So all this week, I'm going to try to play games with earthquakes in them. I guess I could widen that to include games with bridge collapses, since part of the Bay Bridge fell during the quake. And if I was feeling really desperate for something to do, I could go find a copy of R.B.I. Baseball since I was probably playing that instead of watching the real ballgame that day.

Here's what I've got:

Fracture
Bad Day L.A.
Incredible Crisis
Any SimCity game
Cities XL
The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask – if you let the moon crash into the planet
Any Final Fantasy game where enemies keep casting Earthquake
Quake – even though there aren't any earthquakes in it

Anybody got any other games I can add to this obscure list?

This map is real (though not provided by Google), and accurate, and can be used to plot your course or find landmarks as easily as you can on Google Maps (it helps that the UI mimick Google's service). Now all it needs is a rampaging UFO and a view of its boring waterpipe network and we're good to go!

Honey, Someone Shrunk Hong Kong [Gizmodo]

Go to the sign up site and type in: KOTCXLBR. It won't guarantee you a beta slot, but it will increase your chances of getting in.

The online mode in Cities XL lets users pick a planet with preset environmental conditions (like water-to-land ratio, explosive volcanoes, high seismic activity, etc.) and build a city from the ground up. Players can interact with each other by sending their "Mayor" avatar to visit other user-made cities, or by setting up trade systems between cities.

For more details as well as info on the singleplayer mode, check out this preview.

When asked if he felt like he was leaving his gaming fanbase behind, he said no.

"That's definitely not the case, some of the coolest things I'm thinking of working on are new games," he said.

And those games won't be a total departure from Wright's history of making open-ended simulators. There will be "an almost unbroken lineage" between what he has done in the past and where he hopes to take gaming with Stupid Fun Club, he says.

Earlier today, Wright announced that he would be departing Maxis and Electronic Arts to spend all of his time working at an entertainment think tank developing new intellectual properties for all forms of entertainment from toys to television.

Stupid Fun Club, which was initially started in 2001 as an offshoot of his work building robots for Robot Wars, was dramatically restructured recently in time for the deal he signed with EA on Monday, he said.

"It started out in Berkeley, " he said. "We were all doing Robot Wars together. We started building strange robots and then started doing these fun social experiments where we would have them encounter people and film it to study peoples' reactions."

That led to a lot of ideas, Wright said and people started stopping by to see if they could invest in the company. But Wright said he was reluctant to go down the path of an IPO or start up again, like he did with Maxis.

They started showing some of the ideas to Electronic Arts and the publisher got interested. "They were the perfect VC for us," Wright said.

The relationship Stupid Fun Club will have with EA will, in some ways, be a broad version of the one Steven Spielberg has with the company, Wright said.

Wright says he was fascinated with the concept of the film maker working as an entertainment designer in a field he was unaccustomed to. And Boom Blox, he says, was a interesting product of that effort.

"Boom Blox was remarkable because it was not the game I was expecting from Steven Spielberg, but it was a blast to play," he said. "There were no cinematic, no story, no anything. You could just pick it up and play it.

"He clearly understood games at a level I didn't expect him to."

Wright has been working for some time now trying to grow his understanding of other elements of entertainment as well.

"I've been kind of talking to people about TV shows and movies for awhile now," he said, declining to say which games they would be based on.

When will we hear from Wright and his company again? Perhaps at this year's E3? The designer said he wasn't sure quite yet.

"Give me a few months and I'm sure you'll hear something."

There are already countless (excellent) versions of Tower Defence available, but this is something special — SimCity. The classic, venerable, evergreen SimCity, one of the most popular and iconic games the PC has ever seen.

Question is, can it make the jump to Apple's promising, yet problem-plagued touchscreen?

Loved
SimCity 2000 - You love SimCity 2000? This is SimCity 2000 (with the aesthetic of SimCity 3000). Or, as close to its feature set and gameplay as the iPhone can manage. There are water pipes, bonus buildings, full control over amenities, advisors, the works. Basically, don't expect a bastardised port of SimCity, expect SimCity.

Functionality - The game has, in a week's worth of playing, crashed once. And even then, autosaved my city so I could jump right back in. And as far as controls go, it's about as good a job as you can expect. You double-tap or pinch to zoom, you drag out zones and roads with your fingers, the slight inaccuracy of pointing towards such tiny grids compensated for by a tool that lets you move around a zone/road once laid down.

Hated
Load Times - The iPhone's a machine for gaming on the go. So it's a shame that both saving and loading your cities can take an age, especially if you're playing on a large city (you're given a choice of two sizes). Oh, one other tiny gripe: you can't rotate the city, so you're stuck with the one viewpoint.

