Imagine, a game in which you have complete and total control over all you see. Yes, Simba, all you gaze upon shall one day be yours.. except the Elephant Graveya... uhm.. where was I.. O, yes.. A game where hundreds of thousands of tiny little people were depending upon your every move. A game that never ends. A game so magnificent in it's presentation, music, level of fun, and replayability, that you'll be playing it years on end after buying it.
This game: Sim City.
Now let's get one thing straight, Sim City is by no means perfect, but while you're managing a booming industrial town or a small farming community, you probably won't care, because this game's premise is so unbelieveably fun.
First of all, the music sounds great for a game of this nature, or any game for that matter. The songs each have a special melody and tone to them, and each set the modd for whatever stage of the game you're in. Some examples are the mellow theme for a town, and how much it contrasts to the theme of the metropolis, or the tense music that plays when Bowser is stomping over your buildings, or a hurricane is in full force.
The best music, however, is the awesome opening theme. There really isn't anything 'special' about it, it just sounds good.
Graphically speaking, it's superior to it's snes sequel (Sim City 2000) in each and every way, the building are all the perfect size, many are animated in one fashion or another, the colors, variation, and overall look of Sim City is no less than perfect 16-bit bliss that you won't soon forget.
The disasters are nicely done too, with an imposing Bowser who's the size of a house (eep) and some nice fire and hurricanes, it looks good in all it's evil and deathly glory.
Yet another graphical wonder is the well illustrated difference between winter, summer, autumn and spring. You'll soon develop a favorite season to look at because they are all so very different. Mine, living in eastern Canada of course, is winter =P.
The game is controlled by little buttons, drag and dropping icons, and navigating through menus. All of this works like a charm, except for the fact that you can't customize cursor speed, which is very forgivable because the default speed seems to work well anyway.
All the charts and graphs work great, some of which make use of cool transparency so you can see your city bustling in the background, while you check out the crime rate, land values, electrical work, road conditions, population density, and all the other essentials, along with a ton of stuff you wouldn't expect, like exactly how many of each type of building is up and exactly how many kilometers of roads you have built.
More things you can check out are net migration, which tells you whether your city is gaining or losing people, and the public opinion polls, which not only show what percentage of the populus loves ya, but also what they dislike. For example, the game lists two percentages, one telling how many 'like the current mayor (you)' and another percent telling how much of the people don't like you. Under this menu you'll find the top problems in the city and a percentage to show how much of the population these problems affect, or at least how much of the population is complaining about them.
The amount of and depth of information is unmatched, except for the sequel which takes the depth another step farther, in my opinion, it's quite amazing how real a city it seems like (save the fact that once you're elected you may rule like an immortal king for hundreds of years... All in good fun I say, all in good fun.)
Thankfully, there are three difficulty levels, in which you start off with a different amount of cash, and in which the people and industry takes different amounts of work to attract.
The replay value is unmatched, since the game can only end when you end it. There is no point when Sim City goes, "Hey! You Won! Congratulations!" Instead you keep raising and managing your city until you feel like stopping it, either because it's a dismal failure or you've run out of land (even then you can still get a lot of enjoyment out o fmanaging your city) or just because you want to start fresh.
Another factor which contributes to the awesome replay value is the fact that there are *literally* hundreds of different landforms to choose from when you begin, from islands to a land mass completly devoid of any water, although this one must be attained by defeating the scenarios.. Speaking of which, the scenarios are situations in which you play as the mayor of a city during a time of great turmoil, you are given a goal and a certain amount of time then told to get started.
Some of these situations include:
A nuclear meltdown in Boston, intense crime in Detroit, and my favorite, Bowser attacking Tokyo.
These just add more and more replay value in case you ever get tired of managing your own city.
Alright, now let's get on to those imperfections, the first, graphical glitches, although it can also be used as a cheat of sorts, it's downright ugly and will cost you $100 000 of your citys back account to fix, if you accidentally bulldoze a square on the airport, the airport is left with a hole in it! But it still works! What gives!?!
Seriously, though, there are flaws.
Firstly there is a lack of sound effects, there are a few of course but simply not enough. Another flaw is the almost complete lack of 'rural' scenery. There are trailer parks and such, but there are no real farms, and certainly no sight of a barnyard. While these aren't necassary it would've been good to be able to create a realistic rural community, wouldn't it?
One more flaw is the non-realism displayed in commune, it works like this: To attain a perfect city in Sim City, it would be benifficial to you to use ALL railroad tracks and NO ROADS! Why? Well, roads cause pollution when cars go on them.
So, you can have a wonderful metropolis with absolutly no roads. Although it's a minor offence, it's worth mentioning.
In the end, Sim City is an innovative wonder, that you deserve to play ^_^
-your friendly neighborhood ff
P.S. - Big thanks to Slade for these screenshots.
|
