Comments on: Thoughts: SimCity.

By: SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition Review for Mac OS X — Control Command Escape

SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition Review for Mac OS X — Control Command Escape — Fri, 25 Apr 2014 15:19:41 +0000

[…] like they have an itchy Twitter finger. Perhaps most telling of all, is that probably all of the issues inherent to sequel simply don’t exist […]

By: SimCity Upgrades with a Downgrade — Control Command Escape

SimCity Upgrades with a Downgrade — Control Command Escape — Thu, 10 Apr 2014 18:15:42 +0000

[…] being propagated by EA were one thing, but in any case it transpired that the game was just not very good. People everywhere returned to what was perhaps the high point of the series, SimCity 4, unless […]

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Sun, 17 Nov 2013 22:54:09 +0000

I own Tropico 3. It’s a nice little game, but it can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a city builder or a dictator ‘em up which always puts me off because I’d rather it committed wholeheartedly to one instead of having one foot in both.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 15 Nov 2013 20:36:07 +0000

First article of yours I read, I just wanted to let you know that the Tropico games I have played (3 and 4) are very good at being what SimCity wanted to be. They are able to handle individual AI, don’t suffer these same traffic problems (If a jam is encountered their vehicle disappears and they walk to their location or the next closest garage), and it’s inexpensive!

I’d definitely recommend checking out Tropico 4 and seeing what you think about it!

By: Tod

Tod — Thu, 25 Apr 2013 11:44:00 +0000

I just want to point out that simulating individual agents is not a bad idea in itself. Having them take into account ONLY the shortest path is absolutely stupid, but with a few more factors added it could produce good results.

And this is not exactly a new idea, this area of AI has been researched for decades.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:27:55 +0000

SimLife! I was actually going to play that after SimEarth because this picture http://www.mobygames.com/game/amiga/simlife/screenshots/gameShotId,520519/ got me all excited. And then I forgot.

By: Hentzau

Hentzau — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 12:24:46 +0000

I don’t really want to go into too much detail, but I can think of plenty of scenarios in which turds would qualify as malevolent, or having an evil influence. Like blocking your sewage outflow pipe.

By: Gap Gen

Gap Gen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 10:53:30 +0000

I wonder if anyone at Maxis thought “is it a bad sign that the sims have the same AI as poo?”

By: pertusaria

pertusaria — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 00:33:01 +0000

I loved SimLife – spent many happy hours designing my own creatures after most of the other elements had got stale or been ignored. I’d settle for the original being sold through GoG, but yeah, if anyone came up with a new SimLife I’d be interested.

Great article. I didn’t much enjoy whichever Sim City I had as a kid – I suspect I didn’t have enough patience – but I’ve had fun with Anno, which has some of the same need to design better settlements in order to get better taxpayers.

By: Darren

Darren — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:38:12 +0000

I never hear anything about SimLife, which was basically a graphically crude version of the creature stage of Spore, except with actual depth to the ecology. I’d love some enterprising indie to take another crack at the concept.