This one's a no-brainer. You like SimCity, you'll like this. Simple! It's a full-blooded version, it's stable, it controls well, it's probably the most complete and satisfying iPhone port I've yet to come across.

SimCity was developed and published by Electronic Arts. Released on December 15 for Apple iPhone, retails for $10, available on Apple App Store. Played both city sizes for 3-4 hours each so far.

Confused by our reviews? Read our review FAQ.

Of course, a proper review of the game will (hopefully) be forthcoming, but I've been playing around with it all day and can report that it's SimCity, it looks good, and aside from a few bugs here and there it works.

The graphics look like SimCity 3000, the gameplay's closer to SimCity 2000, and everything you expect from the game - down to advisors, utilities and disasters - is in there.

If you're tempted, it'll set you back $10.

I originally scoffed at the idea of a game like SimCity on the iPhone. Not only does the game require a large investment of time to do anything, the idea of using the touch screen to place buildings meticulously on a grid seems impractical. EA may have proved me wrong, however, as it seems they have found a way to compensate for your fat, ungroomed fingers.

The controls act the same way they do for Google maps. Sliding your fingers together, inward, zooms out, while sliding them apart zooms in. Touching and dragging moves your view around the map, while continuous taps cycles through the zoom levels. Placing singular objects is simple, but placing large zones or roads can be tricky to maneuver. Once you've selected the zone you want, you touch and drag to the appropriate length and width. However, there are times when you may find zones overlapping or roads not lining up properly. EA allows for easy corrections as you can reposition or delete unwanted blocks by the touch of a finger. I found this to be a little wonky at times the more dense an area becomes due to the increased chances of deleting the wrong block or building.

As you can see from the screenshot, you may also find yourself struggling with screen real estate during busy sessions. Also, first-time players will have to overcome a bit of a learning curve when it comes to figuring where all the menus are and what they do.

Whatever you do, though, don't go thinking this is SimCity Lite. This mobile version is fully featured, with pre-built cities, accountant recommendations, water pipes, natural disasters, etc. The works.

Zooming in as close as you can on the 2D sprites reveals intricate details, such a smoke emitting from towers, or shading alongside the buildings. Overall, a really nice graphical presentation that compares similarly to SimCity 3000. You won't be able to rotate the map, however.

SimCity certainly bucks any mobile gaming trends with this offering. If you need your Will Wright fix on the go, this could feed your need. The older demo I played wasn't completely finished, as there were still a few minor bugs and glitches, but I was promised these would be ironed out for the final release.

SimCity will be out for the iPhone and iPod Touch this month.

SimCity for the iPhone may ruin my life (in a good way) [VentureBeat]

"The SimCity Box is the perfect opportunity to discover the fun of city building with SimCity," said Rod Humble, Head of Studio for The Sims. "This is the greatest value SimCity has ever offered and players everywhere can get hands-on with a wide range of SimCity products from one box at an amazing price."

Hit up a jump for a primer on what each of the packed in games is about.

EA UNVEILS THE SIMCITY BOX

Popular PC Gaming Franchise Offers Five Innovative City-Building Games in One Box at One Low Price

REDWOOD CITY, CA. — April 10, 2008 — Today Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced The SimCity™ Box, a bundled pack of five games from the world-renowned SimCity™ franchise. The SimCity Box contains SimCity™ Societies, SimCity Societies Destinations, SimCity™ 4, SimCity™ 4Rush Hour and The Sims Carnival™ SnapCity. Valued at approximately $100.00 USD, The SimCity Box will be available this June in North America at the affordable price of $39.99 USD.

"The SimCity Box is the perfect opportunity to discover the fun of city building with SimCity," said Rod Humble, Head of Studio for The Sims. "This is the greatest value SimCity has ever offered and players everywhere can get hands-on with a wide range of SimCity products from one box at an amazing price."

• SimCity Societies: In SimCity Societies, players construct not only the cities they desire, but mold their cultures, societal tendencies and environments as well. They can build artistic cities, authoritarian dictatorships, spiritual communities and many more. With this accessible, innovative and versatile city-builder, players can create the city of their dreams, or their nightmares. With more than 500 buildings and decorative objects to place, the possibilities are almost limitless. Since launch, four free game updates have added new strategic modes that will challenge your mayoral skills, three new exotic disasters (UFO invasion, giant robot attack and a massive fire-breathing monster) new crises, new UI functions, new buildings and much more. More free content and features are being planned for future updates.

