The Totalitarian Buddhist Who Beat SIM City (2010)

Summary

I'm English, but when I was twelve I lived in North Carolina and went to an inner-city school a bit like that one in The Wire. I only have two memories of that time. One, of police arresting one of my classmates in the middle of Social Studies, (I never saw him again), and two, of technology lessons that consisted of us sitting two to a computer, playing the original Sim City; presumably to stop us fighting each other for one hour a day.That was the first time I played Sim City. Later, I got my first computer with Sim City 2000. I dicked around with it for about a week before realizing I'd rather gun down Nazis in Spear of Destiny, than thanklessly lay down four square miles of sewage piping for silent citizens.Not Vincent Ocasla though. Vince spent four years wallowing in equations and graph paper building a totalitarian Sim City hellscape called Magnasanti, racking up a population of six million and claiming to beat an otherwise unbeatable game. Watch this and get scared:I saw this mind-blowing video a month ago, but only just managed to track Vincent down on Facebook. He's a 22-year-old architecture student living in the Philippines, and I felt a little bit better after discovering he's just a normal dude, not Krang from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.Vice: I think most people's natural inclination after watching your video would be awe, followed by fear. Vincent: I am in agreement. That was part of the intent of the video, for those that know, play, and love the game.Not to presume you didn't have fun building and developing Magnasanti, but your approach to Sim City doesn't seem like you really treat it as a game anymore. For me, SimCity 3000 is more than just a game. It has evolved to become a tool or medium for artistic self-expression. While most games today are focused on destroying things and killing other players, Sim City instead allows one to exercise the imagination to create, and express. Many people say, "Oh, it's just a game!" But they are mistaken.God...