SimCity 2000

The Good
The game has just a really cool concept. Yeah, that concept was obviously present before, since this is a sequel, but it was the first version of SC that I was exposed to... so I might be a little biased.

You also get sweet little perks and incentives along the way, as you reach population goals. For instance, your citizens endow you with a mansion when your town hits 2,000 residents. These cool little bonuses keep you striving to make your city bigger and bigger.

The option to create your own map is great, choosing exactly where you want there to be hills, trees, and bodies of water. I always enjoyed doing fun, fantasy things like creating a small island that would eventually house my mayor's mansion and statue.

The game was really created with a good sense of humor, and that's one of its best features. The comical nature of your town's newspapers make for a good laugh now and then - the game's writers created a kind of "mad libs" style for articles, with random words being placed into serious sounding reports... so reading them as actual news can be quite hilarious! Newspapers also keep tabs on how your population feels about pollution, crime, etc.

The Bad
After awhile, you do hit the wall on your city and find yourself filling up your map just for the sake of it. The true fun is when you're founding your new city and struggling to make it profitable and efficient, so once you've accomplished that, it becomes simply about repeating the formula over and over again until every square of available real estate is populated.

The game is really easy. There seems to be a make-or-break point in each city where you're barely making any money, hardly affording one square of electrical line... and then suddenly you're making money hand-over-fist and your biggest problem is maintaining your police stations (one of every corner, practically!) and choosing which expensive amenity to add to your city next... smooth sailing from here on. There's not much that makes one game of SC2000 different from the next.

There's quite a number of ways the developers could have expanded the game... It would've been really cool to be able to interact with neighboring cities (trade, tourism, sports rivalries) or to have more control over your citizens.

I usually stop playing once arcologies are invented, the game really ceases to be fun at that point for me. Tearing up the "normal" parts of your city to create these space age monstrosities takes away any sense of realism you may feel about your city.

The worst part of the game has to be the limited life span of every single power plant you build (except wind turbines). Whether your plant is solar, nuclear, or coal - it will explode 50 years after being built. If you have the funds in your bank, the game automatically deducts it from your total and re-builds the plant itself, but if not, you have to deal with angry blacked-out citizenry and figure out a way to scrape together thousands of simolians, quick! By the time you've filled your map up, you have so many power plants built that it becomes flat-out annoying to deal with. Not so much a challenge, just endlessly annoying!

Other nuisances that take up too much of your time is dealing with water shortages (building water pump after water pump, year after year) and having to put police stations on nearly every corner just to keep crime in check.

The Bottom Line
This game is a lot of fun, but like any sim game, can get old after awhile... as you figure out patterns and strategies that work every time, or hit the point where your city becomes profitable and the early challenges disappear.

If you're fan of sim games, you have to give this one a try...

The Good
This game is and was enormously fun to play - that is the bottom line. There are plenty of variables and factors to manipulate, and oodles of cool tweaks and things to do. The possibilities are endless - from designing your own map to buying the add-ons, like the urban renewal kit. You can also build Llama domes.

The Bad
After a little while, it does get a bit repetitive, as your city crawls across the map like a multiplying body of bacteria. You're basically building the same stuff over and over until you run out of space. However, there is an ultimate goal behind it all, when you build launch arcos and they explode (launch into space).

The Bottom Line
It is a City Simulator. You are the mayor of a brand new city, and you determine (with dictatorial control) the appearance and fate of the city. You do the actual building, and you manipulate the behind-the-scenes factors that determine how the city will grow (such as tax rates, zoning rules, and ordinances). The game is hilarious, with very strange and funny newspaper articles to announce how your city is doing and oddball disasters that come to destroy your city. It's a wee microcosm of life. Nothing lasts forever, and at any moment, a twister can come and wipe your stuff out. In truth, it is one of the most addictive, purely stimulating games I have ever played.

The Good
This game was bundled on my newly acquired Macintosh Centris 650 (68040 with a floating point math co-processor) running System 7.1. Some of the sound effects were improved but the gameplay is still the same as with its DOS counterpart, but I think Maxis (the creator behind this game) worked on improving the original SimCity in a 3-D perspective, which is really cool. One reason is that SimCity 2000 was "originally" developed for the Macintosh and that's why I think this city-building game is still the best around on this platform of choice for this review. Believe me!

The Bad
None at the moment.

