I am the law
In 1993, Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider starred in Demolition Man--a futuristic film about a utopian future where everyone is happy and nothing bad ever happens because its a police state. Two years later, Sylvester Stallone and Rob Schneider starred in Judge Dredd--a futuristic film about a dystopian future where everyone is sad and nothing happy ever happens because its a police state. I was reminded of these two parallels as I played SimCitys Cities of Tomorrow expansion, which adds both sides of the potential future to the city-building game.
Lets start with the Demolition Man side. By building an Academy, youre able to research new, environmental-friendly technologies to make the world a better place. Theres a catch, though--the technologies are all powered by one hive mind, and while it cant go full-blown Skynet, it can still go down, leaving your city to crumble under the weight of its advanced computers.
This brings me to the Judge Dredd side, in which crime and pollution are out of control thanks to Omega, a resource which can be used to make everything better. Omega will allow you to become blindingly rich, but it causes your people to grow fat and lazy--eventually sending drones to do their work for them and never leaving their homes. Both the sad/happy future will benefit from other changes to the game, like giant mega-towers and Mag Levs (monorails), and youll be able to play side-by-side with players who havent purchased the expansion. In other words, yes, its still an always-online affair, but we have to imagine the servers will be ready by the November 12 launch.
Check out the following slides for additional images and more information.
The Omega factories will send out drones to do their bidding.
Technologies researched at the Academy are shared with the district--expansion or not.
Huge towers can be built to add more population to your city.
The two sides of the expansion can be mixed together to create incredible cities.