Hard_To_Please's Full Review: SimCity 3000 Unlimited for Windows
Sim City 3000 was the first computer game I ever purchased and certainly not at all like the 'action' games I've since acquired.
This is definitely a 'thinking man's' game. (For the politically correct, that equates to a 'thinking person's' game.)
Yes, there IS action, but not at the frenetic, unrelenting pace that many of us have come to expect. I'll save the true destruction until the end of the review...
The basic premise of Sim City 3000 is that you create a city and then run it through your ability to make prudent decisions regarding zoning, taxes, transportation, planning, deployment of police and fire departments, education, pollution and garbage control, power and water usage, and at least two dozen other areas that impact the success of any real-life city.
If this bores you, then read further down for some of the more "fun" aspects of the game. If this excites you, then you'll be even more thrilled to learn that the game provides you with an endless and ever-changing array of charts, graphs, and spreadsheets to assist in your decision making. A statistician's delight!
In some ways, the amount of control you have in setting up your paradise is limited only by your imagination. You can start from scratch or begin with one of many small towns already started. If you start from scratch, you may choose the amount of trees, mountains, rivers, lakes, etc. in your virgin city. You can make an island or you can attempt to build in the desert....it's up to you.
You can make the game easy by starting with a relatively large budget or you can create more of a challenge by limiting your access to initial and borrowed funds. Once you have built the raw landscape, it's time to start building. You will need roads of course and I personally take great satisfaction in laying new highway - you can actually see and hear the concrete being laid as you pave new streets for your Sims. The next step is to build power and water plants. There are many to choose from- ranging from coal plants (cheap, but polluting) to nuclear fission (clean but very expensive.) Water pipes are laid underground so you will need to change your city to the underground view in order to connect everything efficiently. While you're down there, you can start planning how you will construct your subway system when your city is large enough to need one.
Eventually, you will zone for commercial, residential, and industrial areas and begin to see the actual construction of many types of homes, stores, factories, etc. Keep in mind that the visual and sound effects are great- you'll actually hear the hammering and sawing as you watch buildings go from wooden frame to tall skyscrapers. If you neglect an area for too long, you will watch in dismay as all your hard work rots into decaying, vacant buildings. But don't worry, you can bulldoze down the ghettos and re-build on top of them as long as you have the funds.
The Sims are a picky people and get quite upset if you don't provide them with a certain level of education (colleges, libraries), entertainment (casinos, ballparks, zoos), transportation (interstates, subways, trains, bus stops, airports) or other necessities such as electricity, water, hospitals, shopping malls, etc.
You will have to make many moral decisions in your tenure as mayor. Your city can earn big money by building huge prisons or mega malls or nuclear waste dumps, but there's always a cost in misery to pay.
As I write this, I am realizing that there is no way I can cover the hundreds and hundreds of aspects to this game. So as promised I will wrap up with the action summary I initially promised.
At any point in the game you have the power to wreak total and utter destruction upon the very Sims that have grown to trust and depend on you.
If their demanding attitudes finally push you over the edge, you are perfectly justified in setting massive fires to their homes or directing a killer tornado into their smug little lives. Not exciting enough? How about creating riots that spread through the city and zooming in to watch as they scream in fear while looters run amok. Still not satisfied? As a grand finale, unleash the UFOs upon your hapless Sims and witness the awesome power of mega-space weapons blasting your city to smithereens.
I'm always somewhat sad after betraying my Sims, but can't help feeling they deserved it for speaking out against my mayoral decisions. What mayor hasn't secretly wished for that same power to keep the voters in line?!
Features two completely new building sets - Asian and European Add color to your city by incorporating quaint European-style cottages or high-tech gla...More at Amazon Marketplace
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