SimCity 2000

"Sim City Lite! v1.5"

If I could get away with keeping it very short I'd just say that this game simply is great for what you can get from a GBA cart, but it deserves explanation with my title to this review. Sim City 2000 if you are expecting a straight port of the PC version will probably be a let down. If you were expecting a good Sim City experience on the go, look no further.

Notable changes from the original I will list in this section as I can recall them. The largest omission from the game is the undeground/water management. There are no pipes, no water reclamation/pumping, hydroelectric plants, and subway tunnels. I for one enjoy this as it was always a needless pain in the you know what that for me made me enjoy the original Sim City more as the relaxing experience. Another omission from the game is the instant access to your funding, ordinances, and loans as they now only are accessible from the year end totals. Other very minor changes are just scaling back of extra little fluff like the newspapers, elevation changes, and being able to name places and pick which teams are in the stadiums. The big true problem with the game though is the inability (as far as I know at this point) to check the population which is kind of the point of Sim City 2nd to enjoyable city construction.

Overall the game is a very tight package with a few things scaled back here and there, but mostly they are acceptable. Consider SC2K was a PC game that used many MB of RAM to run, buffer the areas, activities etc. Now consider the GBA has 3/4 of a MB of RAM and be happy with what's there. It may miss some of the above, might have minimal animations in the game, little flaws here and there, but overall an awesome package. Given in this small work space are 4 well sized maps and 4 scenarios that are fun to use. Considering the overall area to work on, and the format, as well as knowing how bad the PDA versions of this game have been, it's quite a treasure and fun to play. Overall I give it a fair 8/10 as some of the losses are fine, others are just wrong (no population meter), but all in all a game I'd recommend to a SC2K player.

Reviewer's Score: 8/10, Originally Posted: 12/13/03