A city builder that requires friends and the use of real-world money

Jul 2, 2012 22:31 GMT  ·  By

I can’t wait for the rebooted SimCity to launch in February 2013, although I am a bit scared by all the social features that Maxis and Electronic Arts plan to introduce.

Therefore, I decided to check out the beta stage of SimCity Social, which is available on Facebook, in order to alleviate my fears and see how the title is shaping up.

I can safely say that city building fans who remember Sim City 3000 or Pharaoh will not spend too much time in SimCity Social, but there are other categories of players who will certainly find something to live here.

SimCity Social has four core resources: energy, which allows the player to act in the game with slow regeneration; simoleons, used to get new buildings and obtained from businesses; materials, required in order to upgrade stuff and received from factories.

The last resource, but definitely not least, is diamonds, updated when you level up and via real-world money purchases, which are used for special buildings and to get more energy.

One of the annoying mechanics of SimCity Social is that it actually requires you to click on building sites in order to see the buildings go up, which makes zero sense.

The game should ask me to contribute in a meaningful way to the building process, potentially via a mini-game, or just allow me to see the process as long as it has none.

There are of course the familiar limitations linked to energy use, which can be overcome by using money, and the constant mechanics and prompts that are designed to draw your friends in, which can become a little tiring.

But overall the game is bright and cheerful and it’s interesting to see how simple interactions between buildings can create a small city that can tilt towards utopia or dystopia as the payer implements small changes to the neighborhood.

Worth a full Softpedia review? No.