Electronic Arts
619
Windows XP / 7
1 offer from $29.99

Product information

ASIN

B007VTVRFA

Release date

March 4, 2013

Customer Reviews

3,234 ratings

4.2 out of 5 stars

Pricing

The strikethrough price is the List Price. Savings represents a discount off the List Price.

Countries

Return Policy

This product is non-returnable and non-refundable.

Terms of Use

By placing your order, you agree to our Games and Software Terms of Use.

Binding

Software Download

Rated

Rating Pending

Item model number

71481

Manufacturer

Electronic Arts

Date First Available

November 7, 2012

Feedback

Would you like to tell us about a lower price?

Product Description

From the Manufacturer

The defining city simulation is back! Create the city you desire and make the choices that shape your city and power the Sims within it. Every decision, big or small, has real consequences. Invest in heavy industry and your economy will soar - but at the expense of your Sims' health as pollution spreads. Implement green technology and improve your Sims’ lives while risking higher taxes and unemployment. Team up with your friends to solve global challenges: launch a space shuttle, reduce carbon emissions, or build magnificent wonders.

Constructible Worlds - Creative and customizable world that offers unique gameplay benefits, all with a fun tactile interface.
Sims Matter - The Sims in your city speak to you directly and it's up to you to respond to their needs. Will you listen and be the toast of the town? Or abuse your power for fame and fortune?
Specialize in What You Love - Mold your city as a casino resort, manufacturing hub, educational enclave, and more, and then watch as a unique look and feel spread throughout your city.
Multiplayer - Build a region with friends for the first time! Collaborate or compete in regional and global challenges and make decisions that impact the greater SimCity World.
GlassBox Engine - SimCity introduces GlassBox, the revolutionary simulation technology that gives you the power to impact individual Sims lives, manage city level simulation, and balance multiple city simulations at once

Requires Origin Client to activate.

System Requirements

Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 4000+ or better or Intel Core 2 Duo Processor 2.0GHz or better
Operating System: Windows XP/Vista/7
RAM: 2GB RAM
Hard Drive: 10GB HD Space
Graphics Card: ATI Radeon HD 2x00 or better*, nVidia 7800 or better*, Intel Series 4 integrated graphics or better*
Broadband Internet: Minimum 256 kbps download, 64 kbps upload

*Minimum of 256MB of on-board RAM and Shader 3.0 or better support.

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.

Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Upload your video

Looking for specific info?

See questions and answers

Customer reviews

4.2 out of 5

3,234 global ratings

5 star		58%
4 star		19%
3 star		12%
2 star		6%
1 star		6%

How customer reviews and ratings work

Reviews with images

See all customer images

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.

Brandon Staggs

Still an excellent game

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 15, 2013

Platform For Display: PC Download - Standard EditionVerified Purchase

I lucked out and happened to be one of the ones who didn't have any server issues at launch. Was able to download and play within about 20 mins. Was on and playing for over 3 hours with no connection issues after that. As always with me, would rather point out the cons and finish up with the pros.

Cons
1) City Size. While I understand why they did this, it's still frustrating on many levels. The major frustration comes from if you don't realize the true limitations you try to do everything in one city and end up fighting traffic, budget deficit issues, and the never ending demand of RCI. Instead, the concept of this game is to not have a single giant city but instead to have several smaller specialized ones. When you realize this and you plan accordingly, your regions really prosper.

2) City Safety. No matter how many buildings you have and even if you max them out, there's never enough to go around or you're stymied by traffic. In one of my cities, I have over 60 police cars, 4 detective vans, and 4 crime prevention vans and yet there's still too much crime. It wasn't until I looked closer at the entrance to the city that I realized the issue was:

3) Traffic. I've watched videos, read write-ups, and tried out many different road lay outs but I still can't get around the massive rush hour traffic that just about shuts all my cities down. In my tourism city I have 2 train stations, a port with a cruise line, over 25 street cars and over 30 buses and I can't keep up with the traffic. I try to route traffic specifically by park & go's and bus stops, I try and route local sims to business instead of into major throughways, and I try to keep the traffic from the trains and port routing to the tourism sites but none of it helps. Don't even get me started on by oil/ore/coal cities.

