jul_7_1989's Full Review: Simcity 2000 for PlayStation 1
INTRO
This game is all about building up a city. You must act as a responsible mayor in order to make your city great. You must buy residential, industrial, commercial, and many other types of buildings to make your city the best of them all. You also must make sure that crime and pollution don't get in to dangerous levels. If you do a good a enough job, the city will be throwing parades in your honor (Literally).
GRAPHICS
The graphics in this game are quite poor. You see that all of the of the buildings, cars, etc. are made out of blocks. You see small squares in everything. Though some of the buildings were well designed to look realistic, you still see that they are quite rough. There is quite a variety of buildings. They may try to put some extra detail into the buildings. They put trees and bushes on he yards, give sidewalks and driveways, and always have windows. The only problem is that the size of the house or building really determines how nice the building is supposed to be. They only show small houses but they look quite clean and tidy. If the land value's low or something, then I think the house or building should look a little run down or unclean.
There is no variety of cars though. When it shows traffic, it just shows small blue-squared cars driving through. When the traffic ends, the blue car or square then disappears and reappears at other side of the road going the other way.
The roads and things like that are not fancy looking. They just look like regular roads with pretty poor graphics. That's all. There are never any people walking on the sidewalk either. This game contains nothing positive about graphics. (Overall Graphics: 3.5/10)
GAMEPLAY
The gameplay in Simcity 2k is very bad. The game is very difficult to find out at first. At first, I could not figure out how to get to the Power Plants!! No matter how long I searched, I could not find it! After a while, I found out in the manual that if you were click and HOLD DOWN on the icon, more options will appear. So I finally figured out that if you click and hold down on the power lines icon, then two options would occur; Power lines, and POWER PLANTS. I was so irritated by this. I figured out so much because of this.
There is quite a variety of types of buildings you could buy. Residential; houses and apartments, commercial; shops and stores, industrial; factories, educational; schools, colleges, etc., emergency; hospital and police and fire departments, and the special buildings. Each play a vital role when built. If you don't contain these things in your city, then your sity is out for a slump. The special section is a category of buildings that you earned that you can build. Example, the mayor's house or City Hall.
The advisors in the game are completely useless. I even think the name "Advisors" is wrong. They should just be little informers. They don't ever give advice and if they try, it's the stupidest thing you've ever heard. The transportaion advisor for example, he always says, "Destroy the roads! It can be the cause of traffic jams." Doesn't that sound so stupid? Fist of all, if you have too LITTLE roads, then it would cause minimal streets to go on so there would be more cars in one street then causing traffic jams. The other advisors just say, "Fire protection is doing well", or, "We are doing well financially".
"Doing well financially" is actually always wrong for me. I never seem to find out how to earn money. My friends who owne this game said that you have to enact some oridances like gambling. That didn't help me. I still lost over $2000 every year. Then I had to make loans which increased the amount of what I owed.
The disasters is one of the few things I like doing and dealing with. You can choose off their small list of disasters, from tornados to floods to Monsters. They all destroy buildings in their own way. It's so fun overwhelming your town with unlimited disasters! HAHAHA!!!
The Urban Renewal kit is also a pretty nice feature to Simcity 2k. You can create towns with very specific buildings. You basically create everything at no cost. You then can save it as a city, and then load it the way you created it. It doesn't matter if you have the best buildings in the game or not. You can also edit any current city to make it better - or worse. You can also edit any type of building in some type of paint mode. You can design buildings and junk. They have some modes already made for you. You can make it so your cities are futuristic looking or look like they're from the early 20th century.
CONTROLS/INTERFACE
The controls are just a mouse. No key board short-cuts, which I always love playing with. The interface is relatively complicated and relatively not. Some parts are easy to find yet some are not. For example, you can just click on the money detials button but, as I said before, some of the things are hidden.
DIFFICULTY
This game is quite difficult becuase I eventually got broke and never was able to fully create a city. This is game can occupy you for only the beginning, when you have money. (Overall Gameplay: 4/10)
AUDIO
This is about the only part that I actually like about the game. The sound effects are realistic and fit for whatever they're meant for. You hear a loud explosion or noise when you buldoze, you hear a whirl of wind when being threatened by a tornado, and you hear oil sounds when near industry. The music is quite good. There are only four songs but they're all well made. They're basically fast and loud jazz; which I dearly love as a type of music. The audio is good but this isn't a very good reason to buy this game. (Audio: 6.5)
OVERALL
Don't buy this game. This game is a waste of time to play and you probably won't figure out much on your own. The graphics are all choppy and the gameplay is just horrible. DON'T BUY THIS GAME!
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