SIMCITY

[Tysons4 68]

i recently replayed all the simcitys in a dayand i must say i was blown away. I was hooked since the Idea of simcity and have been right there playing simcity, 2k, 3k and now 4, but going back to the original and playing through tehm you can see a definate transition.

original idea will wright had was to have a game where you develop a map. Which is an awesome idea... but people wanted a game

SIMCITY. the main idea: develop a map balancing power, police/fire protection, transportation, residental, commerical, and industrial. so that when the year is over you have more money to build a larger city.

parts i like:

the query tool that showed the building stages like a magnifying glass over the city

how some zones fused together to make a larger building

simple, birds-eye graphics

the trolly on the tracks (always build some tracks so you have something to watch when waiting)

dislike:

slow game... slowly build and wait a long time for a year to roll by to get some money

how building don't show how much they cost untill you can afford them

simple, birds-eye graphics

SIMCITY 2000. pretty much the same with a different innerface and perspective.

like:

the newspapers... especally the side articles

water can build at any elevation (waterfalls and hydro dams)

Sim Copter and Streets of Sim City add on games, to let you drive or fly through your cities

scurk

dislike:

angle of view... wish i could switch a top down or the new angle

limited map size

SIMCITY 3000: same game, new perspective

like:

Advisors and Citizens Pictures

revamped graphics... although i still want to look top down

different map sizes

Dislike

how some of my favortie features from 2000 were ignored,

no addon games (copter or streets),

no more newspaper,

no archologies

Simcity 4 deluxe: masterpeice of the series with a whole new perspective, region map, and data views and graphs

like:

graphically beautiful

region map... never before, or since can you develop a city so big

automatic streets, and zoning arrows...

transport options

feed back... it gives a lot of it to guide you to success

dislike:

crashing, and poor stability

fixed perspective

no addon games (copter/streets)

how it has been abandoned by all but the communities

limitied angles of networks and only 4 directions to zone lots

Simcity: Societies: plop buildings down to build a society you want to build

like:

unlocked camera (although it still needs lots of work)

the sky

Dislike:

ploping everything

transportation... a huge step back considering that even simcity had a trolly on train tracks

could only build facing one of 8 directions

cannot uninstall along with many other bugs

what are your thoughts?

post the simcity game, how you define it, and then your likes and dislikes

[masochist 111]

All right, I'll bite.  Be ready for this!

SimCity - The Beginning

*Layville

I played the SNES version of this game.  It wasn't even the first SimCity game I'd ever played, but I didn't realize that SimCity 2000 had a sequal :-P.  I was big into drawing city maps in middle school (oddly enough), so the SimCity series was a perfect fit for me.  What I really remember about this game, though, was that it was one of the first video games to truly suck my life away.  I'd stay up during all hours of the night building cities...plenty of them.  And to me, my cities were successes if I made it to 100,000 people, because I always went for city design as opposed to having a huge population.  I can't say where this would rank in terms of the series for me, so I won't try.

Liked:

- Laid down the foundation upon which pretty much every other modern-day urban planning game (Maxis or otherwise) would build upon

- Simple, easy to learn, fun to play

- Didn't take itself too seriously (Dr. Wright and Bowser were testament to that!)

- The music

- The stages of town growth (Village, Town, City, Capital, Metropolis, Megalopolis)

- Was the basis of quite a few cities I carried throughout subsequent games

Disliked:

- Only two transportation options

- Hard to relieve traffic if rail system is already in place

- Coastal Flooding

SimCity 2000 Special Edition - The Next Generation

*Laytonville

SC2K was the first SimCity game I played, back when I first discovered the series.  Oddly enough, though, it's my LEAST favorite of the entire series (though it's often the one that shows up on all those "Best Games Ever" lists.  But I do have some fond memories of it, especially when it comes to a city called Sea City.  And then, of course, SimCopter and Streets of SimCity were pretty fun (I've been waiting for the opportunity to drive around my city a-la Streets of SimCity for some time now, and the closest I've come to it is Cities XL).  Even though I didn't play this one nearly as much as any of the other games in the series, it was still an integral part of the SimCity experience for me.

