SimCity 3000 Unlimited

"More like SimCity 3001"

I was one of the first people to get Maxis's masterpiece SimCity 3000. So imagin my surprise when Maxis pratically releases the same game again 2 years after SC3k came out. Are the changes worth buying this game?

-Story-
Your the new mayor who's basic job is to zone new areas for houses, shops and factorys while balancing the three. You need to keep your sims happy, and various people will till you how to run your job. It all comes down to finding a fine balance for every thing oh and try to keep the budget in the black. Gotta love GodSims.

-Gameplay-
This has always been the staple of the SimCity series. If you have ever played SimCity or SimCity 2000, or SimCity 3000, you may remember the basic concept. Build roads, put zones in, give them power and water access. Build schools for the kids and Hospitals for the old crazy people (no offense to those who maybe one or the other :) ) and put in some nice recreation facilities for the people with nothing better to do. To do all this you move your mouse around and pretty much click on the menus you need, then just drag and click on the main playing field. But dont forget you need money to do all this. Money is quite hard to come by in the begining of the game. So your pretty much stuck trying to pack people in small amounts of space until you have a budget you can use to improve their lives. Once in a while you'll find a way to make some money , either threw neighbor deals or through one of those ''land deals'' (somebody puts a dirty building on your land and give you money to keep them their). If you never master money then you'll find yourself with a new job (they will actually fire you). But their are also rewards for achiving certin milestones which add to some replay value. Same great gameplay as all the other Sims but with some new bells and whistles. If you get board with that go and try the Scenario games.

-Graphics-
Actually there are some new graphics but most of the graphics are reused from SimCity 3000. There are now 3 sets of graphics. American cities, European cities, and Asian Cities. Each are different enough to give you a ''im there feeling'' but really they are the same build with just a different color. There are even different climate types now. Want to build a city in the desert? Now's your chance. Want to build a city at the North Pole? Plenty of Snow to go around now. Otherwise the graphics are exactly like SimCity 3K.

-Audio-
Some of the tracks from SimCity 3000 return. But there are some new songs too. There is quite a range of tracks really. From Asian to Funky, to Broadway. All very nice. I would listen to the music independent of the game.

-Replay-
With SimCity, each city will be different. The random landscape generator is actually improved from SC3K which allows more fine tuning of landscape. You can also go to Simcity.com to find all the latest landmarks and cities.

-SimCity 3000 vs SimCity 3000 Unlimited-
This is where ill list some differences
New to the game:
Landmarks
Landscape Generator
Customize Building maker
Scenario Generator
New Building sets for Asia and Europe
New Maps
New Disasters
New Music
New ''in game goodies''

Everything else is just like SimCity 3000.

The Final Tally:
Story: 10 (your the new mayor who has strange ''Godlike'' powers)
Gameplay: 10 (The gameplay is still the same from SC3K)
Graphics: 8 (same great graphics from the last game)
Audio : 9 (Fun tunes that would be great played by themselves)
Replay: 10 (No two games are the same)
My Score: 9
GameFaqs Score : 9

Sidenote: First I realized I didnt exactly go indepth with my values too much. This game really is more of an add on then a new game. If you want more indepth review of the parts of this game go read my review for SimCity 3000. I basically did this review to help those who already own SimCity3000 decided if they should get SimCity 3000 Unlimited. I found that there wernt any reviews really talking about the changes between the two. My score review for SimCity 3000 was a tad higher this score because while I like the changes I dont feel Maxis added enough to create a new game that I should go buy. So for those who already own SimCity 3000. You probably dont need this latest version, wait for SimCity 4000.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 12/02/01, Updated 12/02/01