• SimCity Societies Destinations: SimCity Societies Destinations enhances the SimCity Societies experience by providing all the tools players need to create an entire city or town based on attractions and amenities that visitors enjoy. With an enhanced map generator, players can identify each city's opportunity for diversion and the city can capitalize on that draw. From sprawling theme parks and tropical beach resorts to country hiking trails, players can control more than 100 new buildings to create their customized destination.

• SimCity 4: Right from the start in SimCity 4, players will experience new God-like powers of creation as they lay the groundwork for their cities by molding mountains, carving valleys, seeding forests and laying rivers. With these new landscape creation features, players can now construct the most realistic metropolis imaginable.

• SimCity 4 Rush Hour: In SimCity 4 Rush Hour, players take control of their city's transportation with a wide variety of new options. They can create the elevated train networks of Chicago, the wide-avenues of New York, or the one-way streets of San Francisco. Players can develop a seamless mass-transit system including monorail, subway, or even a scenic ferry service that connects to a greater regional travel network. With all-new problem-solving maps and tracking tools, players can see the pulsing flow of traffic, map out the most efficient routes, and quickly get their Sims from one city to another.

• The Sims Carnival SnapCity: The Sims Carnival SnapCity is a unique city-building simulation game with a puzzle twist that is both strategic and accessible. In a fun, open-ended gameplay environment, players are challenged to position falling, colored blocks in just the right places to build the best possible cities. Featuring an array of industrial, commercial and residential neighborhoods, it's never the same city twice! The fun never stops as you save your city from natural disasters, man-made catastrophes, even out-of-this-world alien attacks!Players can also pick-up-and-play by jumping into 25 unique existing neighborhood levels.

The SimCity franchise is one of the most popular PC gaming franchises in history, having sold more than 17 million games worldwide to date since the SimCity launch in 1989.

I have some reservations about BP's sponsorship of clean energy in the game (or more properly their un-sponsorship of dirty energy), but a sophisticated understanding of pollution ecology certainly should be easier to culture in a dynamic interactive model than in an expository text.

Will Game's Impact Surpass 'Inconvenient Truth'?

Some educators have asked Maxis to make SimCity expose more about the actual simulation itself, instead of hiding its inner workings from the user. They want to see how it works and what it depends on, so it is less of a game, and more educational. But what's really going on inside is not as realistic as they would want to believe: because of its nature as a game, and the constraint that it must run on low end home computers, it tries to fool people into thinking it's doing more than it really is, by taking advantage of the knowledge and expectations people already have about how a city is supposed to work. Implication is more efficient than simulation.

Last week EA announced that they are donating the original SimCity for use on the OLPC. Don Hopkins, who did the Unix, Linux, and now OLPC ports of SimCity, recently published his thoughts about how the new version of the game might allow kids to modify the underlying simulation model.

Here are some ideas about applying Seymour Papert's philosophy of "Constructionist Education" to SimCity, by integrating it with the OLPC's "Sugar" user interface and Python-based scripting system. ... The goals of deeply integrating SimCity with Sugar are to focus on education and accessibility for younger kids, as well as motivating and enabling older kids to learn programming, in the spirit of Seymour Papert's work with Logo. It should be easy to extend and re-program SimCity in many interesting ways. For example: kids should be able to create new disasters and agents (like the monster, tornado, helicopter and train), and program them like Logo's turtle graphics or Robot Odyssey's visual robot programming language!

The long term goal is to refactor the code so it can be scripted and extended in Python, and break out reusable general purpose components like the tile engine, sprite engine, etc, so kids can use them to build their own games, or create plug-ins and modify the graphics and behavior of SimCity.

SimCity for OLPC (One Laptop Per Child): Applying Papert's Ideas About Constructionist Education and Teaching Kids to Program [Don Hopkins]
OLPC Give One Get One [OLPC]

Before any of you start nagging that SimCity 2000 could probably run just as well on these computers, remember that storage is a commodity on the inexpensive laptops. And then punk EA by donating something better. Here's the full press release:

REDWOOD CITY—November 8, 2007—Today Electronic Arts Inc. (NASDAQ: ERTS) announced the company will donate the original SimCity™ — the blockbuster 1989 game credited with giving rise to the city-building game genre—to each computer in the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) initiative. OLPC is a not-for-profit humanitarian effort to design, manufacture and distribute inexpensive laptops with the goal of giving every child in the world access to modern education. By gifting SimCity onto each OLPC laptop, EA is providing users with an entertaining way to engage with computers as well as help develop decision-making skills while honing creativity. This is the first time a major video game publisher has gifted a game to the world.

