Don't call it number 5

Just spotted this on the ever-lovely Gamershell. Sim City Societies is a fascinating endeavour, as it's a Sim game without any Maxis/Will Wright involvement, and it's looking to make a clean break with the series' chequered but always entertaining past.

This trailer strongly demonstrates that the focus is very different this time around, leaning on the individual buildings and overall aesthetic of your city more than its zone layout and efficiency. I've certainly a tinge of regret that the Sim City 2000 lineage seems to been have brutally curtailed, but, if this is going for the sort of self-expression that the Sims allows, it's potentially very exciting.

I'm also amused that the first style nice-voiceover-lady suggests after saying "create the city that you want" isn't a cheerful Simstown or rural paradise, but "a city of grim authoritarian oppression" - which rather suggests EA understands gamers more than it sometimes lets on. They know exactly what I'd do, anyway.