As newly elected mayor of SimCity (thanks to my Virtual Console) I pledged to finally do what I had never been able to when I originally played this as a kid: create a town with a population of 500,000 citizens. As I write this, I have 460,000 people and things have been running very smoothly…until now.
See, my citizens have developed a case of the dreaded, “We So Stupid” Syndrome. For those of you that don’t know, WSSS is a horrible disease that affects people all over the world, not just in video game simulations. I have used all the land in my city. I have been a decent leader, who built all industrial zones around the edge of town, minimizing pollution. Of course, that didn’t stop the little artificial bastards from bitching about it!
I built all their houses far away, so the only time they would ever enter an area with anything less than pristine air would be…IF THEY WORKED THERE! And if you work in a place that pollutes the air, but rather than get a job at the mall (I built lots of those, too!), you would prefer to blame the mayor for the desecration of the air, which you in fact cause by working there… kill yourself.
No, wait. I need you for the population count. Which brings me to next point: if I build a residential zone, I want houses built there, not schools or hospitals! All I want is to cram enough of these little morons into the limited space I have available to me (apparently, invading the neighboring towns is out of the questions) in order to get to the half million mark to get that damn Mario statue I have always longed for. And these fools decide to build 14 hospitals and 12 schools, including 2 hospitals right next to each other!
Well, I certainly hope there weren’t that many sick or enfeebled people in 13 of those hospitals because I got a little trigger happy with my bulldozer and kinda demolished them all. Course, my little resiliant Sim-tards decided to rebuild one of them right in the same spot. I felt like the Joker in The Dark Knight, walking out of Gotham County General, tapping that detonator. Eventually the mooks learned their lesson. And as for those schools, well…that was just fun. Don’t worry, I left one of them standing. Too bad it’s all the way on the other side of the river! Good luck with that commute everyday!
Speaking of commutes, when you to a certain point, the Sim-jerks start getting uppity and demanding things. “Residents Demand A Stadium” started flashing on the bottom of the screen. Well, sure they do. But that’s going to raise the tax rate and if it dares hover anywhere over 3%, they start tea bagging each other! I mean, throwing tea parties. Or something. Then they wanted an airport. Now, I am not a cruel leader. I like to think of myself as a benevolent dictator. So I granted them their airport. Hell, can’t be bad for growth and business right?
Wrong. Literally 2 minutes later, a plane crashed. So either I built my airport just before happy hour ended or I have terrorists running around my city, which is a giant problem since I didn’t build any fire departments. And we all know fire departments is how you fight terrorism. So I had to lock the city down for a bit, demolish the nuclear power plants in order to prevent any yellow cake from getting stolen and then I realized I had better destroy any bakeries as well, because I am pretty sure they have yellow cake, too.
Crisis averted, I think. I saw one of our planes take off and fly over the city, so I am going to assume that was my personal army on its way to Borat’s country to deliver giant cans of whip-ass to anyone who speaks a different language. With any luck, I will manage to sardine some more Sim-fools into my city and get that Mario statue and finally achieve a boyhood dream. Wow…games sure do make you feel like a loser sometimes, but God, is it worth it.
Anyhow, what’s the hardest you’ve ever worked for an in-game secret?
Killer Instinct has some of the greatest sound bytes of any game, fighting or otherwise, that I can remember (ultra! ultra! ultra!). In addition, it had some really wicked combos that were a joy to pull off, no matter how cheap they were.
