Remember way back in the day when you’d
spend all of recess toiling in the sandbox trying to create the
perfect sandcastle? Then just when the bell is about to ring, the
school bully and your personal tormenter comes and destroys it,
kicking all of your hard work and progress over with one swift
movement, leaving you crying in its wake. For the record, the tears
were from the sand in my eyes. While you may never have a chance to
get her back for all that she’s done because she’s bigger than
you and is infected with the cootie virus, you can experience
something similar with the classic simulation game, SimCity.
The premise of the game is simple
enough – Build housing, commercial business and industrial lots to
provide your citizens with places to live and work and the
all-too-essential electricity. Out of the box this seems like the
greatest idea; an entire civilization at your fingertips and far away
from the clutches of Jessica Whatsherface.
In actuality, the so-called power is
little more than the ability to place zoning lots and roads. If
you’re unsatisfied, you can bulldoze the whole thing for a slight
loss of your lack of funds, but that shouldn’t be unsettling to
you. Now it’s the responsibility of the people to work with what
you have provided. The unsettling is the incessant bitch-fest that
you’re about to encounter.
Pollution, crime and traffic
immediately begin to spawn their ugly faces into your beautiful
Utopia. Suddenly the power plants are too close, so you shut them
down and move them. The streets, which have no ability to become
expanded to anything larger than a two-way street, are suddenly filled
with pixilated boxes. As for the crime, I’m guessing you just have
to take their word for it. It’s not like there’s little
pixel-people that you can chase down and arrest.
Next thing you know you find out that
your teenage daughter is pregnant, your wife’s having an affair
with Henry from the mail room and your dog just got run over by the
drunkard down the street. While that last part never happens in the
game, it seems to fit perfectly with the depressing motif of giving
hours of your life for an ever-growing supply of malcontents. So
what satisfaction do you achieve by building a megalopolis? How
about the fact that God is on your side?
That’s right, the big guy upstairs
understands your frustration and lends you his angel of death in the
forms tornadoes, earthquakes and even Godzilla to punish the whiny
bastards. Your vindictive nature is finally satisfied as fires begin
to erupt around the city, power lines are destroyed making lightning
strike indefinitely above residential and commercial lots. If this
isn’t moving fast enough for you, you still have your handy-dandy
bulldozer, destruction that pays. What better way to end the game by
destroying the world you worked so hard to build with your pockets
overflowing with virtual cash and no more whining.
All in all, I had a lot of fun with
this game, frustrating as it may have been. In fact, this entire
game may have been an advertisement for the Amish. No electricity,
no traffic-ridden roads, just a bunch of good ole boys with Biblical
names and wickedly awesome beards.
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