GAME DETAILS :-
Developer : Maxis
Publisher : Electronic Arts And Aspyr Media
Engine : Custom
Genre : Modern City-Building And Construction Simulation
Release Date : January 12 , 2003
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-
Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000
CPU : Intel Pentium III Processor / AMD Athlon Classic K75
Memory (RAM) : 256 MB
Graphics Hardware : DirectX 7.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB
[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 7500 Series]
Hard Disk Space : 1 GB
GAME FEATURES :-
SimCity was challenging and plausibly realistic and even had a surprising amount of humor, especially for a game with a seemingly mundane subject. About 15 years have passed since the original SimCity was first released, and while the classic SimCity series is still well known among PC gamers, it has only reached its fourth full installment. And SimCity 4 for the most part isn't a huge departure from its predecessors, either, not that it really needs to be. One of the biggest changes to the gameplay of SimCity 4 is evident from the start. Immediately as you begin the game, you're presented with a view of SimNation, though it's not much of a nation at first. SimNation is divided up into numerous smaller square segments, yet each of these in fact can hold an entire city of your making. These cities can even interact to some extent, exchanging surplus energy, water, and such for cash. At any rate, getting started is as easy as clicking on any SimNation square, naming your city, and appointing yourself as mayor, and you're off. But before you begin, you may wish to take the step-by-step tutorials of the game's mayor mode—the heart of SimCity 4—and the god mode, where you can terraform the land to your heart's content, making the terrain as flat, as hilly, as undulating, or as improbably strange as you like. It's easy to use the terrain-morphing tools found in this mode, and while it's perfectly viable to just pick one of the ready-made territories to start your city in, it's tempting and straightforward to custom-tailor your own. You'll start by plopping down a power plant, preferably one that doesn't create too much pollution, and then laying down some residential, industrial, and commercial zones, then giving them some time to incubate. Laying out zones is as easy as dragging rectangles using your mouse, but SimCity 4 tries to make things even easier on you by automatically inserting streets, giving larger zones a gridlike pattern. This is a mixed blessing, since these auto-built streets often don't line up as you try to construct adjacent zones, leaving your city with bits of wasted space here and there, at least until you get used to dealing with this feature. And since city maps in SimCity 4 are smaller overall than in previous SimCity games—probably a necessary limitation due to the fine level of detail you'll see down to individual houses and sims—that wasted space could be a big missed opportunity for your city. Plus all the extra roads can really hose your budget early on. The auto-roads feature really should have been optional. Having to contend with the constantly shifting demand for the three zone types while continuously adding better services and transportation options for your population and while also keeping an eagle eye on your monthly budget adds up to some involving gameplay. SimCity 4, like its predecessors, succeeds at being an active, hands-on game where there's usually something interesting you can be doing. Even if you're waiting to rake in a certain amount of funds, you can use that time as an opportunity to scrutinize the many different statistics and charts available to you or to correspond with your various advisors on how to proceed. Or you can use the handy query tool to click around your city, gleaning all kinds of information, including a few amusingly pointless statistics.
GAME REVIEW :-
8/10
SimCity 4 Trailer :-
Developer : Maxis
Publisher : Electronic Arts And Aspyr Media
Engine : Custom
Genre : Modern City-Building And Construction Simulation
Release Date : January 12 , 2003
SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS :-
Operating System : Windows 98 / Windows 2000
CPU : Intel Pentium III Processor / AMD Athlon Classic K75
Memory (RAM) : 256 MB
Graphics Hardware : DirectX 7.0 Compatible Video Card with Memory 32 MB
[NVIDIA : GeForce 2 Ti Series
ATI : Radeon 7500 Series]
Hard Disk Space : 1 GB
GAME FEATURES :-
SimCity was challenging and plausibly realistic and even had a surprising amount of humor, especially for a game with a seemingly mundane subject. About 15 years have passed since the original SimCity was first released, and while the classic SimCity series is still well known among PC gamers, it has only reached its fourth full installment. And SimCity 4 for the most part isn't a huge departure from its predecessors, either, not that it really needs to be. One of the biggest changes to the gameplay of SimCity 4 is evident from the start. Immediately as you begin the game, you're presented with a view of SimNation, though it's not much of a nation at first. SimNation is divided up into numerous smaller square segments, yet each of these in fact can hold an entire city of your making. These cities can even interact to some extent, exchanging surplus energy, water, and such for cash. At any rate, getting started is as easy as clicking on any SimNation square, naming your city, and appointing yourself as mayor, and you're off. But before you begin, you may wish to take the step-by-step tutorials of the game's mayor mode—the heart of SimCity 4—and the god mode, where you can terraform the land to your heart's content, making the terrain as flat, as hilly, as undulating, or as improbably strange as you like. It's easy to use the terrain-morphing tools found in this mode, and while it's perfectly viable to just pick one of the ready-made territories to start your city in, it's tempting and straightforward to custom-tailor your own. You'll start by plopping down a power plant, preferably one that doesn't create too much pollution, and then laying down some residential, industrial, and commercial zones, then giving them some time to incubate. Laying out zones is as easy as dragging rectangles using your mouse, but SimCity 4 tries to make things even easier on you by automatically inserting streets, giving larger zones a gridlike pattern. This is a mixed blessing, since these auto-built streets often don't line up as you try to construct adjacent zones, leaving your city with bits of wasted space here and there, at least until you get used to dealing with this feature. And since city maps in SimCity 4 are smaller overall than in previous SimCity games—probably a necessary limitation due to the fine level of detail you'll see down to individual houses and sims—that wasted space could be a big missed opportunity for your city. Plus all the extra roads can really hose your budget early on. The auto-roads feature really should have been optional. Having to contend with the constantly shifting demand for the three zone types while continuously adding better services and transportation options for your population and while also keeping an eagle eye on your monthly budget adds up to some involving gameplay. SimCity 4, like its predecessors, succeeds at being an active, hands-on game where there's usually something interesting you can be doing. Even if you're waiting to rake in a certain amount of funds, you can use that time as an opportunity to scrutinize the many different statistics and charts available to you or to correspond with your various advisors on how to proceed. Or you can use the handy query tool to click around your city, gleaning all kinds of information, including a few amusingly pointless statistics.
SimCity 4 also lets you spring up a volcano in the middle of your downtown, for all it cares. Like previous games in the series, disasters are very much a part of SimCity 4 and are liable to strike at any time, especially some of the more plausible ones like fires and riots. Unfortunately there's no option to disable random disasters from happening, so expect your big cities to catch fire often, even if you have lots of fire departments in place. Instigating these terrible events yourself is also possible via a handy disaster menu. The game also promises cooperative multiplayer support, but this isn't actually ready yet. Experienced SimCity players might also go in expecting to have numerous prebuilt cities available from the get-go, as well as stand-alone scenario options, but none of this is present in the game. The game does include regions modeled after real-world locations like San Francisco, New York, and Berlin, yet these are almost entirely barren landscapes--you'll need to build the actual cities yourself. SimCity 4 offers only the standard free-form game mode. You'll of course be able to download plenty of player-created cities, but it's somewhat disappointing that the game itself seems rather bare-bones. SimCity 4 really does look impressive otherwise, and there's a lot of variety and a lot of funny little details to be seen. The game also sports a lot of really great audio that gets more and more detailed the closer you zoom in to street level, while a surprisingly good soundtrack consisting of a variety of jazz-inspired tunes plays in the background. Though not as polished as it could have been, SimCity 4 is still a complex and detailed strategy game that can entertain you for hours on end.
GAME REVIEW :-
8/10
SimCity 4 Trailer :-
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