DOS

SimEarth: The Living Planet

Ach, wären doch nur alle Umsetzungen so eine Freude! Auch auf dem MS-DOS-PC ist Sim Earth eine Offenbarung. Die Grafik (es wird nur EGA genutzt) wurde leicht reformiert und den PC-Bedürfnissen angepaßt.

The most ambitious of the bunch is SimEarth, in which you really do act as the Almighty. The game lets you create a planet, pour oceans, alter climates, and nurture life forms (there's even a 2001-style Monolith button to jump- start the evolutionary process). To keep the hubris from getting too far out of hand, SimEarth's creators have given the program benign New Age trimmings (a Gaia face hovers in the corner of the screen, smiling or frowning to let you know how your planet is feeling). Happily, there are still plenty of outlets for a wrathful God (I particularly enjoyed the Plague button, which wipes out cities while emitting moaning sound effects).

Since this simulator deals with such a huge diversity, it’s also a bit more crude than, say, SimCity. That is, for instance, once intelligent life is evolved one can put complete cities at the world. There are no clear goals; just the challenge of evolving intelligent life. Although there is a game-mode, that’s not what this game – excuse me… this program is about. Sim Earth is a simulation for hardcore sim players. It’s a program with a steep learning curve and a somewhat dry gameplay. But in my opinion, this could not really be prevented without keeping the complexity. If you have some or more interest in science, or just want to play around, and see what happens if the planet would for instance be much warmer, this is a program for you.