Welcome to Muertos Glen, population 9,640 and growing…

You can call me Mayor. I’m the mayor of a beautiful island “mini metropolis” aptly named Muertos Glen. Isn’t it just beautiful? In fact, I’ve just bulldozed some commercial businesses to add more residential zones, so there’s plenty of room for you to move in. Seriously, I need workers! I just opened up a sewage treatment plant…

It’s a great place to live. In fact, I’m so good at my job, that I’ve got an 85% approval rating. Unheard of!

When I first read the reviews of the latest SimCity, I had little interest in playing it. Then my friend Derek and I spent an afternoon hanging out recently, and he offered to show it to me. I was quickly hooked.

The latest version isn’t perfect, but it’s not as bad as some of the negative reviews would have you believe. Don’t get me wrong, the space issue is annoying if you’ve played previous versions BUT, in reality, what city isn’t faced with space constraints or geographic challenges?

The addition of regions and neighboring cities, not necessarily controlled by you, is great and awful at the same time. Much like the real world, what happens in these neighboring cities affects your city. On the good side, when you have a surplus in a service, you can volunteer it to a neighboring city (or that neighboring city can request it) and make some extra simoleons. You can also take advantage of city specializations and upgrade your own services as the result of another city having, say, a Department of Education, while you have a Department of Transportation that they build upon. On the down side, negative things can find their way into your city…like crime or pollution.

The game is not without bugs though (looking past initial connection issues and long queue times). My recycling center wouldn’t start processing recyclables initially. It was expensive to build, so there was no way I was going to bulldoze it. I closed and re-opened it which seemed to take care of that issue. The next challenge I’m facing is that the center is almost filled to capacity with recycled plastic, but I don’t have any options to re-use or export it. Being green is NOT easy.

Some Sims complain constantly that they want more parks, when there’s a park less than a block away. What’s that all about?

I also have areas where the population complains consistently that the area is not so healthy. This one is frustrating. I have medical facilities enough to cover treating the sick and injured. I assume the issue is coming from air pollution drifting in from the industrial section (NOTE: check direction of wind prior to zoning areas – wind direction doesn’t seem to change in game, so build your industrial and service zones, so the wind blows AWAY from your residents.). Now, I can’t find any practical solution to dealing with the air pollution. It’s not really feasible for me to relocate the industrial or residential areas at this point. I’ve tried planting trees in an effort to “clean” the air, but I don’t think that is having any effect.

Muertos Glen is my first city, and I’m purposely keeping the density small and manageable until I get the hang of things. I plan on building a true SimCity in the near future and taking advantage of loans and services from this one. If those Sims are half as happy as the Muertos Glen residents are, then city folk, get ready to move in!