""...and move to Beverly" after you build it."

For my second review, let's take a look at Maxis's next game in the SimCity genre.

Before getting into the game, I want to take a moment to say that this game cannot truly be appreciated without a video card that doesn't support 3D rendering. Without it, you are missing out because Maxis has really improved the graphics for this installment. On that note...

- Graphics.
They are quite simply superb. Extra time has allowed the creators to make some of the most realistic buildings and effects in the SimCity games to date. Street lights activate as night falls and structures will cast shadows according to the light source. Just one look at the baseball stadium at night is breath taking to say the least. Individuals portraits are also 3D. Their look comes from The Sims games of course.

- Control and Interface.
If you've played SimCity 3000, it won't take that long to adjust to the new interface setup which is styled after The Sims game (I sense a trend developing here.) It's seemless and when the game wants to bring something to your attention, it will put a hyperlink of sorts in the text that will automatically select that building or item it wants you to build or adjust. If you're brand new to the genre, there's a handy tutorial included. The only thing the game doesn't do to help is build your city for you.

- Game Features.
There is actually a bit more of a real-world aspect in managing things this time. For example, instead of building a school and letting it run itself, you now get to decide what kind of school to build: elementary, high school, or college. To get the full use out of an education system, you'll eventually need all three. And each has a radius of effect upon your city. Then you get to fund it determining the number of teachers you want to hire. Too much and the schools complain about the low student to teacher ratio. Fund it too little and the teachers may go on strike!

City services work the same way. If crime is low, all you may need is a small station with two patrol cars. If things get worse, you can increase their funding (and their patrol radius) or upgrade to a larger building which can hold more police. Need more doctors then your local clinic can hold? Upgrade to a hospital. Is that small garden park no longer practical? Why not make a shoreline beach or put a tennis court down next to it?

Probably the best upgrade is the handling of income. Instead of setting every zone for one tax rate, you can now set the rate depending on how much income your Sims make. Tax the lower income Sims to death while not charging the wealthy a dime. This applies towards commercial and industrial zones too. In the case of industrial, it can drive off those high polluting lower end industries if the tax rate is high. Be careful though or you could make it so that your Sims have no place to work. One thing I really like is that there is now an industrial zone made specifically for farms. No more laying a 9x9 yellow plot and hoping a barn will appear. Transportation is changed a bit too. When laying zones, low traffic streets will be automatically placed. This method isn't perfect but that's what the bulldozer's for. Roads can handle traffic faster then streets and buses, trains, and subways are still viable options for mass transit. Trains even have the added bonus of shipping freight for industrial zones if placed near the tracks. That tiny one-runway airport no longer doing the job? Upgrade it to a municipal or even an international one.

Finally, remember how in the past when you traded with a neighboring city that they were run by the computer? Now YOU can control them. In fact, in the new God mode, you can create the entire region and control how each city interacts with the others. It's possible now to have everyone work in one city and live in the other.

- The Sims.

SimCity 4 allows you to place individual Sims in your city and track how they live. If you have The Sims games, you can even import some of your Sims there into the game. And if you don't, there's a template for you to create a few from scratch. By talking to them, you'll get a review of how you're doing. Since Sims don't like driving too far to work, if their commute is short, they'll tell you. They'll have jobs and can ask for colleges to improve themselves and get better jobs, better homes, better health, etc. Like everyone else in SimCity, if they aren't happy, they'll move out!

- Sound and Music.

Cars honk, horses whiney, Sims talk (albeit in humorous gibberish,) the wind blows, and the ocean splashes. The music is your standard Maxis tunes but if you put some of your MP3's into the proper directory, you can play your own tunes. Hmmmmm. Bulldozing to death metal. Most radical.

Overall, SimCity 4 is a great game. It definitely will take careful planning to make your city succeed and don't expect it to happen in one night. That itself makes the replayability very high. Of course, if you get too frustrated, just walk the giant robot through town or flatten it with meteors from the sky. It's all in a day's work, eh Mayor?

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 01/22/03, Updated 01/22/03