SimTower

"Gone Insane Yet?"

Sim Tower is by far one of my favorite games to play. We all have bought games that we played like crazy for a few hours or days, and after awhile sit on your cd shelf collecting dust, probably to never be played again.

Sim Tower on the other hand its very addicting, even after you get the "tower" rating. I have gotten tower rating twice, and I still play on rainy days with nothing to do (and sunny days with nothing to do, being as I live in one of the most boring places on earth.)

It's the kind of game your brother will see you playing, and he will want to try. He will play it too and make terrible towers, but will love it as well. Many schools also have it (at least ones that pay more attention to the computing and learning about important things than gym class) so it is the perfect way to piss away time in class.

Now on to the review...

Story: 0/10
No story at all, when I was younger I used to make my own stories, but my imagination is gone so I can't do that anymore.

Music: 10/10
There is no music at all, and from experiences with other maxis games, that is a good thing, hence the 10 rating.

Sound: 8/10
The FX are great, but after an hour or two you are going to be hitting the "no sound" option and putting your own music on. I just wish there was an option to shoot that damn bird, like Sim City 2000 had where you could shoot down the news helicopter. It comes always when you don't expect it, so you hear a nice loud high pitched noise.

GFX: 9/10
I don't look so much for gfx in a game, and being that back when this game was released (94 was it?) if it had graphics more than what it has now, nobody would have been able to play due to memory usage from the GFX. The only thing that I didn't like much was the people, but once you hit 3 stars you will hate the people, and I'm not talking graphics.

Gameplay: 10/10
As I said in the introduction, SimTower will keep you playing for days. The Evaluation part drives everyone insane, but if it weren't for that, this would be another "play for an hour, then shelf it forever" game, as it would be to easy.
If you ever do get to Tower, you will probably do what I did, which was once i got 15k population i just built empty floors until floor 100, build a separate elevator to the church, and wait for the wedding.

Replay: 9/10
The perfect game to play if you have nothing to do, and are tired of all the little babies on CS that cry and ban you for "hacking" because you shot them in midair or something. I have gotten Tower rating many times, I am now trying to get Tower using all 109 floors (the 100 main floors and 9 basement ones) And having not one building in the red eval (call me insane, I have come very close.)

Difficulty: 7/10
It takes many hours of playing to find out the best way to build things and where to place them, it isn't just "slap offices here, put a food stop there" like most reviews and strategy guides make it sound like. The reason I gave a 7 for difficulty however, is because it is nowhere near as hard as people make it sound. Star 3 to 4 is the only hard one, 4 to 5 and 5 to tower is easy (at least by now it should, you should have a good plan developed by now.) Once you get 5 stars, it does become a "slap some offices here" because by now, your tenants are so pissed with your elevator system and you will lose tons of population each payday it will make you cry. You won't even bother trying to fix the problems, you will just keep building until the 15k population.

Rent or Buy: Buy
The game can't be more than 10 bucks at a software store or wal mart or something, you can own it forever for the cost of 2 rentals, plus you will want a good non damaged cd (I got the first scratch on my 8 year old copy the other day when i dropped it :( ) Plus if for some strange reason you don't like it, you can use it as a coaster or tape bottlerockets to it and use it as a firework frisbee (that may be even more fun that Sim Tower, but that is another story.)

To wrap this review up, SimTower is hands down worth the money if you have a good attention span, or are looking for a game to give your 10 year old sister. If you have a bad attention span or are the kind of person that plays games only because it has good graphics this one isn't for you. For the rest of us, go get SimTower now!

Reviewer's Score: 10/10, Originally Posted: 10/22/04