The Bottom Line
For me, the game is a must have for anyone! But this game should be good enough for a 68040 or Power Macintosh computer running System 7. (And yes, I have a Macintosh Centris 650 which I told you earlier that the game was pre-loaded on it.) Looking back at this game gave me good memories on the Windows 9x side, but for the Macintosh, it's a pretty different world out there, and SimCity 2000 revolutionizes the Macintosh Gaming Industry of the early 90s. Definitely a good grab for anyone who likes city-building games for the Macintosh.

The Good
The follow-up to the seminal SimCity, an unputdownable game. The sequal carried on in this fashion and added isometric graphics which no doubt added to the game.

The Bad
What makes the original better for me is the lack of waterpipes and the lack of complication. Too many new buildings added more complication. I prefered the simplicity and pure addictiveness of the original.

The Bottom Line
Briliant game, be sure to check out the original though, although it is dated.

The Good
I personally didn't like the top-down view of the original SimCity very much. The new isometric view is simply great since you can see your city from a much wider angle. You can even rotate the view in 90-degree increments, which gives a pseudo-3D impression.

The graphics look glorious in 256-color 640x480 SVGA. You can see all the tiny details thanks to the higher color depth and resolution. The interface is polished -- using the toolbar is much more intuitive. A new help feature (pressing the Shift key while clicking on an icon) greatly reduces the learning curve as well.

The terrain has now elevations, which can be completely customized. So instead of relying the random land generation algorithm, you can create hills, mountains, waterfalls, lakes, etc. on your own.

The addition of "light zones" is a definite plus. In this way you can rid of those ugly apartment buildings. You can now build elementary schools, high schools, and colleges to give a broad range of education options to your citizens. In addition you can also build hospitals and zoos, which the original lacked.

The Bad
You will need a fast 486 or Pentium for a smooth gaming experience.

The Bottom Line
SimCity 2000 is a classic piece of realistic simulation software which is both fun and addicting. Prepare to spend hundreds of hours on this "game".

The Good
I don't exactly know why it is that I dislike this game and most other people don't, but it must have something to do with it being a lot less addictive than the original SimCity was.

The only really good thing about this game is its great eye-candy, especially when considering the year it came out. However, this is also a minus. Read on.

The Bad
The graphics are excellent, but the engine is horribly slow; the game simply crawled on my old 386 and didn't do a hell of a lot better on my 486. It was horribly jumpy and completely unplayable. The game is unnecessarily complex and makes use of a badly designed interface (a lot less intuitive than the trusty interface of the first game). The gameplay is inconsistant and unexpectable - you may find yourself doing almost the exact same thing on two different games, win one and lose the other. Does that make a lot of sense? Not really. In addition, the natural calamities should have been more developed (i.e. behave less eratically), and the mouse controls should be improved a whole lot - they tend to lose mark every now and then and are not very precise either.

The Bottom Line
In short, just not a very good game, but since most people seem to like it you may find it to your own liking.

The Good
The graphics were the same from the computer version, which was good. Sounds were OK and the gameplay is mediocre.

The Bad
TERRIBLE, TERRIBLE controls. But this is a Game Boy Advance game, you would expect a game like Sim City 2000 to have poor controls on a Game Boy Advance.

There is no music except for that terrible song that plays in the main menu.

There is only one save file. What the heck is up with that!? This isn't a computer where hard drive space is taken up when you save cities!

The Bottom Line
If Maxis did the developing, it would have been much, much, better. A whole lot better.

Get the Windows version( or Macintosh, for you Apple people).

The Good
Nothing really. Everyone thought the original SimCity was great and, yes, it was fun. But Maxis just didn't tickle my nosehair right when it came around with SC2000. True, the graphics is much better and the game is more complex, but it was not more fun. Maybe the "SimCity" concept could only be pushed so far.

The Bad
I got bored by it even before the shrink wrap came off.

The Bottom Line
Another one for you gaming archeologists. But if you were serious about digging dead bones, you should really go for the original SimCity instead. But whatever you do, STAY AWAY from SimAnt!!!

The Good
Nice graphics, a lot to do.

The Bad
Nothing to do once youn have filled the map.

The Bottom Line
Another love-it-or-hate-it game from Maxis. If you like Simulations, this game is GREAT. If you don't, don't get it. Manage a city, fill the map, make the citizens happy.