When comparing SimCity vs SpaceChem, the Slant community recommends SpaceChem for most people. In the question“What are the best PC games that don't revolve around killing people?” SpaceChem is ranked 22nd while SimCity is ranked 36th. The most important reason people chose SpaceChem is:
In particular, abstraction and concurrent programming skills could be gleaned from the game as it uses broad techniques often used by computer programmers.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Includes tourism
Pro City socialization
City socialization add in an extra element of story and advancement allowing user to specialize in certain fields that will allow for expanded options and buildings.
Pro Stable and runs well on lower end systems
SimCity runs well on mid range hardware with little to no crashing.
Pro Design any city you want
SimCity allows for users to play and build how they like. From small country or suburban towns to huge cities and all the perils and gains they bring.
Pro Could help with real life programming skills
In particular, abstraction and concurrent programming skills could be gleaned from the game as it uses broad techniques often used by computer programmers.
Pro Easy to learn, hard to master puzzle
Spacechem's mechanics are pretty simple to learn and only takes minutes to understand how the game works. Of course mastering the gameplay is a whole different matter.
Pro Allows for short or long play sessions
The gameplay allows for a player to come in and solve a single puzzle in a short amount of time or to sit and tinker with a puzzle for hours trying to devise the perfect solution and contraption. It all comes down to what one want to put into the game but the free form of the puzzle solving is what makes it great for anyones playstyle be it short or long.
Pro Light on the system
The system requirements are quite low at only requiring a 2Ghz processor, 1G of ram and 300MB of hard drive space. Basically this game should work on just about any computer from the last 10-15 years.
Pro Endless gameplay through user created solutions
An individual players choices of components, arrangements or factories used will result in completely different experiences and problems/puzzles when compared to another users experience. A truly individualized experience that expands the games replayability.
Cons
Con Limited building space
SimCity limits the payers amount of building space which can ultimately prohibit the creativeness of a players city building.
Con Always on DRM
Simcity features always online DRM, even for it's single player campaigns.
Con City to city resource sharing is limited
City to city resource sharing can only take place if both cities are able to provide said resource with one borrowing some from the other. There is no way to share resources with a city that for instance does not have a power plant and power is what the player wants to share.
Con Takes a lot of dedication and time to learn the ins and outs of planning a city
Even after 100 hours users can still be learning about different features or plans on how to expand their towns from the earliest outsets.
Con Annoying action-y 'boss' stages
At the end of each 'world', there is a boss stage in which you have to perform a unique task. This wouldn't be too bad, but in these levels, you can use blocks that you can activate in real time to change the way your program runs. This often means lots of manual work and a lot of padding to hit the buttons at the right time, which is unnecessary for a puzzle game (and, given that you cannot rewind, also stressful if your program is very tight). I would imagine that the best scores for these levels also overly abuse this feature to make solutions that would be almost impossible without use of macros, for instance.
Con Late game is difficult
In later levels some players may reach a point where the game has become too difficult or frustrating, which may discourage any more play time with the game.