Review: “SimCity Societies”

Ever since I first played the original Sim City Classic sometime last century, I’ve been a fan of pretty much all of Will Wright’s games. I’m the sort of guy who really enjoys open-ended experimentation, and Will Wright certainly delivers in that department. I played the original “Sims” for untold hours, and The Sims 2 for untold hours more. Needless to say, when I stumbled across an advert for his upcoming game Sim City Societies, I was immediately interested.

The game’s basic premise is something like a combination of The Sims and Sim City 4. You build your city from premade parts such as row houses and workplaces, and all that other good stuff. Each of these buildings produces or consumes a slew of things. Most buildings consume power, and the other kinds of standard resources, but what’s interesting about SimCity Societies are the societal resources buildings produce and consume. The “Propaganda Ministry,” for example, produces 40 units of what the game calls “Authority.”

After taking a brief run through the tutorial — which, I must say, was rather more controlling than many I’ve experienced — I decided to get to work constructing my own society. I plunked down some wind farms for power, and built a couple of row houses, then struck upon the idea to see if I could build something of a dystopian Orwellian hell-hole. I went to work immediately, building Conditioning Theaters, police stations, and of course, the obligatory Re-Education Facility. It didn’t take long for my authoritarian society to begin collapsing. Criminals ran wild, unhappiness was rampant, and rioters rapidly shut down all of my bureaucracy offices.

After about ninety mintues’ worth of play, I discovered another of the game’s lovely little aesthetic features. As my society leaned more and more towards a totalitarian police state, the road’s appearance changed. Now, where there had been plain asphalt roads, the roads were replaced with some kind of bland stuff that could only be described as “institutional concrete.” Then, as I scrolled around my city to see what else had changed, I happened to notice the security cameras sprouting from every lamppost, and the listening devices atop the fire hydrants. This had to be one of the game’s most endearing features.

All that said, it should come as no surprise when I say that “SimCity Societies” is incredibly fun. Will Wright’s high standard of simulation design has not faltered, and this game may arguably be one of his deepest yet. The dynamics are incredibly rich, it’s creative and energetic, and — thankfully — it has all the personality that Wright’s games have been lacking of late; he finally brought back the ever-amusing News Ticker, and seemed to finally be re-incorporating some of his famous dry wit, which I found disappointingly absent from The Sims 2.

One of the game’s features which was pleasantly surprising was the music. Since Sim City 3000, Will Wright’s games have always had great music, and SimCity Societies was no exception. The game’s music is pleasant, atmospheric, and generally lovely. What surprised me, though, was how appropriate it was. As my socialist dystopia began to blossom, I was regaled with what sounded like an amusingly modern rendition of the Russian National Anthem, a perfectly ministerial, bureaucratic piece for my ministerial, bureaucratic city. And when I leaned a bit towards environmentalism, I was rewarded with a very soothing New-Agey piece that sounded like it belonged in an Al Gore film.

But what kind of reviewer would I be without complaints? I suppose my chief complaint would have to be the graphics: they’re somewhat excessive, and ran a little slow with the default settings. I had to dial the resolution down to 800×600 and turn off the shadows and day-night cycle altogether to get it to run smoothly enough to be playable. Another problem is that the game is a bit hard to get into at first, since the menu system is so incredibly complex.

The game is also plagued at times with a feeling of excessive direction. Maybe it’s because I haven’t played it long enough to really explore the possibilities, but there are some facets of SimCity Societies which give the general impression of being overly rigid.

But the thing that irritated me the most was the evil hand of British Petroleum (BP, the oil company) marring Will Wright’s otherwise-environmentalist game. Somehow — don’t ask me how — they conspired to have their name and logo put on the wind power plants, and on the signs at the gas stations in the game. What is this? Some kind of subliminal advertising? It struck me as incredibly sinister, and irritated me to no end. Whatever they might like to think, as long as they buy and sell petroleum products, BP will never be as environmentally-friendly as they think they are.

Still, SimCity Societies is a lot of fun, and it looks poised to revive Will Wright’s now-sluggish gaming juggernaut. It will certainly keep myself and my fellow simulation junkies glued to their monitors for the rest of the winter, or at least until Spore comes out.

Overall Rating: ********~~ (8/10 asterisks)