[Imon Yourside]

Originally Posted by Gravedigger

Played it for the first time last night, honestly pretty impressive. I only got to a small city level so only an hour or so played but its much cleaner than SimCity 4. The charts and graphs that show the specifics of your city are much more in depth. The menu is more user friendly, and deeper than that of SimCity 4. The Sims actually tell you in little bubbles why they don't like the city, not just your advisors, which are there as well.

You can add a specialization such as Mining, Technology, etc and allowing you to share your resources and buying them from other cities is great for a new city keeping your waste, power, water and sewage etc in line. Also you can take out Bonds, but you have to pay them back, but it allows you a few options in case you get in the red.

I really love what I've seen so far, all your zoning (commercial, residential, and industrial) are free to zone. Also depending on what you put around the zone means if its low, medium or high quality zoning, so its not hard to put businesses, shopping, and people in your city, but to upgrade through building other things I think is a really nice touch. You can only build along streets and streets are a little expensive, as are your basic buildings like Medical Center, Fire House, Police Station, but overall its so easy to start up a city even if you don't go through the tutorial. There are little help icons that pop up in the top right corner that always help out.

I haven't gotten far enough to really get disasters, or crazy crime, or a nuclear power meltdown, but what I have played is an amazing time so far. I had been playing SimCity 4 for the past week or so to get me psyched to play the new one, and I have to say that there are alot more positives than negatives with this new game.

Keep playing and report back.