"Look at mee.. im a city engineer!!!"

The one that started it all. SimCity. It was a hit when it came out and it still is, Maxis, who bought the series has made countless spin offs about everything from ants to towers. I’m pretty sure there have been at least 20 Sim games altogether. That really shows a lot about this game. But the point of any Sim game is to take a Nothing, and make it something. Whether it be taking a plot of land and making it a farm or tower, or taking a person with little money and making them the richest person on the block. This intriguing idea is what makes the Sim game such a good idea. They might not have the best graphics or even sound. But they always have impressing gameplay that can addict anyone for weeks at a time.

Gameplay

Sim City is simply amazing when it comes to gameplay. You can do one of 2 things at the start. The first is start a scenario. Scenarios range from flooding to earthquakes to spiraling debt. Basically, you are given a task to accomplish within a certain time. And it takes quick and cunning thinking to stay on top of your city. Make one wrong move or forget something, and you could pay dearly. Every little detail must be taken into consideration for success. Something that most other strategy games didn’t have in the late 80’s. The second mode that you can play is “Create a city” which allows you to start with 20 grand and build your own city. I must say I prefer this mode to scenario because it allows for a much larger timeframe and way more freedom to expand. Although you have a pre made/planned city in scenario, I find it much more rewarding to build a city from nothing and expand when necessary, expanding. To start off, you can build roads, zone residential areas, industrial areas, and commercial areas. Each area depends on eachother so you must be careful where you locate them and how much you put in. Because if you put too much industrial and too little residential, you’ll never fill the industrial area with buildings. Therefore, it would just be wasted space. SimCity is full of challenging positions that you need to beat. Even though it may seem impossible, it makes you want to play every waking moment for weeks and weeks because you KNOW you can beat it, but every time you try, you fail. And the feeling of self accomplishment when you finally beat this game is almost unimaginable. Because you really need to be intelligent to do it. Overall, I’m giving this game a 10 in gameplay for being so advanced for the late 80’s.
10/10

Graphics

Nothing exciting in graphics. The view is top-down and the buildings are barely animated. The little plumes of smoke have about 2 animations and once in a while, you’ll be able to see a plane/helicopter flying over the city or a cruise ship sailing through the port. Considering the age of the game and the advantages these graphics hold is good but I still think they could have done more work in this category.
7/10

Sound

Theres even less in this category than others. This game makes about 7 sounds. You get one sound for planting power, police, and fire dept. and a few sounds for traffic helicopter and the odd “honk honk” in the traffic. And there is NO background music while you play. Which gets kind of boring when your playing for 5 hours and all you hear is beep beep, honk honk This is one category where SimCity not only failed, but they didn’t even try in the first place!
3/10

Control

The control is average… what can you say? You just point and click and rarely use the keyboard. Ill give the game some credit anyway for making things easy to use.
10/10

Replay Value

Well, I wouldn’t say you’ll want to play this game once, and then play it again and again and again. But you’ll play it in bunches. I don’t know how to explain it. But you’ll play it for about a week and a half before you get sick of it. But maybe every 2 or 3 months, you’ll go “Oh I remember that game” and once again you’ll be hooked on it. And just because of that, I’m giving it a high replay value because this process can go on for years. Like in my case, I’ve had this game 10 years now, and every 9 or 10 months I give this game a try and get hooked again. VERY FEW games have the ability to do that.
9/10

Overall
SimCity is an absolute must have for any computer gamer. It may seem outdated, considering there have been there have been 3 sequels and countless spin offs. But you’ll be proud knowing you had the game that started fierce strategic thinking. And a note to those who own SimCity 3000. You can download SimCity from Maxis by registering to their website. So theres an easy way for anyone with a popular game to try this classic out.
8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/13/02, Updated 06/13/02