Was it Really That Bad?

Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor

Time heals all wounds, or so they say. 

SimCity hit the gaming community like a sucker punch, delivering a quality game wrapped in the unfortunate stigma of DRM and the EA label. While the disastrous launch has been well-documented, the following rise from the ashes has not. For all its flaws–and they are numerous–SimCity is actually a seriously great game. Maxis and EA crafted some spectacularly inventive sim-magic, and it is a serious shame that it was lost under a fetid pile of bad press and Day 1 issues. 

The game is often compared unfavorably to a surprise-hit: Cities: Skylines. The small team at Colossal Order put out a product that took the city-building genre and ran hog wild, demonstrating how to create a massive and beautiful game on a beggar’s budget. CO seemed to do everything right, from opening the game to the modding community to listening to fan reactions off the bat. Now, on the cusp of their first expansion–After Dark–we want to take a look at the game they eclipsed. For the sake of this article, we will be looking only at the top two contenders, Cities and SimCity. 

So really, what did SimCity do right?