Liked:

- Isometric perspective

- Draggable zones

- Increased transportation options (freeways and diagonal roads!)

- Expanded utilities/infrastructure

- Terraforming

- Spinoff games

- Signposts

Disliked:

- Bad soundtrack

- Building roads/changing terrain destroyed properties

- Tedious utilities (especially pipes)

- No ground highways or avenues

- Inability to build on hills

- The feel of it, really...

SimCity 3000 Unlimited - My Obsession

*Power City

This is it.  This is the game that stole my childhood...well, maybe not childhood, but of every video game I ever played in high school, THIS is the one that racked up the most play-hours (which is an amazing feat, considering that I played some of the most memorable games of my life throughout high school).  Three years I had an obsession with this game, and three years I played relentlessly, creating some of the best cities I have ever created in any SimCity game (and definitely the largest, by far!).  I don't play it much anymore, but this definitely ranks as probably my favorite of all the SC games, simply for the amount of my life I spent on it .

Liked:

- Different terrain textures

- Different tilesets

- Better graphics

- Smooth road curves

- Easier UI

- Better infrastructure system than SC2K (with implied infrastructure)

- Individual building names, and the ability to personally name reward buildings (which for some reason was a big deal to me)

- The music

- Advisors

- Many, many running gags and inside jokes

- Being able to plop any building using a cheat

- Took the worst parts away from SC2K and kept everything good about it, making quite a bit better

Disliked:

- Still no ground highways or avenues

- Advisors

- Inability to rotate plopped buildings (which never really bothered me in SC2K)

- Lack of American Football field

SimCity 4 Deluxe - The Great One

Oh, boy.  What can be said about this one that hasn't already been said a billion times before?  If I recognize SC3KU as my overall favorite, then I recognize SC4 Deluxe as the undisputed best of the series (and there's a difference, believe me).  Everything that wasn't in any SimCity game before it was in this one: seamless terraforming, the ability to build on hills, ground highways and avenues, INCREDIBLE atmosphere (terraforming in God Mode awes me to this day), and most importantly, the ability to truly build any size city you wanted to, by way of regions.  Add to that the addition of gigabytes upon gigabytes of incredible custom content and game-breaking modifications (NAM, anyone?), and you have the means to truly build any modern city you could ever possibly dream of...even if they aren't on Earth!  I personally have over 3 gigs of custom content, but I feel as though I still haven't scratched the surface of what this game could possibly offer.  The few cities I spent my time on (Power City and Condor Bay) never matched the size of any of the cities I created in SC3K (or even SC2K), but they were more immersive and satisfying than any other cities I've ever created (or will create) in any other game.

Liked:

- Regions

- Even more transportation options

- The return (and refinement) of lots as opposed to blob zones (as seen in the original SimCity)

- God Mode

- THE MUSIC...Oh, that music!

- Mods/Custom Content

- Lot editor

- The UI

- U-Drive-It

- The ability to change the name of any building whatsoever

- The scope of the game, and its intricacies

- Vastly improved graphics

Disliked:

- The wasted potential of U-Drive-It

- Load times

- Square lots not really made for diagonal streets (didn't bother me so much in SC3K)

- Building repetition (again, didn't really bother me in SC3K)

- Less emphasis on the funny bits (all the carried-over inside jokes and running gags from SC3K are hardly noticeable)

- The fact that it wasn't in 3D

So...that's my take on the entire SimCity franchise (I've never played Societies, and I don't plan on it).  CitiesXL '11 is pretty awesome, and for a game made by a totally different company, comes as close to being on the level of any SC game as I could ever hope for, but I think it's simply missing the immersion factor that Maxis's series is able to give you.  Also, it seems to do a reverse of SC2K and 3K in that ground highways are the default, but now there are no Elevated ones.  Oh, well.

[TekindusT 3,809]

I couldn't have explained better all the above... I got into this game with SC3K, and my most awesome city was made in this game; it wasn't realistic but it was awesome...

[Tysons4 68]

i cant believe i forgot to mention the music and the sound effects... really keep you glued to the game... i really like the voices (from booing to cheering sims, to flying the television studios chopper or driving the cop car

great including the pics..

[nathanthemayor 1,263]

Nice photos you have there!

