The SimCity series, like Civilisation, is one of those few series of games which can claim to be truly great. For those of you who aren't familiar with the genre, in SimCity you become the (unelected) Mayor of a city, and must build roads, schools, hospitals, police stations, tourist traps, ... Read review
Advantages: Amazing detail, endless possibilities, addictive, brilliant. Disadvantages: Can at times be very hard. Not for the gamer who wants action.
The SimCity series, like Civilisation, is one of those few series of games which can claim to be truly great. For those of you who aren't familiar with the genre, in SimCity you become the (unelected) Mayor of a city, and must build roads, schools, hospitals, police stations, tourist traps, airports, railways, and so on and so forth ad infinitum in order to encourage residents and businesses to move in.
Let's start with what will be ... ...build by zoning Residential, Industrial, or Commercial (though now you can zone farmland too, instead of just hoping a farm would turn up), the old favourites are still here like the Mayor's House, the Statue etc, Landmarks (though now you have to pay for them) and so on. There are now two sizes for lots of buildings that were formerly only available in one size - so now there are Small and Large Police Stations and Fire Stations, A Medical Clinic ... more
The SimCity series, like Civilisation, is one of those few series of games which can claim to be truly great. For those of you who aren't familiar with the genre, in SimCity you become the (unelected) Mayor of a city, and must build roads, schools, hospitals, police stations, tourist traps, airports, railways, and so on and so forth ad infinitum in order to encourage residents and businesses to move in.
Let's start with what will be familiar to players of earlier versions of SimCity: you still build by zoning Residential, Industrial, or Commercial (though now you can zone farmland too, instead of just hoping a farm would turn up), the old favourites are still here like the Mayor's House, the Statue etc, Landmarks (though now you have to pay for them) and so on. There are now two sizes for lots of buildings that were formerly only available in one size - so now there are Small and Large Police Stations and Fire Stations, A Medical Clinic and a Large Medical Center as hospitals, Minor and Major league stadiums and so on. This is particularly useful when building small towns which don't need the services of the larger buildings. There are no new Power Plants (though the Fusion plant has been replaced with a Hydrogen Plant), nothing new in the way of Water Treatment etc., and all the usual trash-disposal systems from SimCity 3000 are still here, more or less unchanged. The Rewards system is better than ever before: rewards are given based not only on population (like in SimCity 2000) but on all sorts of factors, like your popularity as mayor, the number of tourists who visit your city, the number of parks in your city, and countless more. New rewards include a Radio Station, Filming Studio, Country Club, University and many more. As in SimCity 3000 there are "business deals" also with less reputable establishments who want to place certain buildings on your land in exchange for cash. Watching missiles launch from the missile silo is particularly spectacular. Disasters are also back, with some new ones: meteorite strikes (which you can aim and then steer around as they fall), volcanic erruptions and lightning strikes. As with previous versions, there is a supernatural alien-type disaster also, this time in the form of a rocket powered alien robot who shoots flying discs of death from his chest. In short, any player familiar with previous versions will already know the basics of this one.
There are however a LOT of major changes to the game, mostly good ones too. The first thing any veteran will notice is that maintenence has increased a LOT. You simply won't be able to do everything you like: managing your budget, which before was simply a case of not implementing too many ordinances, is now a complex balancing act that will take you a while to get the hang of. SimCity 4 is a lot harder than any of its predecessors, and this may turn newbies off: be warned!
Most of the changes however simply add to the gaming experience. As well as Light, Medium and Dense zones, you can also see the relative wealth of the residents and businesses which move in. For example, Industry ranges from low-level farms and filthy oil refineries (low-wealth), to manufacturing factories (mid-wealth) and high-tech electronics industries (high-wealth). The High-Wealth businesses and residents will pay more taxes but are much more picky about settling in polluted areas, areas without access to water, education, health facilities etc. - you have no direct control over who will occupy your land, but you can attract higher-wealth citizens by making your city a good place to live. Or just offering them low taxes.
