Yesterday the General Manager of the Maxis Emeryville studio Patrick Buechner of EA's SimCity took to their blog to bring some happy news to the few gamers still playing the game:  They will soon be able to play the game offline.  With Update 10 SimCity will get a new Single Player Mode, which will allow players to start a game session completely offline and play alone.  The multiplayer features that rankled so many are still in there, there's just the option to also play the game the way it should have been from the start.

The always online feature was a disasterous choice by the dev team, and cost them most of the community since it really strayed from the original concept of the game.  The question is, is it too little too late?  Perhaps not. I know I never bought the game myself, after their launch failures and hefty price tag -- and that's something I might reconsider now that I know I can play the game the way I want to.  No, I don't have a situation where I normally play games in the absence of the Internet, but I like knowing that if I head someplace remote or travel, I will have a game on my laptop that can be played without paying for hotel WiFi.

But I put the question to you:  Did you play SimCity?  Would you play it now that it will have offline play?  Or is this just a question of EA being too late to the party?  Can a title released last year really get a new lease on life from one little change?