If you're a hard-core financial empire builder...
Gameplay:
While GameSpot's original review equated this game to a fancy interface for a very big spreadsheet, I have to disagree:
The economic model underlying the game is actually quite complex, with variances in supply and demand, economic growth (and stagnation) per town or city on the map as well as ongoing changes in demand for individual products over time.
As time goes on for example, certain products become out-dated and the demand for such products will then start showing significant declines in all towns and cities on a map for example. If the player only realizes this when it starts happening, it's usually too late to start implementing superceding products.
This forces the player to really understand basic economic supply and demand issues on a town-by-town basis, as well as to do some extensive forward planning in terms of product selection, manufacturing and distribution thereof.
This is another area where the game is actually quite extensive, in the sense that access to raw materials for manufacturing purposes, etc. can become rather difficult on certain maps and the transport costs associated with bringing raw materials to product factories may start out-weighing the benefits of actually manufacturing such products in the first place, often leading to failed products manufactured at huge capital investment and ultimately leading to a failing economic empire.
Then there are some fairly interesting product transport issues that come in play, be it via road, rail, water or even air transport (during later stages of the game) where the player needs a basic understanding of costs associated with each product, it's destination and how long it will take to get there to meet current (and future) levels of demand.
In summary, while the user interface for the game may be somewhat weak in certain areas, the sheer complexity and number of game aspects that need to be addressed as time goes on makes for some very gripping gameplay if you are into this sort of thing.
There's no shooting of stuff here - it's economic empire building pure and simple.
Graphics:
The graphics are actually quite good based on the fact that a game of this nature doesn't really rely that much on fancy 3D rendered graphics, purely as a result of the underlying nature of the game. Other titles such as Capitalism II for example, also come to mind.
So compared to something like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion or Company of Heroes this is really chalk and cheese, but then again the underlying game doesn't need the latter to be enjoyed.
An interesting point is that this game seems to actually have trouble running on machines with later variants of graphics cards based on NVidia 6600 and later chipsets for some reason - hence the reason for this very, very late review I am writing for this game:
I recently upgraded my wife's PC from a GeForce 5200 based graphics card (on which Industry Giant II actually ran perfectly), to a GeForce 6800 based graphics card. Immediately I found problems with Industry Giant II and a visit to the JoWood web site confirmed my suspicions in this regard.
Sound:
Nothing special here, but once again, a game of this nature doesn't really rely on this kind of thing anyway.
Value:
I suspect that almost three years after it's release, this one will be quite a regular item in your local Bargain Bin by now, and if you like this kind of "sit back and admire your own empire" kind of game, then the value as far as I am concerned is actually excellent.
Who Should Buy It:
This game is purely for folks out there that enjoy games like Capitalism II and Patrician III if you can still find it anywhere.
Who Shouldn't Bother:
Anyone else - period.