4) AI. Now, I'm sure they'll fix this eventually, and a lot of different reviews (amateur and professional alike) have hit on this already, but the AI is stupid in this game. Pathing, city service deployment, transportation, you name it. You have 3 T-intersections in an area completely clogged up but 2 blocks up and over there's 3 cars total passing through the entire road line. Why wouldn't they reroute the traffic jam to utilize the open roads? 3 cop cars, 2 fire trucks and 2 ambulances coming up behind you, don't pull over to the side and let them by or anything, just flip 'em off and continue waiting in the gridlock. I mean really, why would you not program certain vehicles to have a higher priority on the roads or to have the other cars move to the side for emergency vehicles. Half my city is burning because a) my fire trucks decided to go through downtown at rush hour instead of taking the alternate path and b) they're stuck in rush hour because no one lets them by.

Pros
1) Addicting. This type of game is how I wish all games were. It's addicting enough to keep you involved for hours upon hours while playing and you can work on city upgrade plans in the back of your mind while not playing. But the level of addiction isn't so bad as it's all you want to do. I can easily drop 2-3 hours in an evening and it flies by, but once I walk away I don't have any overwhelming urge to run back to it. Mind you this is a personal Pro because user experiences will vary, but for me it's what makes it an ideal game.

2) Graphics. While it's a simple city-planning style game, I really love the flow and look of the graphics. Realistic enough to leave an awe inspiring feelings of accomplishment as your city grows into a sprawling metropolis but not so much that you take the game overly serious. It's beautiful and the depth of overall visuals are extremely pleasing. Everything from the plans flying overhead (even if you don't have airports yet in your region), to the random boats passing by through your water ways, to the changing time of day (even if it sometimes is to dark at night) is just satisfying. It's nice to play a game that's still a game and not focusing on hyper-realism (graphics wise).

3) Regions. While I initially disliked the city sizes, once I realized the possibilities of creating a fully functioning region I actually started getting pretty excited about the possibilities. It takes some getting used to, planning out the individual cities to work in tandem with each other is really a fun and new take on for Sim City. Before you had a large area (probably the same size as a region) to build a multi-purpose city that involved everything, here you have smaller cities that add up to make the whole region. Similar to how you have a county with smaller city/towns that make it up and each city/town adds different things to the overall county. I'd really like to see at some point in the games future where they actually interconnect Regions with planes/boats/trains and truly turn the game from a single city/region responsibility to a true world environment.

4) Overall game play. I cannot knock on how they've managed to pull everything together on this game. Given, the last SimCity I played actively was 3000 so I'm not sure of how 4 played, but I really love the smooth game play implementation of this iteration. Takes a few failed cities/regions to realize the major changes, but once you do it really is a good game and helps add to and build up the SimCity legacy. The menus are extremely easy to navigate and find. The advisors give pretty decent advice even if they are redundant or obvious.

5) Music! I'm a music nut, in my opinion music is the true window into the soul. The sound track (when it works) is really amazing and even listening to it for over 4 hours still sounds fresh. I also like how it changes depending on your zoom level. Just overall amazing. As for the "when it works" comment, I've found that once the city hits a certain size or there's just so much going on in the city the sound will die out or glitch on a specific sound. Like if you clicked on your Police Dept while sirens were going off in the background and traffic noise was being introduced ontop of whatever the engine handling all of that gets over loaded and just loops those noises over and over again until you exit out and reload. Rather annoying.

In summary, despite the epic launch day issues (even though I didn't experience them), the DRM/Always on requirement, and the occasional sound glitch, the game is still fun and enjoyable. While I'm not playing it, the issues are present and frustrating and enough to not have me rushing back to it, but when I do get into it, it's more than enough to keep me in it for hours on end.

