Ok, so on further reflection my original statement probably needs fleshing out. As a SimCity game, yes, SCS does really suck. Basically, it doesnt really simulate any of the problems faced by a real city planner as the other titles in the franchise have done or, at least, attempted to do. When i approached it with a SimCity frame-of-mind it made me feel really dumb and uneducated. It was just too easy for a simcity game. That is, it was too easy to make a city because you didnt have to concentrate on all the micro-management stuff.
However, as a game in it's own right it isnt toooooooo bad. Certainly not game-of-the-year but it is sort of entertaining and quite beautiful to look at. it basically is an offshot to the typical simcity series but instead of focusing on transport, schools, hospitals, taxes etc you focus on the 'societal energies' like productivity, spirituality, authority etc. THis basically means that, by encouraging one or more of these 'energies' you can produce different types of cities (such as an Orwellian City, Romantic City, a redneck small town and so forth.) It requires a different sort of thinking to a typical simcity title and has clearly just been dubbed SCS to profit from the Original series' reputation. The biggest thing that i find is different from other simcity titles is that you 'plop' all the buildings. That means, no zoning, which also means no gradual evolution and change in your city. i think that is rather unfortunate considering that seeing a medium-sized skyscraper suddenly arise in your city (and then acting to encourage more) was one of the most exciting parts of SimCity 4 and titles before it.
Unfortunately, the thing that frustrates me most about SCS is that this game has become another victim to EA's notorious habit of releasing products whether or not they are 'ready' just so they fit a schedule. I can't play the game for >30mins before it crashes. I'm lucky. Some people posting on the SCS forum cant even start the game (different error to mine) and some, with the same error as mine, are lucky to last 10-15 minutes. A patch has already been released (like, a day after the game was shipped) supposedly fixing the crashes. No such luck. Instead, EA's dreadful customer support has resulted in basically no indication of a fix-in-the-works or even acknowledgement of the problems. I'd really love to play the game but atm i'm unable to grow my city past 8000 people because of crashes. I have autosave running every three minutes but it really tarnishes my motivation to keep playing when i'm never sure if that city block i just constructed will survive or if it'll be obliterated from memory by an error which should never have shipped with the game.
So yeah. Not really a wonderful game yet. No doubt it will also become subject to EA's other notorious habit with sim titles and see an abundance of Expansion Packs. (assuming it is actually a successful title).
