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In this day and age....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: May 07, 2003
Author: Amazon User

there should be no games that take several minutes to save.... there should be no games that advertise that they run on a 500Mhz PC when in fact it still runs slowly on 2.4Ghz... there should be no games released as buggy as this one... for instance when a fire happens across town it immediately puts the cursor to that area... if you were about to bulldoze one little square, you bulldoze EVERYTHING.. just like you had dragged the cursor across town. These things are unacceptable from a company such as Maxis and EA. Do not be blinded by the hype and reviews,(those same reviewers have ripped on other games that have had these issues, why not this one?) this game should not have been released yet.... and this is after the April 6 update. In principle the game is fun, with these issues it makes it unplayable.

Two minds on this one ...

1 Rating: 1, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: March 19, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Firstly, I have the PC version. The PS2 bit on the description has thrown me a bit!

That aside, I loved Simcity 3000. Played it for hours. Heard about SC4, got it, unwrapped it.... and.....

Well it looks nice. Has a bundle of extras that 3000 didn't have. So I dived in to the rich graphics and started building my city. CRASH.

Frozen computer. Hmm. The read-me's said ensure you have the latest drivers for your soundcards, graphics cards etc... so off I went... spent about 3 weeks upgrading drivers, playing the game for a bit... watching it crash, trying another driver.... watching it crash...

So I contacted the admitedly very responsive EA tech support via email. We spent about a week trying different things to a point where it worked ok in VERY slow software mode. At this point EA told me how I could get a refund.

Not impressed.

All my computer specs exceed those printed on the case. I'm also a bit of a PC geek, so following the read-me instructions, tech support advice and upgrading drivers wasn't a problem. So why am I left with a very nice looking but unstable game?

I have now got it working with medium detail settings rather than the full glory I should be able to see, but after several weeks of constant crashing, I can't face playing it again. I fear the next crash!

(Yes, I have tried EA's first issued patch for SC4. No it doesn't help).

Fun and getting better, but was hoping for more ....

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 10 / 12
Date: May 02, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I first discovered SimCity with SimCity2000 and played it religiously for a long time, I loved that game! I was a bit disappointed with SimCity3000 and had high hopes (based on previews) for this version. Unfortunately, it only realized some of those.

First off, the game is beautiful. The buildings are rich in color, texture, and style. The options are many and the concept of regional play is a good one (although isn't quite as fulfilling, see below). Your sims can commute from one place to another, power lines can be strung and freeways can lead from your city out to the city with the airport. The interface is fairly clean and most things can be made to go away in case you just want to sit back and stare at what you've built. Another neat thing is the day/night mode. It seems to be mainly for visual effects (I haven't detected different sim behavior patterns or anything) but it is impressive looking. The usual fun disasters are there.

That said, there were some elements that were flawed. First off, the cities that came with the game were small and paltry things. SimCity3000 came with many different types of cities, ranging from 0 to well over 1,000,000 people. Some were paradises, others ghettos, but each was unique. SimCity4 comes with 6-7 regions, two with very small cities started. It's a personal thing, but I don't really enjoy the process of taking nothing and building all the way up, sometimes I want to start with a big (and perhaps flawed) city and try and solve it's problems like crime, homelessness, decay, etc. At least they could've provided us with more variety in city types than they did.

Another gripe is laying out the zones. In the old days you just painted the terrain a particular color and watched whatever was supposed to happen, happen. In SimCity4 you still do this but the computer also lays out lots. Still you have little control over which direction these lots are and often they have minimum dimensions, which aren't apparent when first placing them. Furthermore, try to zone a parcel bigger than say 5x5 tiles and the program will immediately try to add roads into the mix, even if you've already built roads to frame your zones! It doesn't even place the roads in the right places half the time, leading to wierd angles and lots that aren't buildable. Finally, there's no way to turn this thing off! It's nice when you're zoning lots of completely empty space, but a real drag when you're trying to rezone a few blocks.

One gripe about the regions is that they really aren't regions. They tend to just become boroughs (but with their own budgets!) of a city. The New York region shows this as Manhattan is cut into multiple regions. You could develop one as all Residential and another as say commercial I suppose but I was hoping for true regional play where you have actual separate cities cooperating with or competeing against each other.

