Difficulties with earning money make this somewhat fun city builder a bust.
THE GOOD
-Great selection of terrain
-Scenario mode is fun
-Good audio
THE BAD
-Fastest game speed isn't fast enough
-Difficult to earn money
OVERVIEW
SimCity is a town building game that puts you in the mayor's shoes. You have to manage your finances in order to build up your city. Your goal is to reach a population of over 500,000 people which is called a Megalopolis. If you need help Dr. Wright will pop up, with his crazy green hair, to give you praise or inform you on what improvements need to happen.
GAMEPLAY
There are three game modes to choose from on the main menu: Practice, Start New City, and Select Scenario. Practice mode is a great way to get familiar with how to play the game. Dr. Wright will chime every so often to tell you what each of the menus and charts do. The Practice Island is smaller than the typical map and is great for beginners. Starting a new city lets you first pick the type of terrain you would like to work with. There are 1,000 different pieces of land that vary in how much water and trees occupy the area. The main objective is to try and reach 500,000 residents which is a very difficult task because you'll have to deal with disasters, solve problems (like crime and pollution), manage a budget and fit building zones together in order to maximize your land value. The last mode, Select Scenario, is the best out of the group. There are six cities to choose from and each has their own natural disaster that plagues the settlement. The cities are already built up so it's your job to subdue the threat and rebuild. A notable standout is the Tokyo Monster Attack of 1961 where Bowser comes and destroys the city in search for the Mario Brothers.
The in-game menus occupy the top and left sides of the screen. On the left side you'll find all the constructible items. The three main zones are Residential (R), Commercial (C), and Industrial (I). Residential zones turn into houses, condos and other places where people live. Commercial zones create service jobs for your town like super markets and restaurants. While Industrial zones create the goods that your Commercial zones can sell like automobiles, airplanes, and boats. At first the area the zone will have nothing going on but connect it with roads and hook up the power and you'll start to see them grow. It can be quite enjoyable watching your town increase and decrease with activity. Besides these three zones, you'll be able to create other things like parks, roads, power plants, sea ports and other buildings. Also, when you reach certain milestones Dr. Wright will unlock special buildings like banks, casinos, and amusement parks which are nice to look at and greatly enhance the wealth of your thriving metropolis.
The top of the screen has other helpful menu items which include graphs, polls, advice, and other settings. You can find your financial budget here where you can adjust taxes and other yearly funds. Every December your tax payers fork over their hard earned cash so that you can sustain the town. For some reason it is really difficult to earn money which means that after the first couple of in-game years you can expect to sit around and wait for the years to pass. This coupled with the fact that the fastest game speed isn't quite fast enough means you'll be watching more than doing. This unfortunately is a major downfall.
One last feature that is kind of cool is the disaster option. You can trigger the following disasters: airplane crash, Bowser attack, earthquake, fire, flood, nuclear meltdowns and tornadoes. Whether you're fed up with the game and want to destroy your city or whether you want to try and save your town, this option does offer some extra replay value.
GRAPHICS & SOUND
The graphics are on par with the average Super Nintendo game. Watching your zones change into giant structures and disasters wreaking havoc is always fun to watch. The menus, charts and graphs are helpful and color coded for easy recognition.
The music is one of the better aspects in SimCity. Each town status (city, metropolis, etc.) has its own unique and catchy theme. The other sound effects are pretty good from the explosion of buildings to the siren of a disaster occurrence.
CONCLUSION
SimCity on the surface is a fun game but unfortunately as you dive deeper into it; it doesn't seem as much fun. Earning money is a difficult chore which typically results you doing a whole lot of nothing for majority of the game. The entire tax system needs a revamp in order for me to recommend this game. It can be quite fun to setup disasters and watch your city burn to the ground but that's only fun for a short amount of time.