In SimCity, the player takes on the role of mayor of a new municipality—responsible for building and maintaining a place where citizens can work and live happily. Doing so requires laying out essentials such as housing, transport links, schools, factories and shops. The job also requires an ability to choose wisely—for example, some power sources pollute, while others do not but are more expensive. Players must also be financially savvy—raising taxes enough to guarantee an income that can be allocated to public services such as policing and road repair, but not so high that business growth is hampered or that citizens revolt. The mayor must always be prepared for emergency situations as well, as earthquakes, floods and fires can wreak havoc on the town and require an immediate response so that fallout can be contained.

OLPC will begin distributing laptops in countries such as Uruguay, Peru, Mexico, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Haiti, Cambodia and India by the end of 2007. The idea to connect SimCity with OLPC came from internet pioneer, activist and OLPC advisor John Gilmore who knew the game's history and recognized its potential relevance to the not-for-profit project. Not long after its 1989 release, SimCity became a phenomenon, winning more than 24 domestic and international awards. The game soon made its way into more than 10,000 classrooms as an educational tool and became part of the annual Future City Competition, a contest that still runs in seventh and eighth grade classrooms today.

"SimCity is entertainment that's unintentionally educational. Players learn to use limited resources to build and customize their cities. There are choices and consequences, but in the end, it's a creativity tool that's only limited by the player's imagination," said Steve Seabolt, vice president of global brand development, The Sims Label. "The game should prove to be an incredibly effective way of making the laptop relevant, engaging, and fun, particularly for first time players. We are thrilled to be making this contribution to OLPC to help meet their goal of educating the children of the world."

The SimCity franchise is one of the most popular PC gaming franchises in history, having sold more than 18 million games worldwide to date since the SimCity launch in 1989. Subsequent base game releases include SimCity 2000™ (1993), SimCity 3000™ (1999) and SimCity™ 4 (2003). The fifth installment of the series, SimCity Societies, features an all-new, revolutionary feature set that allows players to construct not only the cities they desire, but to create their cultures and societal behaviors as well. It is being published by Electronic Arts and developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment for release across North America and Europe in November 2007.

Hilary Bevan Jones, Chairman of the Academy said "Will's immense, creative body of work and his continued contribution to the industry make him a most worthy recipient of the Fellowship and being such a pioneer, we are thrilled that he will be the first person to receive this honour".

Sims Creator Wright inducted into BAFTA Fellowship Creator of The Sims, Will Wright, joins legends such as Alfred Hitchcock, Charlie Chaplin and Steven Spielberg as he is inducted into BAFTA's Fellowship at this year's Awards ceremony

Monday 15th October/... Will Wright, the creator of The Sims, the world's best selling PC gaming franchise with more than 90 million units sold, will shortly join an exclusive number of household names from TV and Film as he becomes the first recipient of the Fellowship from the video games industry at the British Academy Video Games Awards 2007. The Fellowship is the highest accolade the Academy can bestow on an individual for their creative work.

Until now, the much lauded Fellowship has remained an exclusive part of BAFTA's more established pillars, TV and Film. But today's British Academy recognises the massive impact of video games on popular culture and their huge contribution to the whole art form of the moving image.

Hilary Bevan Jones, Chairman of the Academy said "Will's immense, creative body of work and his continued contribution to the industry make him a most worthy recipient of the Fellowship and being such a pioneer, we are thrilled that he will be the first person to receive this honour".

Wright, who is widely accepted as one of the world's leading visionaries in the field of video game design, has been passionately creating games for more than twenty years. Although he has worked on a number of hugely successful games, among them Raid On Bungling Bay (1984), SimCity (1989), SimCity 2000 (1993), SimCity 3000 (1989) and SimCity 4 (2003), he is best known for bringing to fruition one of the best-loved games franchises in history, The Sims - a game whose inspiration sprang from a combination of the aforementioned titles.

Other 'firsts' at this year's Awards include the BAFTA Ones To Watch Award in association with Dare To Be Digital which recognises up-and-coming talent, and the PC World Gamers' Award, the only publicly-voted award of the night (www.obsessedwithgames.co.uk). This year's Awards will be held at London's Battersea Evolution on 23 October. Music acts will include the indie rock band Athlete with another act being confirmed this week. The show will be broadcast on E4 on November 4 at 11pm and repeated the following weekend on Channel 4.

While the name may not be immediately familiar, Daglow and Stormfront have developed a number of higher profile games and well-known licensed titles—games like The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, the original Neverwinter Nights, Madden NFL and NASCAR titles.