Still, it's getting better. The game has been patched a couple of times to weed out the bugs and a new region has been posted to the main site (with a large population to start with) with more promised. Further patches will help make the game more playable and I am enjoying it more every day so who knows? If I wrote this one month from now it might've been 4 or 5 stars. One can hope.

you incompetent gamers

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 7
Date: June 12, 2005
Author: Amazon User

my goodness, since when do people give a game two stars because it is too hard or because their computers are too slow? first of all, sim city is a strategy game, and you have to use strategy in order to be successful. the strategy guide by prima is extremely helpful, because, just like in real life, there are a large number of considerations that go into building a city. the game offers expected improvements over 3000 as far as graphics but also in terms of realism; there are several more things you have to pay for, and more options for both zone density and the magnitude of city services like schools and fire departments. this, expectedly, makes it more complicated to calibrate a network of services for your residents, but, it is more customizable and realistic than plopping a bunch of identical police stations on every other corner in order to get rid of crime. it also takes a lot longer to build a large city, i.e., one with big skyscrapers and such. but this is just a case of the game paying off more than it used to; instead of being able to max out a city map within a couple hours of playing, you have to work up slowly, and you get a lot more gampeplay for your money. this game is only frustrating if you are too simple to learn from your own mistakes, because you can slow it down enough (by putting it on pause) to keep any potential problem from escaping you. so get a good computer and shut up, will wright always brings the quality

Beautiful graphics... but unplayable

2 Rating: 2, Useful: 10 / 13
Date: September 11, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I'm a huge Sim City fan. This game starts out with a bang and looks beautiful. However, even on my 1-year-old desktop, the game virtually crawls to a halt after only 10 minutes of development. Scrolling takes at least 30 seconds, zooming in or out takes even longer -- unless it locks up entirely.

Does the game really need working traffic lights, packs of wild animals, construction workers, and all the other bells and whistles that make it look breathtaking, but ultimately unplayable? I think the developers have gotten carried away with the graphical capabilities.

PS -- I've installed the patch from the manufacturer's website that's intended to fix this problem. The improvement is noticable, but the game is still slow and unenjoyable. I've uninstalled it and re-installed SimCity 3000.

Wow, a great version of a classic

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 20 / 36
Date: January 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've played all the previous SIMCITY versions and Maxis has done a spectacular job with this one.

Compared to SIMCITY 3000 this game has more depth, is more fun to play and is easier to get used to.

I've been playing it for about three days now and it has really been a treat. There is a lot new in terms of how lots are laid out, how transportation and traffic work and the landscaping of the city.

I highly recommend you get SIMCITY 4.

Sim City 4!

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 11 / 16
Date: January 17, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Well, what can I say? Sim city 4 has to be the best Simulation game in the Sim City franchise so far. The gameplay is very similar to its prior versions, however vastly improved. Various new options include new advisors(they really help you for a change), new areas to explore and lots more.

The graphics are superb. Its not like a simulation anymore, its more of a reality. You can actually see sims move around, talking to eachother, cars overtaking and having accidents, aircraft's taking off and landing in exactly the same way they do in reality and cruising over the clouds. Its amazing. There are also night and day effects which is a swell idea. Street lamps, house lights go on at night, giving a beautiful effect to your city. You can send Police Cruisers to make sure law and order is preserved. You have new God Like powers, such as manually changng night to day and vice versa, making storms and natural disasters. Beautifully renderd landscapes such as canyons, mountains and water effects add to realism.

System requirments are pretty high. Im playing Sim City 4 on a 1.6 Ghz P4, 356MB ram and a GForce4 64MB. It tends to get a bit slow when scrolling around in dense areas. Besides that, it works perfectly!

Good graphics aren't everything...

3 Rating: 3, Useful: 7 / 8
Date: March 04, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I say that because most players have to turn down the graphic detail of their city in order for it to run on their computer. I have a P4 3.0, 30G HD, 512RAM and it runs the smaller and medium cities very well, but churns hard and even freezes up on the larger cities. When graphics are turned up to high, the buildings in the city are very nice to look at, but most computer players can't PLAY in this mode... it is a game that is very taxing on your hardware. I found that the longer I played my cities at one sitting, the slower my computer got and it couldn't keep up with the city growing.

I was disappointed in this game and it pains me to say that because I have been a big Maxis/SimCity fan since Day 1. I think SimCity 3000 Unlimited was a much better game with a lot more things to do than just build a city. After playing a few cities on SC4, I have actually become bored with the game and doubt I will play it much anymore (unless maybe if they release an expansion pack with a building architect, city scenarios, etc.). This game just does not have much to keep you coming back for more game play like SC3 Unlimited. Once you figure out how to build a perfect city, SC4 becomes quite a bore.

