When Sim City released for PC last year, the biggest complaint lobbied towards it was its always-on online requirement. As of now, that is officially a thing of the past. Sim city can now be played in an offline single player mode that, to be honest, should have been available from the beginning.
When we reviewed it last year, we rated Sim City’s gameplay well but cited the DRM as a detraction. Now that said DRM is out of the equation we can more readily recommend the game. In reality, the server issues have not been a big problem beyond the launch window. The introduction of the single player mode also brings with it the potential for mods, with EA’s blessing, no less. That may be what gets me back into the game, and I cannot wait to see what the game’s online community is capable of. When you first log in, you can select from online or offline mode on the main menu, and EA has said that if you select offline mode you won’t need to an online connection anymore to play the game. The biggest deductions from the multiplayer online mode – aside from the obvious, group region play – are the leaderboards and global market, two things I personally never paid any attention to.
I do think Sim City loses something when played in a region by yourself, but I appreciate that the option is now there. For those who held out on the game for its highly publicized DRM struggles, Sim City is a fun, if not overly innovative, continuation of the popular series. Now, EA, get to work on increasing those city size limits – then we’ll know you really mean business.
