SimCity

The Good
SimCity has one obvious advantage over other simulations of the time, it is actually possible to play it. Other simulations and wargames of the time had a learning cliff rather than a learning curve (I suspect because the average gamer was a computer professional himself, and game designers weren't exactly shooting for the soccer mom demographic), but SimCity introduced the idea of simple design and easy accessibility. The result is a game with phenomenal mass appeal.

The story behind the game's creation is that designer Will Wright had created a 2D action game with an edit mode, and soon found this edit mode to be more fun than the game itself. He decided to create a whole game dedicated to the concept. It did not see the light of day for years, but when SimCity was finally released it was a great success and launched a whole franchise of other Sim titles.

As the name implies, SimCity is about building and maintaining a city. You have control over all buildings and all public functions, but can only indirectly influence your citizens. The meat of the game is the Create-A-City Mode, where you start from scratch and must build a city up to glory. As is the rule with simulations, there are no specific goals to achieve in SimCity. There is something satisfying about a well-run city humming along that is better than a high-score in Super Mario Brothers. There is also a scenario mode where you start out with a pre-set city and must fix a certain problem like a nuclear meltdown. Of course, if you're a sadist you can start out with a built-up city and wreck everything, turning your citizens' lives into hell with unfair taxes, poor civic functions, and even natural disasters like floods and fires and the ever-popular Godzilla attack.

The graphics were good for its day, and the game has a very nice user interface that surpasses that of Windows 3.1. The sound is minimalistic but effective, and there's even a freeform edit mode.

The Bad
It's annoying how you can't "zone" areas like in the later games (in other words if you have a 2x4 lot you can't build a 3x3 building there), but that's nitpicking.

The Bottom Line
Of course, there's no reason you'd bother trying to emulate it these days, since the formula has been copied verbatim by many prettier games, but SimCity is a great classic with that elusive, sought-after quality: crossover appeal. I'm sure there were lots of parents who refused to let their kids play Doom or Mario but let them play SimCity, content in the knowledge that their children were learning all about how to run a city. (They probably weren't, but the game is still fun.)

The Good
I say is the first city managerial game ever? Don't know but it sure hell is the best one around in those days...and in many years after it. Civilization could beat the addictiveness level this beaut had to offer. This game is worse than smoking my good old clove cigarettes cough cough.

You know most people usually have this liking to watching thing grow, may it be their children, their garden, or in this case their virtual city, there's something about building something from scratch and watching it bloom into a massive metropolis really brings out the parent in you...uh.

SimCity was a really great concept, although I'm not sure if anyone has actually thought of it before. Build your own city! Dang, pure genius. You have to juggle between the commercial, residential and industrial attributes of the city by answering through transportation, beautification, plumbing, electricity, the works.

Proud to say that I play the hardest level of difficulty and that the secret of success in SimCity is to never borrow money from the bank...the interest rates tend to grow on you. Better yet never trust bankers period...their no more worse than those lawyers out here (me included ahem).

The Bad
Hmm...realistic? Hardly. Although no one would dare say that this game is less than brilliant and addictive, I found it quite unrealistic on how to solve various issues in city management. For example, lots of traffic? Easy, bulldoze a couple of buildings, make some new roads, demolish some old roads.

Whoa! Wait a minute! That can't be write, if that happened in the real world, you'd have a bunch of low-life lawyers (like myself ahem) sniffing up your (censored) and demanding things that your grandmother would die of a heart attack if she heard it. Building roads and buildings only takes 1 day? Boy, those city workers must really be making some really good money through overtime...not.

Hey, but it's a game...big deal. Not really, unfortunately compared to Civilization, the game kinda lacks the educational values I think the game should've had. Not much descriptions on the interface, minor descriptions on buildings. Another thing is that the monetary fund is totally unrealistic too. How in the hell can you construct a road for only 4 dollars? If they used more realistic numbers, maybe one could appreciate the tough jobs (or not) real city administrators do.

Anyway, it took me 50 years (without the help of a bank) to get my city actually blooming...if this were real...well.

The Bottom Line
Addictive as hell, stay away from it if you love your day job.

The Good
I loved this game, way back in the days where your pc struggled to even run plain tetris. It was great to have a game that spanned over more than 3 disks ;)

The concept of owning your own city, and managing it, building it, controlling the traffic and the little people. Oh we all aspire to be a God - how cool can ownage be! But yes, enough about my plan to take over the world. This game is very cool. The next up SimCity 2000 got quite complex when compared to this, and when you're young you don't want things to be TOO complex. So I came back to this game often.

You got to build residential, commercial and industrial zones, power and other city necessities. Airports and docks when your city got even bigger! The naughty little monsters, plus tornado's and other natural disasters. Meanwhile learning about taxes and education and health funding etc. I suppose you could call this game education if you wanted :P

The Bad
I think that once you did get the hang of SimCity 2000 it was hard to come back to this game. But in that place and time, this game was excellent. I still sometimes pull it out and play again. Its nice to have a game you can go back to. So I couldnt criticise it too much.

Sounds could do with an improvement. ;)

The Bottom Line
Totally groovy. A great classic that bought Maxis to my attention. The SimCity series as a whole is worth checking out. But you cant neglect this one - its cool!