February 16, 2007
Friday Top 5: Maxis
Everyone has heard of the Sims and SimCity, but Maxis was so much more than those two titles. In its day, this game company was as close to god as I could imagine, presenting me with seemingly endless boutiful gaming treats on which I could gorge myself incessantly. For creative kids, the maxis line was the pinnacle of gaming.Sadly, these days Maxis is owned by EA, and EA says that they can't make anything besides the occasional Sims 2 Add-on and possibly a new SimCity game every 5 years or so.
1) Sim City 4
SimCity 4 sits at the very pinnacle of sim games all across the globe. This game is so fun for sim-fanatics like myself, I just don't know where to start. Even after a few years, the game still looks fantastic. The building models are all beautifully realistic, and the landscapes are similarly intriguing. The gameplay is pretty intense, much harder than the earlier SimCity games, simply because the game accounts for every single inhabitant of the city. Also, the game introduced the reigon concept, which is that the neighbors that you dealt with in previous games are now also under your control, are in fact entire playable cities of their own.
Sim City 4 is simply the most fun that I have ever had with a creative Sim game, and it is likely to remain that way for quite some time. I have often wondered what the folks at the new Maxis could do to improve on this game, and I am often left with minor improvments like smooth zooms and better magnification.
Perhaps the best thing about this game is it's ability for modding. The SimCity 4 modding community is still going very strong, churning out new buildings daily. Need some different seaports? A bigger park? A specific building from your hometown? It's probably already online. This customizability allows for some truly awe-inspiring city planning.
2) Sim Farm
Sim Farm was simple, but loads of fun for me personally. It didn't get a big following because it was a farm simulation, and most people pride themselves on not being farmers, but as a kid growing up in rural MN, I was hooked right away. The game centers around planting crops and raising livestock, as you might expect, with little tidbits of extra gameplay thrown in.
The game was pretty easy to master, (strawberries are the key) and as such didn't provide a huge challenge, but it was still a ton of fun.
3) Sim City 2000
Sim City 2000 defined Sim games for the new millenium. The name of the game was oddly prohpetic in that respect. The original SimCity was fun, but the lack of ability to zone freely kept me from speding a lot of time with it. When SimCity 2000 came out, I was awe-struck.
I could design cities in 3D, on top of a mountain, and zone however I wanted to! Getting arcologies always tended to end a game for me, but I was never at a loss for replay value, since the terrain generator that was bundled with the game provided an endless stream of new and difficult terrains to grow a city on. This one would have gotten 2nd place, but Sim Farm was more laid-back fun, whereas SimCity 2000 was really about construction.
4) Sim Ant
Sim Ant was one of the first games that Maxis put out after SimCity. They didn't spend too much effort on it, but it was still a great game. The premise was that you were an ant, and that you had an empire to build. Pick up peas, drop them off, fight off red ants, invade the house, rule with an iron mandible. The game combined first-person elements in the control of your ant with the more over-arching colony control of SimCity. Good fun for all ages.
5) Sim Tower
Sim Tower is very similar to SimCity or Sim Farm, in that it simulated you as the overseer of a thing to be built, in this case a fledgling tower. Level after level goes up, you unlock ballrooms, hotels, penthouses, etc, everything is pretty straightforward. Still 10x as fun as the Sims.
Labels: top 5
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