SimCity4 is a lot of fun, and whether you’ve played any previous versions or not doesn’t really matter.
User Rating: 8.9 | SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition PC
GAMEPLAY: SimCity4 is a strategy game where you build your city, and then run almost every aspect of it. If you’ve played any of the previous SimCity games, then you’ll understand how it works. Running your own cities and connecting them to other cities that you’ve made is great fun once you get the hang of it. There are loads of buildings that you can use and even more that you unlock as you go along. SimCity4 has the perfect balance between what you are required to do and what the computer does for you. You can also take part in driving missions to unlock buildings or gain money. Along with that you can create your own sim people and give them a house and a job. You can use your sims to judge how well certain parts of your city are doing, because they will criticize or commend you, based on how well your city is doing. Note: I had serious trouble getting this game to work at first, eventually I got it to work though by manually uninstalling everything, and reinstalling. But a friend of mine has the same computer as I do, and he had no trouble with the game, so I don’t know what happened.
GRAPHICS: The graphics are pretty good, and cities look very cool when you scale out a bit. Even when you zoom in the graphics hold up well, but there is really nothing astonishing graphics wise.
SOUND: There aren’t a whole lot of sounds in SimCity4, except for some catchy background music, and noise from your city streets. Occasionally some fireworks will go off, and they actually sound like fireworks, but that’s basically it.
VALUE: You could certainly spend a while making your perfect and mammoth cities, and I actually made a city with 300,000+ people and the city had a positive cash flow. In the deluxe edition you get SimCity4 and its expansion pack called Rush Hour. Rush Hour provides a lot of neat stuff, and overall it certainly adds to the experience.
TILT: SimCity4 is a lot of fun, and whether you’ve played any previous versions or not doesn’t really matter. I think it’s definitely worth checking out for any strategy fan or anyone who’s looking for something a little different.
