SimCity Societies

Product Details

Iconic, open-ended gameplay.

Mix any culture or time in creating your city. View larger.

Be as realistic as you want. View larger.

The most versatile city-building game.
Combine and connect elements of your city like never before with the ultimate building block tool kit. This innovative, modular approach to city-building makes SimCity Societies accessible to players of all levels, while still providing tremendous new possibilities to veteran players of the SimCity" series.

Shape your city through its values and priorities.
More than just a city-building simulator, SimCity Societies puts you in the new role of social engineer. Mix and match six "social energies"productivity, prosperity, creativity, spirituality, authority, and knowledgeto determine the core attributes that will be reflected in the infrastructure of your city as well as in its people. After you plant these seeds you'll witness the evolution of your city as everything from its physical appearance to the sounds heard on its streets adapt to reflect these values.

Build unique homes, workplaces, leisure-time venues, and parks.
Choose from more than 500 unique objects which can be combined and connected in almost limitless combinations. Take inspiration from a variety of architectural styles, ranging from the realistic to the fanciful, rural to urban, industrial to futuristic. And with only a fraction of the available buildings and associated object types unlocked at the game's beginning the possible combinations will only grow as you delve deeper into the game and advance your society.

Share your creations with your friends online.
The most customizable SimCity" ever created, SimCity Societies not only allows you to modify almost everything in the game, from the buildings, decorations, citizens and rule sets, it also allows you share these with friends online.

Product Reviews

(3 stars) - Addictive, If Flawed
I'm not entirely amazed this game has bombed the way it did - however a friend of mine had it and gave it to me to try out based on my own curiosity. It's a city planning game to be sure, but it's much more about societies than proper city planning. You have the ability to customize every building that populates your city - homes, businesses, 'venues' (to keep the workers happy), and decorations. Every single thing you place has a societal value falling under 6 key categories - productivity, prosperity, spirituality, authority, creativity, and knowledge. Unlocking certain buildings requires an excess of one of these categories, thus the city you create is very much based on the path you choose to take (the game also offers helpful filters to push you in that direction).

What this essentially means is your city can be an authoritarian Big Brother-esque society, complete with conditioning facilities and the Ministry of Truth, or it can be a 'fun' city with a carnival, candy coated streets, and gingerbread houses. The more your city veers towards a certain aesthetic, it will actually transform - the streets will change their appearance, the background music will shift, and your overall city vibe will take on a certain light.

The main annoying part about the societal values - although some might see it as a fun challenge - is that there often doesn't seem like enough to balance both sides of the city you're trying to build. If you want a lot of prosperity be prepared to plop a bunch of pointless 'Baroque Fountains' around town, earning you 6 prosperity points a go.

With the patch for this game, the main challenge in the early stages of the game is keeping yourself solvent. Every building has a daily maintenance cost that may or may not offset the weekly profits it will generate for you. Although some buildings that earn less have additional pros (and bonus cash), it does take some careful planning and thought as to what workplaces to put down, what venues to build, etc. Unfortunately, particularly in the freeplay mode, you'll find it gets increasingly easy once your revenue starts rolling in - I've frequently gotten to over a million dollars in a very short amount of time, despite the nail-biting slowness of funds rolling in at first.

There are a number of scenarios that ship with the game - all of which are quite challenging and addictive in their own way, albeit frustrating in others. Additionally there's the 'expansion' Destinations which really should have come with the base game. It's the real money-maker, allowing you to turn your city into a resort town where tourist traps and residents must learn to coexist. If you have Destinations, start working on your tourist trade as early as possible to maximize revenue to build your town.

Overall though, the game is flawed and not a traditional Sim City game. It becomes too easy - particularly with destinations - in the create your own city mode, but it also can be frustratingly hard in the scenarios - plus there are only about 7 or 8 scenarios to try your hand at! Additionally the societal values can be supremely annoying, especially as your city gets bigger. Unless you want to repeat the same buildings over and over again you're forced to plop ugly decorations all over the place just to build or unlock something, which can ruin the aesthetic a player might be going for.

I get where EA was going with this - it's reminiscent of the long-dead but much hailed project Simsville - but I think their next Sim City installment better blow the roof off of everything to date - and maybe even incorporate a little bit of Societies.

(1 stars) - Is there such a thing as negative stars?
This game is wretched, plain and simple. To start off, it's so full of little glitches and bugs you'll want to pull your hair out within five minutes of booting it up. It's as if none of the creators of this game actually PLAYED it before packaging it and selling it to the poor, unsuspecting public! The game runs extremely slow on my brand new laptop and things are constantly jerking around as a result. The rules and strategies of the game aren't logical or even intuitive, and certainly don't resemble the traditional Sim Cities in any way shape or form.

Hand-picking each building that is placed sounds great at first...until you actually start doing it and realize that it's really just freaking tedious. And all of the different "societies" (industrial, oriental, tropical, etc.) really means that there are fewer buildings to choose from any ONE theme.

Overall, I would say that this game is as boring as it is pointless. Run, run away from it as fast as you can.

(3 stars) - it's ok
I bought the SimCity box and had never played any city building games in my life. I've always had a deep fascination with city planning, architecture and street layouts so I thought I'd give it a whirl. I saw societies was thw worst received but it had more of what I was hoping for, with it's 3D environment and so I tried it first. It was pretty cool at first and I loved the buildings, most of them, but truthfully this game gets really boring really fast. It's far too easy and limited. The cities you can build are very small, too.

the other thing is you can't really get these gorgeous skyline shots because the buildings fade when you get far enough away. Besides that, every city you build looks generic. When you look at other people's cities, they all look the same.

There are not enough options with the layout of the streets and things catch fire WAY too often for my taste.

If you've never played a city building game you might like this but if you want a bigger challenge try SimCity 4, really just get the box set because you'll get them both for the same price and you can decide for yourself. SC4 is not 3D, though, so if it's a good 3D game you want then I suggest the new Cities XL, which is far better than Societies, though still not well accepted among SC4 fans.

You can add Desitinations to Societies (expansion pack) which helps make it a bit more interesting but it can also help make yoru city even more tacky to look at with all the resort hotels and carnival games. Plus the airport that comes with it will take a huge chunk of your space.

In all, it's okay at first but if you're not going to buy the box set, skip this one.

(1 stars) - Lost focus
This game is completely off target. I guess the decisions were influenced by the sims series? I don't know. Sim City 4 was great. I assumed they would improved on the graphics, add new landscapes and buildings, fine tune the rules and make it more lifelike. They did the opposite of this. They took away the rules, made the buildings comical and dumbed down the game plan. This is a completely different game than the other sim cities. I certainly hope the creators consider this feedback for the next version, that is, if this one doesn't completely destroy the future for this series.

(2 stars) - Make your own fun
I thought there might be more to this than previous Sim City games. Ultimately it is more of the same make your own fun experience. I wanted to like it more, but I guess I need more than a sandbox of tools to make a city to have fun.

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