14 DAY TRIAL // Electronic Arts has made the announcement that five of its Sim City games will be available at a special price bundled together in The SimCity Box. The five games are actually two complete games, two expansion packs and a spin-off from the original Sim City series.
Initially created by Maxis, Sim City has been the essential city building title for more than a decade. It placed the player in the well-polished shoes of the mayor with an empty plot of land in front of him, a pile of cash behind him and the opportunity to shape a city to whatever vision he had. From there on, there have been fires to be put on, a budget to be balanced, prison inmates to be housed in the proper facilities and, of course, the unrivaled pride of a job well done when the simulated city lived up to expectations.
The most recent Sim City game put a twist on the series, focusing more on the lives of the citizens of the city rather than on managing the city itself. The resulting product, although much changed with a series of patches that provided more options and created a bigger sense of challenge, was easy and unattractive to city building veterans that liked the previous games.
Apparently an expansion, called Destinations, will make its debut in the SimCity box, allowing the player to create beach resorts, hotels, landmarks and other objectives designed to simulate the way people move from town to town drawn by such landmarks and also create tourism as a viable development strategy for the cities.
Also part of the bundle will be Sim City 4 and its expansion. Although old by games industry standards, Sim City 4 is, in many ways, the perfect modern city sim. It simulates everything you'd want simulated, from transportation network to a city council, while offering a variety of data to help the players develop their city. And it also has aliens.
The fifth game offered by Electronic Arts is called SimCity Carnival SnapCity and offers a unique take on the whole city building game genre, with what can only be described as tetris action with housing blocks.
The SimCity Box will be available in the United States in June. No European date has been set.