Worth Every Penny

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 12 / 19
Date: January 29, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Wow........ Just got done playing SimCity 4 for the 5th hour straight......... LoL........ This game has everything. Zoom all the way in on you city and see little Sims swimming in their pools. High School students smoking on the side of the buildings. Homeless Sims wandering the neihborhoods. SimCops laying down the law. Kids on their skateboards. EVERYTHING IS INCLUDED!!! This game is also BEAUTIFUL graphically, and night time brings a whole new look to you city. Each little building has a set of lights, and street lamps come included on your roads and streets. Another COOL thing is in the morning you see all your little Sims heading off to work, and in the night time they return. This can become even greater in the region play when you can build one town with residential, one with commercial, and one with industrial, connecting them with highways and railways. In the morning, you can see your Sims speeding off to work in your different towns, and seeing them return at night. It is amazing. Another sweet feature is the God mode. You can create a world you've always wanted, and fine tune it in every detail. Form mountains, carve valleys....... make that giant bride over that canyon and then blow it out with the meteor while it has cars on it.......... And that leads me to my favorite: The disasters. Amazing. The lightning is my favorite, but you can bring reign of fire down on your Sims with the meteorite, or totally destroy it with a volcano. And a new disaster, obliterate, destroys every trace of your city and returns it to its natural state. The way they did it reminded me of those movies with the end of civilization..... simply great. Well, ok...... I want to get back to playing my game =)

P.S. Whats this about bugs? It worked perfect for me, only zooming all the way in slowed down my computer, But I can live without this feature easily. Thank For Reading. Hope This Helped.

Sim City 4, the latest and greatest Sim City.

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 5 / 5
Date: March 11, 2005
Author: Amazon User

This is the best Sim City game ever made! Like older versions, you put in residential, commercial, and industrial zones;place police stations, recreational facilities, fire stations, jails, educational facilities,transportation systems, rewards, and landmarks. However, it is vastly improved over previous versions. First of all, city services have been expanded upon. I haven't made it that far in the game yet,(my largest city has about 15,000 people and the region I am working on has about 100,000) but what I have seen so far is simply awesome. The graphics are incredible! Please stop complaining and get a new computer. I have a older model and I have got the brains just to play the game at a freinds house who has a new computer. The city services is where some massive change has come though. You can now get large or small police and fire stations, there are now elementary and high schools, beaches have been added as recreational facilities, and many more. Have problems balancing your budget? Here is the key:STOP SPENDING TOO MUCH MONEY! This version is a bit harder because you have too pay for everything, and I admit I had difficulty with this when I first started playing, but with practice I have overcome the problem. The key to balancing the budget is making a lot of zones. Once you have a significant tax base, you can add city services. There is a budget window telling you how much you are making or losing per month, and each building has its cost listed. There is virtually no excuse for not having a balanced budget other than inexperience. Trust me, the time you spend trying to master the game is worth it. It took me about 4 hours to learn how to play it, but since then I have had like over 10 hours of enjoyable time playing it, so it is highly worth it. And contrary to stupid rumors, it is possible to get scyscrapers in the game. You merely need to play it to where you have a large population of about 300,000 regional pop with all cities connected and then you need to put in excellent city services. Sure, it is a pain how you can only get small houses and stores in your residential and commercial zones at first, but it is possible to get larger and larger buildings as you continue to play the game. And in my opinion this makes the game better, because it forces me to diversify my cities more,it makes the game more realistic(ever seen the empire state building in a town of 5,000? I don't think so...), it makes the game more challenging, and it gives you a reason to keep playing it. Don't give up! You will have that 30 story residential building sooner than you think! And even before then you get bigger buildings as the game progresses which can help tide you over. Plus, if you get frusturated or bored, you can always unleash cool disasters like robot attacks, meteors, fires, volcanoes, lightning, etc. Also, riots occur if you are very unpopular(I must admit I have gotten them before). To put down disasters, you must send out your regular police, SWAT(you get them when you have a large enough police force), and firefighters. Also, there is a day night mode thing, where you can see your city in either day or night, and at the start out the game you get to change your terrain and animals in the mode. To sum it up, this is a awesome edition to the sim city series with great graphics. My only complaints are:The game requires must processing power, and it can be hard at first. But never give up! It's a awesome game, and its worth the time invested to learn how to play it.

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