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."