Was it Really That Bad?

Written by: Adam "ManKorn" Korenman, CC2K Video Games Editor

4) Modular, But Not In That Way

Cities is insanely mod friendly. Since launch, the modding community has set to put out as much product as possible to cover new and interesting angles in the fantastic game. But all of these mods only affect the metrics of a building. Each police station affects crime in X radius with Y police cars and Z noise level. In SimCity, it gets more complex.

Say you have an arsonist problem. You could continually increase the number of patrol cars at your police station. Maybe you’ll get lucky and catch the criminal in the act. Or, you could devote significant simoleans to build a precinct. That won’t solve your problem, but it opens up some new avenues. You can build a crime prevention center, which sends out a van to schools and business to educate sims on how to prevent crime. You can, with the help of a College of Law at your University, open up a detective wing and hire detectives to patrol your city. They will stake out the homes of at large criminals and bring them in.

Has traffic clogged up your fire prevention? Build a few helipads and watch choppers take out fires with ease. 

Sims are still dying off? Maybe you need a diagnostic center at your hospital, along with a new surgical wing. 

By allowing modular buildings, each sim town takes on its own personality, and each player can build the experience they want for their sims. 

Some mods even affect the world itself. Changing the type of burners at your oil power plant might clean up your pollution problem.

With all these great advances in simulation, was DRM really the beast that brought SimCity down?