"Simcity 4, a great game."

Maxis is known to be one of the greatest videogame companies in terms of pure simulation and gameplay, and this has been confirmed by all-time classics such as the “Simcity series” and the top-selling pc game of all time, “The Sims”. Simcity 4, the latest installment in the simcity series definitely lives up to its name.

Simcity is a game based on you first creating any type of land with some godlike powers, and then later on creating a city from scratch with some money. You have to strive to get a city running watching out for your budget.

What’s new in this latest version is the regions. When you start out the game you have to select one of many “spaces” (which are called regions) and you can build a city there. You can then connect this city’s resources, such as water, electricity, etc, to another nearby region and provide the resource for them for a price and make a profit. This creates a trade between the various regions.

Graphics:

The game’s graphics are overall impressive, with more detail being put in than the previous installments, and you can adjust to put in various effects. However, the system I am using has an Ati radeon, and the game’s details blur out when I try to scroll around the map. This bug is immediately corrected as soon as I stop scrolling, but this has created me some irritations. Maxis better do something about this in one of their patches. Of course, the graphics don’t give a 3D impression such as what Warcraft 3 or Age of Mythology offer, but this game is more of a strategy simulation game, so the graphics aren’t that important.

Audio:

The game’s audio is relaxing, and a nice addition is that you can also put some of your own music into the game, instead of listening to the game’s tracks, which are still nice. The game’s sound effects are what you would expect, when you demolish a building you hear a “demolishing” type of sound, and when you build a powerplant you hear some electric charges. Again, like graphics, it’s nothing extraordinary, it just serves as an addition.

Gameplay-wise, this game excels in giving you a life-like experience of creating your own city. There are some things which however I would have liked to have seen: the great arco buildings in the previous games, the possibility to download cities and put them in some of your regions would have been an awesome feature, and you can also import some of your sims into simcity 4 as your counselors, but they don’t really give you any important tips, other than telling you what they like or some of their hobbies.

Overall, I would highly recommend Simcity 4 to anyone who liked the previous Simcity games, or even if you don’t like simulation city games, I would still recommend trying it.

Reviewer's Score: 9/10, Originally Posted: 03/01/03, Updated 03/01/03