[Ocram's Razr 964]

I loved the music from SimCity 3000, SimCity 4, and SimCity Societies. I barely played SimCity 3000 because it lacked the power plants I liked the most (microwave and fusion). SimCity 4 was the second SimCity game I played extensively after I grew bored with SimCity Classic and SimCity 2000 demo from the SimMania pack from around the turn of the millennium. Between SimCity, streets of SimCity, SimTower, and SimSafari, I had enough games to last me 2 years (the other 2 years before I bought SimCity 4 Deluxe was occupied by The Sims). SimCity 4 is my favorite SimCity game (though it was a little advanced for my 12 year old mind when I first got it). I always had the NAM and eventually I discovered the CAM and variations of the NAM. By the time SimCity Societies came out, I was ready for a new game. It was the only city builder that I made more than 2 mods for (dream houses, dream houses 2, banks, and federal banks). The music was my favorite part. The gameplay grew boring and the fake difficulty was challenging in a nonsensical way. So, I went back to SimCity 4, City Life, The Sims 2, and eventually jumped on Cities XL.

[Munchiez 74]

i mean sc4 is my favorite but how about citiex xl? it is all 3d and realistic?

[GMT 389]

I got fixed with SNES SimCity. Pure. Classic. Period. It was part of the SNES starter kit I got for christmas back in those days.

Still playing it from time to time on my SNES or via emulator on pc and droid (next to many other snes titles, especially the rpg ones; got all the "big box" games that shipped with the guide book inside)

Love the colorful graphics, love the easiness, love dr. wright. except for the limited possibilities, there's nothing I don't like about it.

Then I got to sc2000+scurk on pc. really took a lot of childhood attention away, especially messing around with the scurk. the occasional hangman on the lama temple, some animations here and there and... haha even made naked rioters, but pls dont tell my mom. I also used the city creation part of scurk to make some good looking cities. I didn't like the fake viewpoints stuff with the same building picture all over the place, sometimes mirrored, sometimes not. but the terrain elevation, the water plopping, the difference between salty water and drinking water (did it actually happen again after that game??) and the funny newspaper articles made up for it.

Got sc2000 for SNES aswell. One of the worse things I spent money on, controls are nothing but a pain in the behind, making it barely playable at all.

I played the occasional instance of Sim Copter and SoSC with some of my cities aswell.

As sc3000 was released, I got it aswell.

I played this game day in day out. I did a hell of a lot of awesome cities and after I discovered the building plop trick, I wen't artistic. I created Noir-cities inspired by dark angel (that tv show with jessica alba) with all the abandoned lots and stuff and even some space center like airports.

I really liked the graphics, huge leap forward compared to sc2000. Also liked the depth in terms of managing. Didn't like how the game imported sc2000 cities.

And then, at a certain point in my life, sc4 came up. I was already following pre-release information in several magazines and couldn't wait for it so I got it right on release date. didn't got me hooked tho as I always failed hard. Gave it another shot with the RH addon. Still nothing.

it was like this for a couple years until I came back to the simtropolis and discovered some of the awesome artistic works in the CJ section that really got me hooked to this installment of the series. Thank's to their effort I really learned to appreciate the game and it's limited, yet awesome, possibilities. And the deeper I got into it, the more I loved it.

Of course things like off-grid networks, free-shaped lots, real 3d environment and the likes would've been awesome, but if I take a look at a) how awesome you can work around these drawbacks and b) how miserably other games with these offers fail, I am more than happy with what sc4 offers.

And thanks to the awesome community with all their working time and amazing plugins, most of the game's flaws are already bygone and it's getting fewer flaws day in day out.

some place within the sc4 time, I got my hands on the pc release of the first sim city and the browser-based version of it. basically the same gameplay as the SNES version, but I missed the cartoony grafics of it.

I also got the cell phone release of it on my old samsung. Intersting, somewhere between classic and sc2000, but nothing but a game to shift attention in boring classes.

And I got sim city metropolis on my droid. Nice storydriven game, but get's old once the storyline is completed.

Societies and creator and whatever failure else they released never got in my hands, just looking at videos, pictures and reviews of other genre fans / sc fans tells me more than enough about how to waste money and time.