You start off with a nice patch of land, but you'll be surprised how quickly that space fills. Which is to say nothing of its overall, online-always infrastructure, one which has, at times already, hamstrung the entirety of this new SimCity's lush, yet disappointingly underutilized region. Multiplayer is heavily encouraged, to the point of insistence, and yet the safeguards that aim to prevent problematic behavior on the part of others are minimal, and frankly unreliable. In this SimCity, a single city cannot survive without another nearby to pick up the slack. This one is a stricter game than the one franchise fans have come to know over the years, one more dedicated to a single-minded way of cooperative thinking. Across the border, however, is another SimCity entirely. It is gorgeous to look at when properly taken advantage of with the latest PC hardware, artfully designed for minimal user interface turmoil, and just exquisitely charming across the board. After a 10-year break, here is a game that presents the modern city builder with nearly every possible tool one could hope for to build the bustling metropolis of their dreams.
On one side of the border is a brilliant, vibrantly realized reboot of Maxis' classic SimCity franchise. To talk of this game is to tell a tale of two SimCities.