"The Sequel To The Ultimate City Builder Finally Arrives!!!"

Well, i suppose any sim or theme fan will probably know what Sim City 2000 is all about. So, i will try and make my review as short as possible. Yes, the sequel to the original ultimate city builder game has finally arrived on the PC. If you love the original, then this is definitely a must for you.

I'll briefly explain what it is all about. Your job is to build a city. Yes, isn't it obvious? Everyone can easily build a city, right? But, the question is how you manage the city? Is your budget enough? Do you need to raise or deduct taxes? How are you going to design your city? Like where should the infrastructure be? Should this be built here or there? How do i solve the problems of water shortages? How should i design water pipes and power lines?

Unless its predecessor, Sim City 2000 uses a three-fourth perspective instead of the overhead view. As a result, the amount of detail has been raised. Not only are the buildings in the city look much more better animated, you can view your city from different angles, specially created for you. You can now rotate your camera angle in clockwise or anticlockwise direction. Not only that, you can zoom in or out your city. The PC version, in my opinion, looks far more better than the PlayStation version. Besides, the PlayStation gives you only the option to zoom in or out only once while the PC version allows you to zoom in or out many times. Sadly, the PC version doesn't has the first-person view cruise that the PlayStation has.

The music and sound effects aren't really much to talk about. They are about average at best, if not pretty mediocre. Hey, what can you really expect? While the background tune is pretty neat, it does get old after listening for a couple of times. The sound effects are quite nicely done. For example, when there's a fire, you can really hear the sound of a flame.

As for the buildings that you can build, there are quite a lot. I will just breifly go through everything. There are three main zones, naming residential, commercial and industrial. Each of these three zones can later be divided into light zones and heavy zones. so, how do you build? First, just select a plot of land that you want. Let's choose a heavy residential zone and then highlight the plot of land that you want. Then, just wait for a while and you will see buildings being built. The same goes to commerical and industrial as well.

Infrastructure includes roads, tunnels, railways and so on. Then, there are also police stations, fire stations, hospitals, college, prison and so on, which you can build. Of course, an airport and a seaport are also essential for a flourished city. Then, there are different kinds of power plants including Solar Power Plant, Hydroelectric Power Plant and so on. Each power plant brings in advantages and disadvantages. For example, even though a nuclear power plant can generate a lot of electricity, there is also a risk of a nuclear explosion. Recreational activities include parks, zoos, stadiums and so on.

One advantage that the PC version has over the PlayStation version is actually the control. I have to admit that using a PlayStation controller pad to play Sim City 2000 is extremely annoying and fustrating. Though, the PlayStation version of Sim City 2000 supports the PlayStation mouse, how many PlayStation owners here actually do own a PlayStation mouse? I can bet that 9 out of 10 people who is reading this review will probably don't have a PlayStation mouse at home. So, that's a major plus for the PC Sim City 2000.

Even though Sim City 2000 has improved quite tremendously over its predecessor, mainly those who love the original game or management games will most likely to welcome it. New gamers, who don't satisfy the two conditions mention above, will most unlikely to welcome it. The PC version gets the score as the PlayStation version, that is a 7. Give a + 1 for better graphics and another + 1 for better control for the PC version and a - 2 for without the first person cruise that the PlayStation version has.

Graphics : 8.0/10.0
Concept : 6.5/10.0
Control : 7.0/10.0
Music : 4.0/10.0
Sound : 6.5/10.0
Gameplay : 7.5/10.0
Replay : 7.0/10.0
Challenge : 8.0/10.0
Presentation : 7.0/10.0
Overall : 7.0/10.0

Reviewer's Score: 7/10, Originally Posted: 03/16/00, Updated 12/16/02