SimCity was released in 1989, was originally called Micropolis and was designed by the infamous Will Wright. For those that don’t know Will Wright, its suffice to say he’s one of the most popular and influential game designers of our time. SimCity, TheSims, SimAnt, SimFarm and Spore are a few of his hits and TheSims has taken many records since its original release.
Wright had trouble finding a publisher for a game in which you couldn’t really “win or lose.” Turned down by Broderbund, Wright eventually pitched the idea to Jeff Braun of Maxis. Maxis agreed to publish Simcity as one of its first two games.
When near complete, Wright and Braun took the game back to Broderbund to clear the rights for the game. Broderbund executives Gary Carlston and Don Daglow saw how addicting the game could be and signed Maxis to a distribution deal. Four years after initial development, SimCity was released for the Amiga and Macintosh platforms, followed soon after by the IBM PC and Commodore 64. On January 10th 2008, the SimCity source code was released under the GPL license as… Micropolis!
The objective of the game is simple, build and design a city. Though the player could focus on building a highly efficient city with an ever growing populace, it was by no means required. In a sense, open ended, the player was free to design the city as they chose.
Included in the city building experience was the possibility of natural disasters such as flooding, tornadoes and more. Pre-designed scenarios were also included in the game such as the Boston 2010 nuclear meltdown, or mass coastal flooding of Rio de Janeiro of 2047 … even a Godzilla attack of Tokyo in 1961.
In the years to follow, the SimCity franchise would continue to expand with greater detail as SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1999), SimCity 4 (2003) and a host of other “Sim” games and until the release of “The Sims” in 2000, the SimCity series was the best-selling line of games made by Maxis.
In Fall of 2008, EA will release the next child in the SimCity family, SimCity Creator for the Nintendo Wii and DS systems. And thus, history continues!
đ No, Jonah, I don’t have it (Heart of the Swarm). It’s just that I have a lot of things going against this game: first of all, Starcraft II requires constant on-line DRM. This is a big no-no for me. Big enough to not buy either Starcraft II or Diablo III.
Add to that the fact that I have less and less spare time; so what’s the point of getting a game if I won’t play it? Better leave it for somebody who has the available time.
@Thief to feature âclassic modeâ, removing all assists
Props to that! I’d love to see that kind of approach used in more games.
@The Witcher 3 confirmed to be DRM-free
Talking about DRM never being an issue, to quote somebody from EA … I know, Jonah, you already mentioned the previous installments last week. Still, I find it amazing that nobody tries the same.
@Bethesda confirms ânew version of Doom 4â being worked on, Rage 2 cancelled
Oh man … if only id could remain independent …
Yeah, new Doom 4? What happened with the old Doom 4?
Different kind of flashlight batteries? đ
Didn’t play Rage; Doom 3 felt a bit stretched – a bit too short of a story for the length of the game. While the choices of flashlight vs. weapon felt artificial, the overall shooting mechanics felt ok.
As for South Korea not having nukes, it doesn’t matter that much, they have pretty much all western countries behind them.
Jonah, get well. Your voice is still … erm … “sexy”?
Hey Jonah, after seeing a Hitler video parody about you that I thought sucked, I thought I would take the time to make you a proper one. I hope you don’t mind!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XH80Mgbt4ss
@Witcher’s great big sword
For those who have not played it, Whitcher is a dating simulator set in the fictional medieval era staring an albino Ron Jeremy. The aim of the game is to have sex with every female species in the world, including (but not limited to) elves,princesses, vampires and sentient plants. To fill the time between plowing the fertile fields of Temeria there is a light RPG mechanic and combat side missions with some sort of a secondary quest of revenge.
@Lucasarts
Pity really. I enjoyed the Jedi Knight series back in the day. Although I didn’t care about their more recent games. Kinect Star wars was a special case. First time people could tell the game was crap just seeing it at E3. On a side note, it’s sad to see all these studios closing. I’ve spent so much time playing THQ and Lucasarts games. Not to mention Midway. Oh well. As long as the talent of the developers lives on and joins another studio it should all be fine. It’s people that count.
@Doomed Rage
Don’t know why anyone cares. Doom was the original FPS. But now we have Halo, COD, Half-Life and all those franchises. Doom 4 has no chance of competing and will most likely crash and burn on day one. Not unless it brings something innovatingly outstanding. Regarding Rage, there is a popular opinion that Bethesda should just stick to Elder Scrolls. Everything else they bring out ends being crap or overlooked (WET, Brink, Rage)