Is the new SimCity game a downgrade from SimCity 4?

The hype for the new SimCity game (SimCity 2013, SimCity 5) by Maxis, which will be released by EA on March 5, 2013, is pretty hard to ignore. In recent months, and especially since the SimCity Closed Beta test that took place during the last weekend of January, more and more details have emerged about the game all over the internet. And as each bit of information is received and digested by the passionate fans of the series, the debate rages on over whether the new SimCity is truly a worthy sequel, or if it is a downgrade when compared to SimCity 4.

[DERKADER]

I would call it streamlined but I can see how it can be seen as a downgrade.

[FriedGoat]

Well, any game that features "always online" is a downgrade. I hope it fails, hard. So that EA can learn from their stupid mistakes.

[Yi-Long]

... especially for a game I will want to enjoy in the SP mode, and as was the case with Sim City 4, often during those times when my internet was down.

Also, this will be yet another game that will DLC-milk us for all it's worth...

... so yeah, no thanks. I'll stick with Sim City 4, or hopefully a worthy successor for that game from another, less greedy, developer.

[Lazyeye79]

Agree, I am hoping that it gets hacked and available for download soon after release. Because although I want to play it, I'm not going to pay for it, unless of course they make some major changes between now and March.

[IanTH]

Agreed. Always online for a game that definitely doesn't require it is definitely a no-go for me. It's not an MMO or anything. I don't care if they are trying to sell us on it being always online for the games' Global Economy and multiplayer portions. There is no reason you have to be online all the time. It is strictly a form of DRM.

And yea, the games maps are much much smaller as well. Not a fan of the make 7 towns that network with each other to make one city approach this game seems to be going. I so wish this wasn't the case, but it seems like EA are botching this version of SimCity hard.

Will definitely be waiting on the reviews to pour in before I can even consider a purchase, which is a shame. It went from "Must Buy" when announced, to "wait and see" the more they talked about it.

[Lazyeye79]

Same. The power line and water pipes becoming part of the road, IMO, will make it more fun. But the reason I think that they decreased the size of the lots is so that it doesn't take up as much space on their servers. Which is a really bad excuse, but it wouldn't surprise me if they used it.

[FriedGoat]

Doubley Posty

[Root]

Why do they never make these games for consoles, they would make a killing and this is a company who loves money

Same goes with the Sims, they make crappy console ports which are downgrades yet the tec in current gen consoles could easily handle those types of games. Your telling me I can only have 4 houses on one lot when you have games like Skyrim and Just Cause which are massive open world games.

Lets not forget every expansion pack for the PC would be massive DLCs which would sell

[TheoreticalParticle]

Because this game is incredibly mouse dependent, and precision placement is really important to the game. It's the same reason Minecraft would be a huge pain in the ass on the consoles.

[kythlyn]

Ever play SimCity on SNES? Pressing select would move the mouse pointer to the menu bar on the left, and pressing select again would return it to its original position. It actually worked pretty well!

[TheoreticalParticle]

I didn't play SimCity on the SNES, but I also have to point out that the first SimCity is before the era of mouse usage, so the first SimCity would have been designed to be played with a joystick. I played it on the C-64, and that's all I had to control stuff.

But there's no way I'd have played SimCity 3 without a mouse. There's just too much that needs to be precisely placed.

[kythlyn]

I played the original SimCity on Amiga with a two button mouse.

[TheoreticalParticle]

"The era of mouse usage" meaning the time when they were COMMONPLACE. They existed for the Apple and the Amiga and PCs, but prior to Windows and the Mac they weren't thought of as THE device that you'd be operating a game with.

They were supported but not de facto. It's like making an Xbox 360 game Kinect Compatible. You design the game for people without Kinect first, and then you add the extras later. SimCity was designed for joystick users first, and mouse users were supported.

[ambientFLIER]

"It's the same reason Minecraft would be a huge pain in the ass on the consoles."

Wat? It works just fine for me...

[NickleDime510]

This game is going to be epic. The same argument was made when they made SimCity 4. People cried about how SimCity3000 was more true to the series. However over time SimCity4 proved to be true. This is a new SimCity and it is far more removed in years from the other simcities and thus is easier to make the argument how it is less like SimCities of the past. The always online thing does not bother me as I am more excited of the things that an always online game can do. I am also very excited for the glass box engine and new graphics that look sick. There will always be skeptics but this game looks like it will gobble up many hours on my computer yet again.

[kythlyn]

Yeah, I agree! It may never replace SimCity 4, but I still expect to enjoy the new game a lot.

[kesvalk]

"Even the visual style of SimCity has come into question, with some people feeling that the game looks too much like The Sims, or too much like a cartoon."

i don't even know what to say to these ppl...
have they ever played a simcity game!?