The New SimCity Expansion Pack Is Futuristic As Hell
Oct 24, 2013 23:28
Designed by Stone Librande, this semi-near future is set somewhere between 2060 and 2080. But instead of flying cars and intelligent robots, Librande's future is dominated by two kinds of ideals: a utopian "green" city with world-changing innovations, and a bleak city run by a sinister company called OmegaCo.
The goal in the game would be to get these two cities to somehow work together in harmony. Here's a description from Fast.Co:
In spite of a glitch-plagued launch earlier this year, the new SimCity is as addictive as all the past iterations of the long-running series. It's still an urban planning aficionado's dream that incorporates real-life technologies and trade-offs. There are solar power plants that take up too much space, and coal mining operations that make big bucks but sicken the Sims that live nearby.
The realistic urban planning aspects of SimCity are a bit obscured by Cities of Tomorrow, which is probably not the most accurate simulacrum of the future. But here's one aspect of the expansion pack that we know is accurate, and that will only become more accurate as time goes on: There is a push-pull between expensive clean technology and lucrative, dirty technology that produces the technology we are addicted to using every second of the day.
If some higher power (like a SimCity mayor) decided to shut down all the companies that make our laptops, cell phones, and televisions in the name of environmental preservation, we'd all be pretty pissed off. That's not the answer. As Librande explains: "The OmegaCo city and the Academy city can help each other out. But it's a puzzle. You want both, and it's difficult to get them into harmony."
Cities of Tomorrow will be released as an expansion pack for
the recently rebooted city-building simulation, and will go on sale
November 14th.The realistic urban planning aspects of SimCity are a bit obscured by Cities of Tomorrow, which is probably not the most accurate simulacrum of the future. But here's one aspect of the expansion pack that we know is accurate, and that will only become more accurate as time goes on: There is a push-pull between expensive clean technology and lucrative, dirty technology that produces the technology we are addicted to using every second of the day.
If some higher power (like a SimCity mayor) decided to shut down all the companies that make our laptops, cell phones, and televisions in the name of environmental preservation, we'd all be pretty pissed off. That's not the answer. As Librande explains: "The OmegaCo city and the Academy city can help each other out. But it's a puzzle. You want both, and it's difficult to get them into harmony."
