Sim City Reborn!, High Society - Sim City 5

The Sim City franchise is back! But its not maxis behind the wheel!

Now its Tilted Mill and EA games who are behind this dual steering wheel'd car!

The name isn't official quite yet.. but they're betting on Sim City: High Society as the fifth installment's title for its release.

I picked up my new GFW (Games for Windows) edition a few days ago and strewn accross the front was "Sim City Reborn!" so i read into it further and apparently there are going to be a good number of changes.

Cities can now become theme based depending on where you put your points and what buildings you invest into them to "unlock" even more buildings of that desired theme which you can later come back and use regardless of what theme you use later down the road. The types of cities you can theme out and build?
* Industrial
Your city will look polluted and its citizens forced into endless labor and blends between day and night.
* Conventional
Your standard Sim City... city... architectural wonders and happiness to go around!
* Obedient
Very strict and stern. Very clean and sterile. Rule your city with an iron fist.. military and police enforce the city... keeping those bothersome mimes from the streets!
* Religious utopia
Buddha look-alikes and the almighty faith of god hang over your city as it takes a utopic and peaceful grace about it, but don't challenge the word of your cities religion... or there will be time to pay!

So far thats all thats mentioned, but i'm sure there will be more.

Water pipes, electrical grids, and city supervisors are out the door! No longer will you have to meddle with keeping everyone happily supplied with electricity and water.. or have to deal with those nasty bubbles warning you about your pollution problems or traffic issues. What you do.. is what you do. No one will contradict you now!

Your basic city building will be as it always has.. Commercial, Industrial, and residential.. and depending on your chosen theme that you're working towards.. they will evolve and change to suit that..
However, now there will be buildings which provide special benefits or bonuses to your city which you can choose to exploit. Listed for example are such as the following;
Dive Bar (industrial)
- A Popular entertainment spot that generates happiness
Wall Street (Wealth/Workplace)
- Allows you to play the stock market
Skyrise Apartment (Residential)
- Houses a large number of citizens and boosts happiness
Dojo (devotion cities)
- produces happiness altering monks who occasionally fight crime.
Spirit Squad Room - (commerce)
- DIsbatches happiness cheerleaders to keep the city happy.
Ministry of Thought - (Obedience cities)
- produces men in black who control what your citizens think and do.. ensuring nothing goes out of line.


Tilted Mill wants to make a new franchise to breathe life into the Sim City venue which seems to have died down quite a bit from its undisputed success on its first launch and following franchise. They're adding and removing content but taking their time with it to do the best job. as stated "We are certainly not out to fix something thats broken" (Chris Beatrice).

Thats it pretty much. Feel free to check it out in Games for Windows Issue 8 (July '07) from page 58 to page 67.

Enjoy!

Yeah, I heard about this, and shortly after picked up my copy of Games for Windows. It looks cool, but completely different from the other games. I don't have a total opinion though cause I'm not sure if I'll like it or not.

If its not Maxis its NOT Sim City 5. How DARE they take that title away from Maxis! i dont know about you but i REFUSE to buy it if its not a Maxis Project

The funny thing is...in essence, they're saying Maxis isn't doing it BECAUSE of Spore.

I'll still buy it, but I won't consider it the same as the other SimCity games. Yes, they still are meh-ish sometimes, but they have an excellent legacy. You can bet Maxis will get SimCity back and pump out a real SC5 in a few years.

You cant take the game away from Maxis thaqt Made maxis its not right .If those arrogant SOBs at EA knew what was good for them they would release spore and let Maxis make SC 5

Aye. CoffeeFreak has the right idea.

After reading more about it, this game makes me want to kick a puppy. Oh god, you don't have to worry about electricity or water or traffic or pollution!?

EA

Well EA has pretty much taken over Maxis. They've been feeding Maxis funding for their games and have provided the structural support for those games. However EA also gave Maxis the choice on this one, and Maxis said they'd pass on Sim City 5 for now. So instead, EA games went off to another company (Tilted Mill who is also in the same spot with EA) and contracted them. Tilted Mill wanting a project gladly accepted.

So its not as if EA ripped the contract from Maxis and told them not to cry. Maxis gave up the choice for Spore and whats rumored.. Sims 3.

The only downside is that EA cut a majority of the funding to the Maxis Spore team for an unknown reason (Many are screaming financial problems) and to this it has Spore coming at a much slower pace.

Q42006 -> Q2-Q3 2007 -> Q1 2008 -> TBA 2008(9)

Maxis dident have much of a choice but to decline with all the problems EA has created with the Spore disaster. How COULD Maxis take on the SC5 project when EA wont release the project Maxis is working on and or finished

Bill gates needs to get involved with this. A few million is like 5 bucks to him.

Unfortunately he's not really a gamer and EA games has a rivalry with Microsoft.. so theres no chance he's going to help out, lol.

And I believe in a recent video Will said they had been redesigning the game and adding new content recently. They originally finished it, had been polishing bugs when the team decided to rework a couple aspects that would allow more diversity or customization in the game. No wait, that was an article.. but thats still what i remember.

I was a big fan of the Sim City series back in the day, but for any new ones. I'll definitely try them as well.