Black and White or Above and Below...

Anyway, you could choose to be a benevolent deity or malicious.

Black and White came later, but I think I know the one you mean.

"reticulating splines"

I always enjoyed Sim City - remember playing it on the BBC micros at school in an IT lesson! I think SC3000 was the one I settled on in the end.

Another good one was Afterlife - looking after Heaven *and* Hell. Very different tactics required for each of those!

Oooh, the hours my sister and I spent playing SimAnt...

Afterlife is conceptually a direct ripoff of Black & White.

black & white was done by the same guy as populus, but about a decade or so later

I was all geared up to rebute the claim that Black & White came out a full decade after Populous. I really was. And I was almost vindicated by my first web search unitl I noticed that it was referring to a sequel to Populous. However, I believe I'm correct in saying that the two were not created by the same game designer or company.

But, yeah.... Populous came out in '91 and Black & White came out in '01.

It seems strange though in a way. I work in an office where pretty much everyone plays "shoot 'em ups", they're always buying the new releases and playing frantically to finish them. It was only with SkyRim being so nice to look at that they seemed to slow down. But they play them, they forget them, they move on.

The Sim style of games don't have that as you've all testified in one way or another. You play the game, and then you play it again, and again, and again. And then years later you load it up *again*.

I'm getting on quite well with learning Anno 2070, yes I'm playing it at the easy sandbox level, but I've not played any of its previous incarnations so I'm not sure what I'm doing yet. But I have got my city nicely expanded and most of the eco techs available to me. I make a lot of money each turn and have enough resources on different islands to not have to trade much with other players. It's a good game, and I think I've possibly got a fair few more years enjoyment to come from it. I've not even touched on the military side of things yet, and haven't even done a single campaign.

I just hope the new SimCity has enough going for it.

I played Anno 1705 and I must say the whole system improved a lot. In 1705 you'd end up with a whole island full of aristocrats screaming for chocolate, alcohol and tobacco. You'd wonder who is actually doing all the work. The social structures in 2070 are a lot more realistic.
And don't you love how the tiny plants are growing on the farms?