User Reviews (11 - 21 of 136)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Fun game, but a MAJOR drawback

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 12 / 13
Date: October 25, 2004
Author: Amazon User

Simcity, no matter what any one says, is going to be one of the most classic games ever made. It inspired and still influences simulators to this day, and obviously so many sequals wouldn't have been made if there wasn't a wide interest in it.

SimCity 3000 is everything you've come to know and love about SimCity. You build commercial, resident, and industrial buildings while maintaining transportation for your people. This of course requires you to maintain funds through taxes, while being careful not to go over to stunt popular, commercial, and industrial growth. In addition to that, you can enact ordinances that will either give you money or take some away, though it's worth the price since many of them will make your people happy.

But there has always been a problem with me and the SimCity games. Here's the thing: you build a city, get it up and running...and then what? OK, I have a huge city, and I'm making money. What now? Once you get your city to work, there's almost no interest in continuing. I tried one of the scenarios they supply but that didn't help much either. Every time I load my city I feel like I've already done all I can do.

Like I said, these games are popular, so this is probably just my personal opinion (in fact, it is). It's a fun game, but I don't see too much replay value. I wouldn't spend too much money on it, just in case.

A good game, but with some flaws

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 10 / 10
Date: April 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Some reviewers wrote that SimCity 3000 features no real improvement on SimCity 2000. I have not played SimCity 2000, and I therefore cannot complain about the similarities and/or differences between the two products. I can only say that SimCity 3000 represents a real improvement on the SimCity version released on 16-bit Super Nintendo (which I played for years). However, a few things could be improved in SimCity 3000, such as:

1) A major flaw, in my opinion, is the design of the cars, trucks, and even trains, when looking at the game from the most precise scale. The development of the city you build is supposed to span from 1900 (the earliest year possible) to who knows when, yet the cars ALWAYS look the same, no matter which year it is. The cars look like 1980s-1990s models, and to display them in 1900 is an anachronism. What should have been done is to have some evolution in the types of cars displayed -- horse-drawn carriages in the 1900s, Model T's in the 1910s, roadsters in the 1930s, etc.

2) You cannot determine routes for your bus, train, and subway service. It is done by the computer, and you have no control over it. However, one might argue that this is not as important as in other games such as "Railroad Tycoon," but I think it does matter.

3) You can name your parks, but not your streets.

4) It is important to geographically cover all areas of your city with police and fire stations, but there is no concern for geographical coverage made by other buildings such as schools and hospitals. In SimCity 3000, schools and hospitals are necessary, but only in quantity and not in even spreading, and therefore are often used as buffer zones between dirty industrial areas and residential zones. It is not uncommon to have as many as 10 or 15 schools in a single area only for that purpose. Sure, hospitals and schools increase land value, but not much outside their own location (the 3x3 square on which they are built), and parks are much better for that purpose.

5) Basically, if you disable disasters, what's the point of having a fire department anyway ?

6) Even though it is said to be possible, I've never had a single nuclear disaster while playing this game.

7) When striking a deal to export water to a neighbour, for some reason or another, the deal always ends up being cancelled because I can't provide enough water, even in the cases where I had more than enough water. In some cases I added new pumping stations, water towers, water treatment or desalinization plants immediately after the deal is signed (in one instance I doubled my total capacity in one month), but the neighbouring city always cancels the deal the next month because I can't live up to the terms of the contract (and guess who has to pay the breach of contract penalty ?). Even worse, the same neighbour comes begging for water again a few months later. (This never happens with electricity exports).

8) I would like to be able to choose which type of building will be built at which place. Sure you can decide whether the building will be of residential, commercial, or industrial nature, and the density level, but if you would like to have a street with only "Goodplace Arms" apartment buildings, or a high-tech industrial district, or a petrol plant sector close to the port, this is next to impossible.

9) I like to see farms develop, but what I hate most is that a few game-years later light industrial buildings will begin to appear in the middle of the fields, because farming is zoned "light industrial" in the game. If you want to keep your farming zones intact, you will have to zone all farmland "historical" to stop its development. Since all farms are at least 8x8 squares in size, and since you will have to declare each square "historical" one at a time, this might take a while. Farms should have been given a zoning type of their own.

These are just a few points that make the playing of this game somehow irritating, but since SimCity 3000 is a considerable improvement on the original SimCity, I recommend it nevertheless.

It's better than SimCity 2000, but....

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: May 17, 2000
Author: Amazon User

First off, let me clear up some misstatements about the features listed above by amazon.com:

*Realistic 3-D environment

Wrong. The game is 2D, it merely looks 3D. It IS realistic, however. There is far more detail in 2D than could ever have been done in 3D and still hae it run on everyone's machine.

*View cities from up to 50,000 feet

I guess...you have 5 zoom levels. The above implies that you can zoom to any level.

*Detailed control over businesses and other facilities

None whatsoever other than being able to zone blocks of residential, commercial, and industrial areas, along with other specialized zones. You can't micromanage any individual businesses.

*Everything and everyone moves

Cars and SimCitizens move, so do some animated buildings, but certainly not EVERYTHING.

*Optional load-in sets for customization and enhancements

That's handled much better in SC3K Unlimited.

SimCity 3000 is a mixed bag for me. I love being able to play a fully updated version of 2000, but whether it should be called 3000 or 2100 is something of a dilemma.

Graphics-wise, 3000 is beautiful! No two ways about it. A lot of hype has gone into the fact that you can now zoom in and see little sims walking, driving around in individual cars, and so on. The building images are now fully 4-sided entities so that rotating the view yields 4 different looks at each feature. Five zoom levels let you choose the size you're comfortable with to build on. Some people claim that the buildings are blocky and pixellated at the highest zoom. I don't have that problem, but they are definitely not the crisp renders that the other 4 zooms are. They are merely enlargements of the 4th zoom. Vehicles and pedestrians remain crisp and distinct at any zoom.

