I've been playing SimCity 4 off-and-on for the past month. It offers some strong improvements over SimCity 3000, but (unfortunately) went backwards on some of SimCity 3000's strong points.

NOTE: I have the Deluxe Edition of SimCity 4 (i.e. comes with the Rush Hour Expansion Pack). I comment on Rush Hour below but the jist is that the expansion pack allows you to control vehicles (cars, boats, planes, etc) in the cities you build. Rush Hour integrates almost seamlessly into SimCity 4 so some of the features I describe below may not apply if you only have the stand alone version of SimCity 4.

Anyway, on to the review...

Pro:
GRAPHICS: This has always been the big area of improvement for each new SimCity iteration. SimCity 3000 broke new ground by showing city residents as they walk/drive about town. SimCity 4 goes a step further by showing, for instance, blue city buses AND yellow school instead of a generic "bus". There's also a greater variety of buildings in SimCity 4 so each street actually looks different from the ones around it. My favorite touch is that light-residential zones (i.e. single family homes) actually show detailed features like backyard swing sets and clotheslines.

REGION PLAY: Like others have said, one of SimCity 4's new features is the ability to build multiple cities and have them interact with each other. These cities that you build constitue a region akin to, for instance, the city of Los Angeles and its surrounding cities. As in SimCity 3000, the cities in a region can buy and sell electricity, water, and garbage disposal services from one another. You can (naturally) also build roads and highways between cities as well. I'm not 100% certain, but I believe the AI in SimCity 4 adjusts transportation traffic accordingly to mimic how real people often live in one city, but commute to work in another.

MORE BUILDING OPTIONS: One of the major complaints I had about SimCity 3000 was the limited variety of things you could build. Build a city to any appreciable size and pretty soon every street starts to look identical. The AI in SimCity 4 picks buildings well enough (most times) so that that isn't a problem. In addition, you also have a greater variety of infrastructure choices. For example, SimCity 3000 allowed you to build a road or a highway to move automobile traffic. SimCity 4 allows you to pick between a road, a street, an avenue, a one way street, an elevated highway, and a groundlevel highway to handle car traffic. For rail traffic, you now have a groundlevel railroad, an elevated railline, or a monorail. You also have a choice of size when building structures like police stations, schools, and hospitals. Bigger structures can handle more criminals, students, and patients, respectively, but cost more money to run.

PUTTING SIMS INTO YOUR CITY: I think this feature comes with the Rush Hour Expansion Pack. In either case, this feature allows you to put an actual Sim (with a name, vehicle, job, etc) into your city. There's a standard set of Sims in SimCity 4, but you can also import Sims you've made in "The Sims". Anyhow, your Sim travels about town and tells you periodically what they think (traffic is bad here, pollution is heavy here, etc)

U-DRIVE-IT MISSIONS: I know that this is part of the Rush Hour Expansion Pack. U-Drive-It missions are where you take control of a vehicle (like a garbage truck) in your city and perform some task --- in the case of the garbage truck, it might be to deliver a load to the landfill. The variety of vehicles is extensive and includes every imaginable kind of car, truck, train, airplane, helicopter, and boat that might be in your city (depending on if you have the relevant structure --- in other words, no cop cars if your city doesn't have a police station). The missions aren't hard and offer you the chance to earn money and improve your mayor's rating if you succeed. Some missions also allow you to unlock some of the rewards buildings (City Hall, Courthouse, etc) that you wouldn't ordinarily have access to until your city was much, much bigger.

BUILDING ON INCLINES: Oh, almost forgot. SimCity 4 allows you to build on inclines. SimCity 3000 would only allow you to build on level tiles, but SimCity 4 will automatically grade the zoned area for the building you want to put down. And as any mayor knows, any tile you can put a building on means more money in your city's tax coffers.


----------CONS----------
TERRAIN: Modifying terrain in SimCity 4 is a pain. In SimCity 3000 it was pretty simple to raise, lower, or flatten terrain --- simply highlight the individual tile you want to change. In SimCity 4, your mouse turns into a circle (encompassing multiple tiles) when you want to raise, lower, or flatten terrain. The problem arises because, apparently, you can also drag the mouse while raising/lowering/flattening to create (for instance) an asymetrical mountain. Others may be able to master it, but I've always had to try for several minutes to raise, lower, or flatten a piece of land.

TILE DIRECTIONALITY: The rule in SimCity 3000 was that a tile had to be within three tiles of a road for construction to occur. That same rule is in SimCity 4 (I think), but the new annoying improvement is that tiles now also have to face that road. This applies only to residential and commercial tiles of any density (industrial ones don't appear to have to face a particular road). When you zone an area residential or commercial, SimCity 4 will stick arrows at the end of each row of zoned tiles. These arrows are supposed to face a street or road. If they do, then the zoned areas will develop. If not, then a bubble appears that says "No road connection". The problem is that the AI in SimCity 4 only gets the arrows right half the time even when the road/street is immediately adjacent. What does this mean? A lot of cursing, a lot of de-zoning, and a lot of Simoleans wasted.

RUSH HOUR EXPANSION PACK: My major beef with the Rush Hour Expansion Pack is in the sheer absurdity of the interface. Most driving games put you in the driver's seat so that your perspective is the same as when you drive a car in the real world. Rush Hour (for some reason) instead went with a perspective that puts you above your vehicle and to the side (like how a flying bird would see a worm on the ground at 10 o'clock). Driving from this perspective is really a pain. The perspective doesn't change either when you turn your vehicle around. I ended up turning left a lot when I meant to go right. What also makes it worse is the controls in Rush Hour. Instead of using the arrow keys, you use W, A, D, and S to go forward, backward, left, and right.


I think the SimCopter perspective (behind the vehicle, scenery changes as vehicle turns) would have worked much, much, much, much better. I believe SimCity 4 comes bundled with the Rush Hour expansion pack now so you really have no choice but to buy it. The only redeeming parts of Rush Hour (in my opinion) are the tank missions. Yes, the tank is armored (you can drive over things) and yes, it actually shoots.


Recommended: Yes