Tag Archives: simcity 4

The Android's Liberal Arts Degree (Meta/Critical), The Android's Universe in a Jar (Sim)

Do You Remember the First Time You Played SimCity?

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Monsieur Adequate and myself have both been playing a lot of SimCity 4 lately. And the other day when we were playing it, the topic of just how long this game series has been around came up. Here, have a timeline:

  • SimCity – 1989 – 22 years ago
  • SimCity 2000 – 1994 – 17 years ago
  • SimCity 3000 – 1999 – 12 years ago
  • SimCity 4 – 2003 – 8 years ago

This thought– that this game has been around for 22 years, and we’re still just as engrossed by it– really hit me for some reason. The weird thing is that there are other game series that have been around just as long, if not longer, but they don’t seem to strike me that same way. For example, I’ve theoretically been playing Mario games since Donkey Kong in… whatever year that was that I first played Donkey Kong. Certainly before 1989. But Mario has evolved. Look at Donkey Kong– or even Super Mario Bros.– and then take a look at, say, Super Mario Galaxy. Beyond the titular main character, there is little to no similarity. Other series that have been around for just as long are similar. The characters, locations, and baddies may be the same, but the games and gameplay themselves are usually different.

I honestly didn't realize that this was the same character as "Mario" until much later.

SimCity, however, has essentially stayed the same. If you were a first time player and played SimCity 2000 for a while and then jumped to SimCity 4, you would have very little trouble adjusting. Everything is still there. The zoning is there. The roads are there. The water pipes are there. The power lines are there. Your schools and hospitals and fire departments are there. You still have your top-down, isometric view of the world. Your Sims still follow the same basic rules now that they did in 1994.

And it is this thought– this fact that an idea Will Wright had in the eighties is so very stable as to still be a thoroughly addicting and entertaining game today– that is a wonderful thing, I think. And I’m reminded of this whenever I play yet another incarnation of the series, geek out about something ridiculous like road signs, and realize that I’ve been in love with this game for twenty years.

One of the all-time greats? Yup. One of the all-time greats. And I love the fact that I grew up with it.

Any games or series you guys feel this way about?

The Android's Custom Rims (Mods and modding)

A little love letter~

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It’s too hot today for my brain to really work well, so instead of the ideas I had for today’s entry, I’m just going to write about something I love in vidya.

Mods.

I don’t mean any particular mods – though there are more than a few worth talking about – but just the whole idea of mods in general. Now, there are occasions when mods can be vital. A game which ran out of funding for example, and which gets tidied up and refined by the modding community. Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines is the first example that springs to mind. They can take the rough edges off any game, wherever a player feels balance is off or something doesn’t work quite right. Now, this isn’t to say that developers have an excuse to be lazy, of course! But sometimes reality ensues and things don’t quite work out as one would hope – and mods can help reduce the impact of that.

If only someone could mod out the sewers :(

More than this though, they are a source of content. I like SimCity4, but without sites like SimTropolis I’d have stopped playing it long ago. As it stands people are still putting out content every day for the game, even though it’s seven or eight years old now. And you can see real talent among the modders: the PEG team, the HKBAT team, the NAM team, and so on. They’ve done some truly impressive, amazing things given the constraints of the game, and they deserve much credit for it. In fact, modding is one of the better ways into the games industry these days, it seems. Make a solid mod and you could end up getting noticed by designers. And it is, ultimately, a great way for the communities around videogames to emerge and find each other. I know that there are names of people who worked on stuff as long ago as Morrowind who I always keep an eye out for, because their new mod for New Vegas, for instance, is likely to be great. That’s more loyalty than I display to most of the people who makes the games themselves!

What about you guys? Thoughts on mods? Any in particular that stand out in your mind as worth mentioning, and as examples of what can be achieved?