Gameplay: here's the sticking point for me. If you've continued to play SimCity 2000 until you're red-eyed and guaranteed to be late for work/school, you'll probably do the same with 3000. Given all the new bells and whistles, it'll take some time to try them all and see how this affects that. From this point, however, two camps emerge. One camp will continue playing the game for years and loving every minute of it, relishing the freedom to create anything they want. I fall into this category. The other camp, once having seen everything and mastered building megalopoli at will, are going to wonder what's the fun anymore. So depending on your expectations for the game it'll be either a gift from heaven or something you may well have wished didn't cost 40 to 50 bucks.

As for difficulty, it's no harder really than 2000. Some of the new features like garbage disposal, ordinances, and neighboring city dealings add depth and strategy without making the game unduly complex. Maxis should be commended for that.

Overall? It's good. In fact it's very good. They put a lot of work into it making sure everything balances more or less. Is it worth the money? Not now with SC3K Unlimited out. Get it instead, as it's much more refined. If you haven't played a SimCity game before or if you're a diehard 2000 fan, absolutely. If you just sorta liked 2000 and quit playing it after a little bit, you may want to wait until it hits the bargain rack.

Not a huge leap...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 13 / 16
Date: January 18, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Overall, SC3K is a wonderful game. It is fun to play, and challenging also.

I got an issue of my computer magazine. On the front "SIMCITY 3000" in large bold letters. I opened the mag up, and inside was a article on how excellent it was going to be. Now I have the game and think, why didn't Maxis do better? It remains the same game, much like SC2k. No graphic improvmentsand more frustrating than ever.

The good side is what a fun game it is, and always will be. You, mayor of a city, the people loving you, them hating you, its the SimCity experiance.

The thing is, that this game is excellent. It is very fun and neato. The bad thing is, is that it is too much like sc2k. SC to sc2k was a big change, but sc2k to sc3k is not. :)

CHEAT BOX-

Press CRTL+ALT+SHIFT+X to bring up cheat box. Enter:

salt on- all water is salt water

salt off- all water is fresh water

pay tribute to your king- all rewards

i am weak- all free stuff!

call cousin Vinnie- you'll find out....

Note: This cheats are case sensitive.

What Could Have Been

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 14 / 19
Date: December 24, 1999
Author: Amazon User

In case you didn't know, SimCity 3000 was supposed to have been an incredible truly 3D virtual city. But the developers couldn't pull it off, the system requirements were too high. So instead they quickly revamped SimCity 2000 with lots of pretty eye candy and some menu changes.

If you played the classic SimCity, then bought SimCity 2000, you were probably blown away by the improvements by leaps and bounds over the original. If you expect the same of SimCity 3000 compared to SimCity 2000, you will be very disappointed. So what if you can see some cars and pedestrians in the streets. Is that enough? So what if the menu has changed slightly. Is that enough? So what if there are some new buildings and features. Is that enough? No. Not if you wanted a truly new experience to make you forget SimCity 2000. And the system requirements are extreme for so few "improvements".

This should have been called SimCity 2000 Part 2. Nothing revolutionary, nothing to blow you away, nothing spectacular. Just SimCity 2000 in a pretty package. The developers couldn't pull it off and it shows. Wait until this ends up in the bargain bin.

Good game!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: May 22, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Personally I did not try any of the other SimCity games before this one and I am notably impressed. I am impressed with the grapics, the level of detail and control over the enviroment and of the overall difficulty of the game itself. I have no frame of refrence to critize the game as do others because of my lack of knowledge of how they have improved the game. However if you are considering this game to be entertaining then buy this game because in my opinion this game is very entertaining. The only reason I gave this game four stars was its somewhat awkward interface with the user, it is powerful but at the expense of simplicity. Overall good game!

Solid

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: February 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

Remarkably detailed in just about every way you can think of. Outstanding graphics. Simple interface. Easy to read maps and graphs to help analyze your city. Riots, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, alien attacks, water pollution, air pollution, traffic jams, selling utilities to neighboring cities, ordinances for water meters and stairwell lighting, taxes, loans, bus stops, subways, the list goes on and on. What more could you want? Get rid of that hideous background music!

Best strategy game of the decade

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 11 / 15
Date: November 11, 1999
Author: Amazon User

Sim City 3000 is the best strategy game I have ever played. The ability to watch your city grow, have detailed charts and graphs and is an amazing feature. I recommend the Prima SC3000 Strategy Guide to master this game, as it is hard to learn how to play.

Nice Improvement from SC 2000

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 9 / 11
Date: February 27, 2000
Author: Amazon User

I read the reviews below that panned this game as a weak improvement from Sim City 2000, and I disagree. Yes, SC2000 is a great game, but SC3000 is much more realistic and challenging. It is much more difficult to create profitable cities - and that may be why others did not like this game. SC3000 requires a lot more game time to get your city going, and even if you know the cheat codes to get more cash - that will be no guarantee you succeed as mayor.

In all I love this game and recommended it to those who like Sims.

Fun and very challenging

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: December 13, 1999
Author: Amazon User

At first glance this game may look easy but its not.You could spend many hours just trying to figure out what everything does and even more making your numerous attempts at unsuccesful cities.The graphics are pretty good but you need an intense system for the game to run smoothly.Maxis has once again added their own humorous touch to the game which can add to the fun factor.You probably won't get sick of this game very fast. If you are looking for a huge improvement over SC2K you won't find it here.I have made this game sound bad but it really isn't, this a very fun and challenging game and would reccomend it only to one who likes this particular genre.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 Next 

Actions