The final major change (apart from an over-hyped and rather pointless "MySim" feature which allows you to track the progress of a particular citizen, which sounds cool but doesn't in fact offer you anything you can't normally find out) is in the save-load system, of all places: now, your cities occupy a certain spot within a Region: wheras previously players had "neighbours" who were nothing but pictures of strange Mayors who occasionally offered you deals with regards to rubbish, electricity and/or water, now there are no neighbours: or rather, you have to build them yourself! Now your cities can interact with each other: you might choose to build a filthy industrial city to take away all the trash of a pristine, perfect, green city. Sims can commute between cities to find work, and the demands on one city are affected by supply from neighbours as well as from its own turf.
Finally, a note on graphics: this is the most graphically spectactular game I have ever played. You can zoom in and watch goalkeepers save goals in your stadiums, or zoom right out and see your city covered with clouds. In every way, perfect. It even scrolls from day to night.
...and running your own city, Sim City 4 is definitely a cut above it's previous incarnations. It maintains the same addictive qualities, but has managed to eradicate some of the slightly more irritating aspects of the game.
It is beautiful to look at, fairly easy to pick up and highly playable. The features and levels of the games have expanded, enabling you to appreciate the game on both a large (regional) and a small (individual person) level.
... ...delawney and I am a Sim City addict.
It all started back with Sim City 2 sometime in the dim and distant past. I remember many a night thinking "I'll go to bed in a minute" and then eventually craling under the covers past three in the morning with work the next day. But although highly addictive (it must be a power thing) the novelty slowly wore off as the little annoyances of the game - like forever having to repair roads - eventually got the ...
delawney 20.04.2003
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sim City 4 (PC)
Advantages: city simulation, all the features of the predecessors Disadvantages: could have had more improvements, very less cities and regions
Simcity from Maxis is one of those games which need no introduction. Most of the gamers would have already tried or seen this games somewhere, and there may be some who might have got attached to it. The latest version of the game also doesn't differ too much from its predecessors, making it a sequel which extends its prequels. There are a few changes, but they won't be affecting the game as a whole. This will be a great option for the people who ... ...have lost the touch, you may find it a bit difficult to maintain the whole thing even with a few tutorials around.
MINIMUM SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS Operating System: Windows XP/ME/2000/98 (Windows 95/NT not supported) CPU: 500 MHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon processor RAM: 128 MB of system RAM
CD/DVD-Rom Speed: 8X Hard Drive Space: 1 gig plus space for saved games Video: 16 MB video card, DirectX 7 compatible Sound: DirectX 7.0 compatible Input ...
existtoinspire 21.07.2007
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sim City 4 (PC)
Advantages: Blowing my city up at the end. Disadvantages: A soul destroying maze of politics.
SIM CITY 4
The Sims have been around as a concept for a long time, and I thought I would take the plunge and see what the experience was like. I imagined that it was a matter of creating a world, and then making things happen, a bit like a play city, and looked forward to the challenge. I am not a youngster, but an older person who wanted to find a game that was fun to play.
Sim City Deluxe Edition comes on two discs, with a very well explained ... ...it new at fifteen pounds, because other versions have since come out, and I figured that if I tried it as this less expensive level, I may get a feel for what Sims is all about. On the outside of the DVD box, there are very specific instructions about what configuration you need in order to play Sims and for those to whom this information is important, the requirements shown are as follows :
Windows 98 through to XP
A Processor of 500 Mhz or more
...
thingywhatsit 30.03.2006
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sim City 4 (PC)
Advantages: a visual feast, absorbing gameplay, months and months of gameplay potential Disadvantages: difficult learning curve at first, the months will disappear
...games. So lo and behold, Sim City was born. It’s creator Will Wright had set out to build a basic economical simulator based on simple rules of supply and demand. The ‘game’ was one of the first ‘edutainment’ titles in that it was not a full blow adrenalin pumping game, but also it was not a pure research tool. You started the game with an empty map (which you could edit) and a finite bank balance with which you had to build up a fully working city ... ...eye with a R-Tic lorry, Sim City gained a cult following in the PC circles were gamers were used to the more simulation based games. Indeed it truly was grand father of resource/strategy based games such as Age of Empires, C & C, the ‘Theme’ series and so many more.