5/5 for enjoyment
5/5 for music
5/5 for graphics
4/5 for game play
3/5 for AI

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Don't Judge a book by it's cover.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 8, 2013

Platform For Display: PC Download - Standard EditionVerified Purchase

This game is quickly going from the worst product launch in history to one of if not my most favorite game!!!

I am not a gamer. I have never played Call of Duty, Halo, or Battlefield. I've seen others play and those types of games and I realized that they are just too violent and time involved for me. I'm not in college anymore, but I didn't even play games then. I like many others scoffed at EA's attempt at being the first company (that I'm aware) to bring always on online servers to the masses, before the revolt against Microsoft and SONY!!! The world wasn't ready yet. We like to have some type of control with our stuff!

A little bit about my research and train of thought before I bought the game. I was looking for something to do while network television shows take a break for the christmas holidays. Since that's what I usually do in my spare time. I love politics and apparently something called RTS. In video game lingo that means Real Time Strategy games. I also loved pokemon and that is the only game I got really involved with. Anyways, I wanted to combine my love of politics and my love for technology and advancement. I know coming across sim city was purely out of the blue for me and it doesn't seem like Sim City at first glance matches those categories.

I researched many of the different and much older RTS games that are available. I played Empire Earth a little bit when I was in college. So I knew I wanted to take it to the next level so to speak. I wanted the game to be modern. Neither set in ancient times nor with ancient graphics. I wanted a RTS game that could go into the future, but didn't take place IN the future! Many RTS games that I've come across was just the opposite. They took place in the future. Empire Earth only has one "age" after the modern age, and it doesn't last that long! I was about to give up and realize that maybe no game like this exists. A game where you can build/rule a city and turn it into a futuristic wonder.

Back when I was big into the SIMS in high school, I remembered the funny little game with city building and disasters. That's when I remembered Sim City! I wondered if it had a futuristic level that lasted more than one turn. Sure enough it does!!! In fact, it's got a whole expansion pack devoted to hover cars, robotics, and corporate utopia! So, I Re-took a look at Sim City, and realized that it was exactly the type of game I was looking for.

I was hesitant about the game, because of the rollout. The passion, want, and need for this type of game moved me to research further.After some initial research on the online community, how often they did updates, and how Maxis was responding to its customers, I was very pleasantly surprised.They cared enough to fix the game so far. I don't think any other larger company would have stuck with the game. They are constantly improving the game and I had barely any issues first starting it.

Though the setup was a little rocky, it takes a little while to connect to the server to "download" the 12gb. I'm on verizon FIOS so it's definitely their server that still has the bugs. A non-software/internet understanding person might have freaked out during the long setup time which took roughly around 4 hours. But I figured if a slow download is all that's wrong with the game since the bad rollout, then they did a pretty good job fixing it. Can't say the same for another huge server blunder that happened recently in the technology industry. EG Healthcare.gov... it's going to take them years to fix that lolz.

The fact that no other RTS game comes close to SIm City and no more RTS games are currently announced from other main video game companies... Ultimately drove me not to just download the game from anywhere, but to actually purchase it. It's clear to anybody still paying attention that Maxis has a very very passionate team working behind the scenes. Sim City and it's expansion pack Cities of Tomorrow has not let me down ONCE, in the five straight hours I've played it today. I decided to buy it for the community, and the expansion pack. If I had just downloaded it to try it out, then I would not have gotten either, and most likely would have run into a lot more problems.

While policy is not really a huge factor in the game, you are mayor after all! Don't hate on a game that tried an experiment that failed. They are obviously learning from that failure. After all, isn't your cell phone always on? Doesn't your PS4 or Xbox One have a similar feature for certain things? Are your gaming devices already hooked up to the internet anyway???

A neat little bonus here is that because the game is run on EA's servers, you don't even have to save the game. Just press quit and come back later. But cross your figures sometimes games disappear. That has NOT happened to me though.

Image Unavailable

SimCity - Standard Edition [Download]

Customers who viewed this item also viewed

Product information

Feedback

Website (Online)

Store (Offline)