SimCity 3000

"An Excellent Tune-up to its predecessor"

When I first bought SimCity 2000, I loved it. It was the ultimate city simulator. Then some time later, this wonderful gem arrived.

*Gameplay* 8/10

This is a very simple, easy to learn game with many quirks to master. There are three widely different difficulties, where you start with 50,000 ''Simoleons''(easy), 30,000 Simoleons(Normal), or 20,000 Simoleons, but on a loan.(Hard)
When the game starts, you begin constructing your town, and slowly build it up. You have advisors to give you advice on the good and the bad of your city, and how to improve it. After a little time, your city may recieve business deals, selling water, power, or receiving garbage from other cities for small amounts of cash. After a while they ask for renegotiations and you receive more money, but have to expand your trash handling/power output/water output to handle this. The game presents many, many challenges, and I only found about 20 minutes of my many hours of playing when I was bored. Disasters add some spice to the game, as they keep you on your toes. When they are activated, you can activate a warning siren for your Sims, so they are more prepared and you lose less money after the disaster. Disasters can be disabled altogether as well.
A bug that removed this area from a 10 score was that every time you try to quit, the game simply restarts, forcing you to ctrl+alt+delete and manually close it. Sometimes if you do it at the wrong time, it will altogether freeze your system. Even the patch does not fix this.

*Story* NA
I don't see how a story could be implemented.

*Graphics* 9/10

The graphics are very sharp and clean, and you can easily tell whether buildings are of poor infrastructure or good. Several resolutions are available, allowing you to see even more of the screen at once. Others, as in showing people or cars on the streets,can be disabled or enabled at various zooms. You can zoom in and out, and rotate the game map. The landscape is significantly more realistic than in 2000, making your city seem much more alive.

*Sound* 8/10

The sound is VERY clear, the music selections are very jazzy/orchestral. I never became bored of the music, as there are 10++ tracks. They can individually be disabled, allowing you to choose the ones you like. The sound is top notch, allowing 3D sound to be activated. There are HUNDREDS of building sounds, which can be heard as you go around the various zones. Industrial area? Much steam and toil. Residential? Children playing. Commercial? Business-men conversing.
The only thing about the sound that irks me is that many times my Creative Live! 3D sound card would play out sometimes scratchy sounds, but this only happened occasionally.

*Replayability* 7/10

I've spent hundreds of hours playing this game, the only limit here is the map size. Once you've filled the map, nothing is left to be done. Money is no issue, as you get easily 250k a year on a large map. The harder difficulties add a little replay value, but the only variance is the money you recieve at the beginning. Variety, like undisable-able disasters or variance in sim behavior could've helped.

*Final Recommendations*

Because this game is aged, you can find it for under 25 dollars, making it a steal for those who have a system not too great to run SimCity 4.

Final Score:
Gameplay 8/10
Graphics 9/10
Sound 8/10
Replayability 7/10
=
8/10

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 06/08/03, Updated 06/08/03