***************** Sim City goes Global *****************
The sequel, Sim City 2000 (release about ‘93-‘94) really caused the series to take of big time. It was bigger better, with great ...
Sandman 06.08.2003 (14.08.2003)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sim City 4 (PC)
Advantages: Extremely realistic and has lots of things to keep you busy for a long time. Disadvantages: Can get very repetitive every time you start a new city.
...on, God Mode and My Sim Mode (more about these below), and the ability to add real world landmarks to your city.
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God Mode
God Mode helps to add a whole new level of customisation to SimCity. Among other things, it allows the player to sculpt the landscape using a variety of ‘terraforming’ tools by changing the look of the selected plot on the region screen, and thus allowing you ... ...throughout the city.
My Sim Mode
My Sim Mode is a completely new feature to SimCity games. It involves moving sims (small computerised people) into your city so that they can give you feedback about what is good and what isn’t about your city. There are many different sims provided with the game to choose from, but one feature, which I was looking forward to but now find quite disappointing, is that you can import sims, from a version of The Sims ...
kyle_rae87 26.02.2004 (27.02.2004)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Sim City 4 (PC)
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Advantages: Great Game Disadvantages: ABSOLUTLY NONE, SO FAR!
Finally, a game that isn?t that expensive, but is well worth the money that you do pay for it. If you?re like me then you will absolutely love games like The Sims, Theme Hospital and games like that. Well now, we have a new MASTER game to play. Brought to us by Maxis and EA Games we have the ultimate expansion pack. SimCity4 ? Rush Hour.
This game is probably the best PC game that I have ever played. It is extremely addictive and not a game for the faint of heart, no, with this game you have to be impulsive and act on instincts. You have to provide the Sims that live in your City with the best facilities available to them, and now, you can actually be like a Sim and drive around in free-drive mode or with the new U-Drive it missions.
Incase you have not encountered any SimCity games before then, here is what the games is all ...
Advantages: Good value, enjoyable, open-ended, detailed Disadvantages: Can eat up RAM, certain functions are very demanding on computer resources
SimCity is a long running and successful games franchise that has now spawned four distinct versions. I've been playing since SimCity 3000. SimCity4 was released in early 2003 giving graphical updates and boasting higher levels of detail than ever before. Rush Hour the expansion pack added many transportation options that really enrich and improve the game. The original SimCity4 is required to play this expansion pack.
A quick background on SimCity4: you can play mayor and sculpt your city from the ground up, zone areas for development, add government buildings, build transportation networks and meet your citizen?s every need. You can even now import sims from ?The Sims? and move a maximum of five into buildings to receive feedback. You can then play god throwing a number of disasters such as volcanoes and comets into your city ...
Advantages: Adds Even More Great features to a game thats hard to beat already Disadvantages: Cant think apart from a fair bit of space on hard drive.
to free drive around your pride and joy or you can do missions in which you can ither gain your mayor rating or do alternative missions to gain cash. There is also the bonus feature if you still have the first sims saved on your pc you can upload them into your city or if you dont have any saved you get a choice of sims to live & work in your city.
They can be helpfull by telling you their likes and dislikes to help you in mantaining your citys appeal.
My Favourite part with this add on is the fact you can click on anything and find out where all your little peeps are going and what mode of transport their using.
If your anything like me and love these sort of games then trust me you will love this one but remeber you must have SimCity4 first to play it. I Bought this game as soon as i seen it back in 2004 i think and even now it ...
