I haven’t played SimCity since highschool. I do remember that it was awesome fun though. It seems that the next version, SimCity Societies decided to take on a more realistic bent, particularly in regard to the environment.

Environmental choices early in the game will effect long term outcomes. For example, eco-friendly energy options are more expensive in the short term, but prevent global warming destroying your city and costing massive amounts of money in the long term.

I think that this is fabulous. I am sick of media simply reflecting broken culture. I love it when a movie or a comic book, or a game makes an effort to challenge the staus quo, and use its influence to spread awareness and information. I also love anything that encourages people to use their brains and look at long term consequences instead of sitting in the short term. Hopefully it will lead to more people doing it in real life, not just in a computer game.