Metropolis is no SimCity
Metropolis is a open source version of SimCity with a few modifications, but it is not really the same.
By. Jacob
Edited: 2019-12-11 02:00
I found the first SimCity game released as open source under a different name, Metropolis, with some modifications. Sadly, the game is a catastrophe.
You are bombarded with disasters constantly, and you got little defense against it. Increasing the speed allows you to "cheat", accumulating huge amounts of cash, while not getting hit by disasters nearly as much as when you play on normal speed.
This is, of course, the first SimCity game, so we probably should not expect it to be able to compete with SimCity 2000 or SimCity 3000.
SimCity 3000 still remains my personal favorite. The only things missing from these games, is the ability to go to war with other countries.
The city building genre needs renewal
I remember playing the original as a kid, but I probably spent more time playing SimCity 2000. Newer city building games has just failed the players, and not really brought much new to the genre, mostly focusing on graphics. The genre is in desperate need of renewal.
Why not include some better tools (technology) to fight disasters? I would also love to have the ability to research new technologies, both for better city construction and for fighting disasters. Biological disaster, such as viruses and plagues would be an obvious thing to include.
It would seem Maxis has been more focused on improving the graphics rather than delivering a feature rich game for players to enjoy.
Metropolis works in Linux
I can already play most old Windows games in Linux, so this is not really a big deal for me. Nevertheless, since the source code was released, a Linux version is available in Ubuntu's repositories.
Other games can easily be played with wine or using DosBox, and it does not take long to configure. You could even have wine launch .exe files automatically when you click on them.
It would be more interesting to see the source code of SimCity 3000 released, since the game suffers from some nasty crashes and memory issues. Sometimes buildings disappear, and you have to zoom-in/out to load fast.
Links
- Metropolis - snapcraft.io
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