SimCity (2013) - Video Game Retrospectives 

As an avid simcity 2013 player (there isn’t much of us left), I really appreciate this video. The game has been fixed in many ways, only problem now is the city sizes and ridiculous AI. I’ve put many hours into the game and it’s a shame that people view it as a complete disaster of a game. If it was released in the form it is in now it would’ve been much more popular and possibly a reviver of the Simcity series. Either way, incredible video and great editing, this really deserves more views!

I'm not ashamed to say this is my favorite SimCity game, and I've played all of them. Sure the city size is limited, but in my opinion makes it more challenging. Other issues, like the lack of road variety are fixed with mods thanks to an amazing community. The depth of the simulation is better than Cities Skylines, which is nothing more than a city painter, so it's completely unfair to compare them.

I bought this game back in the day, played it a bit, and thought meh. I do understand some of it's issues, but if I am being fair, I do think I probably didn't give the game a fair shot. I still own it and I think I will give it another chance. Maybe this weekend I will fire it up and do some city building.

You know I really enjoyed this game for what is it if only they made the city size larger I would still be playing it today.

15:06

Sim City 4 came across to those who played it as the last honest passion project from Maxis before they were truly absorbed into the EA machine. It captures the spirit and essence of what the massive city building experience should be. Everything from the visual fidelity, the macro-design, the micro-management, the way things develop over time, the scale, the soundtrack, the sheer diversity in possible strategies, and the satisfaction when you play just long enough to build something magnificent. I bought Sim City 2013 at launch. Lived through the dark times of the DRM. I enjoyed it. But it made two huge mistakes (aside from the DRM). The first is the graphics. This is more forgivable, but it meant the game was never going to last long. It feels corny and unrealistic. It has the mid-2010s vibe of making everything look like a mobile game. But the second mistake is the worst: The scale is all wrong. The whole game's design feels inherently limiting. There's a limit on progress, and it's waaaay too low. Tragic really. Because the potential was high, but the implementation has EA's management stench all over it.

Honestly my biggest gripe with this game was the city size. What I loved (and many others did as well) was the ability in SC3000 and SC4 to create (somewhat) large and realistic cities. You had the room (literally!) to be creative. SC2013 did not. That being said the graphics and style were pretty great. Curved roads were rad.

I have some good memories playing this game in 2013 and 2014. It's a shame that the map wasn't larger and that you couldn't play the game offline (at least at first IIRC). Even though the game was made instantly obsolete by Cities Skylines in 2015, I'll still look back upon SimCity 2013 fondly.

I will maintain that SimCity Societies was a better game than this. It wasn't really SimCity, no, but at least it did what it tried to do well enough and introduced some genuinely interesting new mechanics. Even looking aside from the technical issues, there's too much missing from this game without much to replace the features they removed except for multiplayer.

When this one first came out I was so hyped and bought in, got the future cities dlc. Definitely things that killed the game but city specialization was a great concept if you ask me. The online aspect of it was cool but half baked. The sizes of the cities was ridiculous..... They took steps forward and even more back. Luckily cities skylines came out, don't get me wrong it has it flaws wish aspects of sim city were with in cities skylines. Honestly my favorite is still sim city 2000 on the good old PC idk why those cities were just so expansive and felt so much more alive.

No, sorry. It's not just "reputation". Those tiny "patches of cities" are NOT acceptable. This might be good looking, smooth, polished in some ways but bad decisions (that useless engine that let you see poop moving or electricity moving along... lol) ended up limiting the city sizes because the engine couldn't cope. They should have just remade SC4 with that graphic engine and BOOM, best citybuilder ever. But no. SC2013 is truly BAD.

I still play SimCity 4 and presently I'm playing while listening to your commentary. Societies have long tried to introduce autonomy whereas SimCity 2013 contains issues about Ai and pathfinding. Societies was also almost like ANNO. Then again, SimCity 2013 will be my bottom list until they finally do something like 4. I don't mind isometric games and cartoony types, I see Sims and SimCity sharing that. And then of course, you've CityState I.

SimCity (2013) used to be my favorite game back when i was 12, alongside civilization 5 cities skylines really is so much better

Yeah, the game at its current state is gorgeous. The cities are small, but that is the whole idea - specialized cities and region (multiplayer) play. The game is very relaxing, with really good gameplay systems and some depth in them that is enough to generate many fun scenarios and situations. It feels like a toybox really that you can play with, whilst games like Cities: Skyline feel more like city paint simulator.

I really appreciate the effort on this video, well researched and overall good quality. worth my time. thank you

For me, this game had some fun gameplay and is far more aesthetically pleasing that Cities: Skylines. It’s too bad they only gave you a football field to build your city on. 😂

The online only for what was always a single player game was a huge design mistake that crippled the game on launch. Then the server issues and small maps just compounded it. Thankfully they added singleplayer and after playing again recently after abandoning it back in 2013 I do find this to be the best and most enjoyable sim city game as long as you don't mind the smaller build space.

Thank you for this video I have 900 hours on simcity and it's probably my favourite game, I really love the soundtrack its really stunning

I never really got a chance to play the SimCity series, but after seeing your series so far I want to play. And I know exactly what editions I want thanks to your reviews. I really appreciate it. The one thing I would say about your 3000 video is i would have liked if you talked about the scenarios section for a bit, and maybe followed up if the other games feature that mode. Even still, I really want to finish your SimCity series. It’s so good!

I see a lot of praise here… this was my biggest disappointment of that era of games. Tons of totally bananas decisions. Garbage tech under the hood.

nice video and game