While Daglow conceded that sometimes "next-gen" unfortunately meant the size of one's marketing budget, he defined the generational shift from a hardware point as "any platform that upon its introduction dramatically changes a players view of the potential for interactive entertainment." He spun stories of the next-gen leap at Intellivision where, prior to that console, developers dreamt of machines that could display 32 colors, properly capturing their artistic visions.

The same mostly held true for software but he noted that "unlike hardware, next-gen software is usually recognized in hindsight, not in advance."

Daglow chose a number of hardware platforms and less than original titles as hallmarks of next-gen releases. As the Xbox 360 and PLAYSTATION 3 meet the hardware requirements that don't "hold developers back", he considers the casual-friendly Wii as next-gen, despite its underperforming hardware specs, mostly for its input device.

Games like Sim City, Guitar Hero, Geometry Wars and World of Warcraft are also worthy of the "next-gen" moniker. He called out Guitar Hero for its focus on in-person social multiplayer and Bizarre Creations' Geometry Wars as it "provide old games can be new again" but I suspect some of that had to do with its runaway Xbox Live Arcade success.

Perhaps the most distressing moment of Daglow's speech was his Oreo analogy. He worried of store shelves filled with not just a package of Oreo cookies, but shelves chock full of Oreos, Oreo Double Stuf, Mint Oreo, Reduced Fat Oreo, Chocolate-filled Oreo and, well, you get the idea. He lamented the missing presence of non-Oreo cookies from grocery store shelves. "Somebody went away," he said with a touch of developer nostalgia "Somebody has disappeared."

Of the handful of keynotes we sat in on today, Daglow's was the one of the most packed and one of the most warmly received. Regardless of what you think of his company's games, let's hope he and his team don't become just another variation on the Oreo cookie.

Spacewar! (1962)
Star Raiders (1979)
Zork (1980)
Tetris (1985)
SimCity (1989)
Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990)
Civilization I / II (1991)
Doom (1993)
Warcraft (Series) (1994)
Sensible World of Soccer (1994)

The games all represent firsts for lasting genres, such as adventure games, multiplayer, FPS, story-driven RTS, et cetera. Each gamer is required to save these titles to a microchip embedded in the base of their skull in order to preserve our gaming heritage. Michael Fahey

Is That Just Some Game? No, It's a Cultural Artifact [The New York Times, via Grand Text Auto]

I've often said that the one thing missing from Sim City was the ability to blow on it. Too many games get caught up with simply blowing and have never taken the next step, which is allowing the player to blow themselves. That didn't come out right.

From what I've seen so far the game does fulfill on the promise to put the Sim City experience into your hands, so I will forgive them their good-intentioned flight of DS whimsy there. Hit the jump for the press release! Michael Fahey

EA BRINGS SIMCITY TO Nintendo DS PLATFORM
SIMCITY DS OFFERS CITY BUILDING EXPERIENCE ON THE GO TO FANS AROUND THE WORLD

CHERTSEY, Surrey, - February 28, 2007 - Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) announced today that the SimCity franchise is returning with SimCity DS, developed especially for the Nintendo DS platform. In addition to creating and growing their very own pocket sized city while being on-the-go, players will be able to leverage the unique action features of the Nintendo DS system, discovering an entirely new way to play this internationally acclaimed franchise. The product will make its debut to consumers worldwide in summer of this year.

True to the SimCity series, players will be able to create and control their city in the palm of their hands...and much more. Maximizing the stylus and built-in microphone controls of the Nintendo DS, SimCity DS brings to the franchise like never before the feeling of personal involvement with your city—from blowing into the microphone to put out fires in the city to signing off on mayoral proclamations with your stylus. By enabling the players to communicate with each other, the "wireless data exchange" feature brings additional interactivity into the game. As an added bonus to SimCity fans around the world, the game also offers a wide array of recognizable international landmarks to spice up your city.

"We are very excited to bring the SimCity experience to the Nintendo DS platform," said Takahiro Murakami, Producer of SimCity DS. "The unique Nintendo DS functionalities inspired us to incorporate many new features to delight the most dedicated SimCity fans. The game is filled with fun surprises that will appeal to new and existing fans of the franchise."

About Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts Inc. (EA), headquartered in Redwood City, California, is the world's leading interactive entertainment software company. Founded in 1982, the company develops, publishes, and distributes interactive software worldwide for videogame systems, personal computers, cellular handsets and the Internet. Electronic Arts markets its products under four brand names: EA SPORTSTM, EATM, EA SPORTS BIGTM and POGOTM. In fiscal 2006, EA posted revenue of $2.95 billion and had 27 titles that sold more than one million copies. EA's homepage and online game site is www.ea.com. More information about EA's products and full text of press releases can be found on the Internet at http://info.ea.com.

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