Reviewed: December 24, 2007
Reviewed by: Mahamari Tsukitaka

Publisher
Electronic Arts

Developer
Tilted Mill Entertainment

Released: November 13, 2007
Genre: Simulation
Players: 1

5
7
7
6
6.2

System Requirements

Depending on which values it promotes, your city will take on a different ambient cast. A Creativity-oriented city can grow into an amusement park-like commune, whimsical gingerbread village, or haunted Halloween town; while an Authority-based metropolis can quickly develop into a creepy, oppressive totalitarian state where little cameras monitor citizens’ every movement, or a futuristic cyberpunk city patrolled by secret police. As all structures placed will either produce and/or consume one or more social values, your city’s culture and appearance will depend largely on what kind of structures you choose to build.

Of course, less extreme societies with a balanced mix of values are also possible, and there are a slew of creative building possibilities to be unlocked to help players customize the look and feel of their cities. There’s also a filter option that allows you to more easily choose buildings of a particular theme, if there’s a certain look you’re after. Frankly, though, the filter system needs a little work, as some theme filters seem to hide some essential structures, like subways and bus stops.

In any case, besides the values fostered by the city, the type of energy you choose to use to power your city will also affect its environment. You may choose to build an eco-friendly society that uses nonpolluting power plants – like wind farms and nuclear reactors – or you may choose to use less expensive and dirtier forms of energy, like coal-burning plants. If you choose the latter, though, you can expect your city to be plagued by smog and high carbon-related environmental problems, whereas the former choices will leave the air clear and clean.

These factors together will combine to determine many perceivable characteristics of your city’s feel, including its appearance, soundtrack, lighting, and atmosphere. Certainly, one of the most interesting aspects of Societies’ gameplay is watching your own city’s transformation over time.

It’s also amusing to watch your individual Sims walking around in town, and you can click on each Sim to see his or her mood, job, and other statistics, though they aren’t actually very interactive. Occasionally, special buildings may spawn unique Sims, such as Arsonists or Fighting Monks, that may perform unique actions that impact your city.

Without a doubt, Societies is a refreshing take on the SimCity series, but its promising ideas are also unfortunately hampered by technical problems.

While simplistic gameplay isn’t necessarily a bad thing, in this game, it’s also combined with an inconsistent and often illogical system of assigning values to buildings (police stations, for instance, consume Authority, rather than providing it), as well as significant problems with value balancing. To help overcome the balance issue, there are a number of Decorations available that simply add a certain amount of a given social value.

Because of the haphazard way that the game has been designed, however, it would be nearly impossible to stick to a chosen value theme without these Decorations, and frankly, it feels a bit like cheating. In fact, it only takes a few minutes of play for a player to realize that, beyond just balancing the value numbers so that all placed buildings can function, there’s very little strategy involved in building a city in Societies, and after that, gameplay becomes dull rather quickly.

There are still other issues that weaken the overall quality of the game. For instance, contrary to classic SimCity gameplay, fire stations don’t dispatch firemen automatically when a building goes on fire. In fact, you have to hunt down the fire station yourself, activate the fire station, and direct the firemen to the location of the fire – which is, honestly, a bit annoying. Most exasperating, though, is the fact that once your city grows a bit larger, the game simply won’t stop crashing every few minutes. Even with the installation of the most recently released patch as of this writing, the game crashes very often and renders the game just about unplayable after a certain point of city development.

On the up side, the game interface is, for the most part, well designed and easy to navigate. The building selection menus can get a bit clunky, but it’s otherwise cleanly laid out, and everything is easy to find and use. It’s also nice that players have the option of playing in Unlimited Simoleons mode or Free Play mode, with the latter completely removing the issues of value balancing, since power and societal values no longer come into play.

Overall, SimCity Societies isn’t an awful game, but some of the gameplay design aspects just don’t appear to be as well thought-out as they should have been. Most importantly, though, it would definitely be much more fun if the developers manage to patch up the bugs that cause it to crash all the time.

And, as I mentioned earlier, the city’s environment will change based on what buildings you’ve placed, and everything from the air quality to the color of the skies shifts with the selections you’ve made. It’s pretty cool to watch.

The Free Play mode is especially suitable for that kind of play style, though Free Play mode is best played after you’ve unlocked all the possible buildings you’d like to use, which requires first unlocking them through regular play.

In any case, this is a title that I’d consider worthwhile as a bargain bin title, and it’s probably worth checking out for those gamers who enjoy sandbox-type games.