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SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition Review (continued)
More User Submitted SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition Reviews
Date: 2007-12-09
What, 3.a.m. already?
It is the most complex, realistic, and fun game thus far in the series(Simcity societies notwithstanding). Missions, Zoom levels, towering skyscrapers, farmland, and more! I even liked zooming in from time to time to see what my 5 sims were doing and what they thought of my city. It was tough at first, but to me, if it wasn't a struggle it wouldn't be worth it. The tutorial could have been a little better, but other than that, a great game it was! Like others have said, play only if you have many hours on your hands b/c you won't want to leave the computer.
Date: 2007-12-01
Better graphics, but three problem areas
SimCity 4 has obviously better graphics than any of the preceding versions, and is fun just to build all the possible canned graphics, plus the abilty to edit your own additional graphics.
However, it falls short in three areas:
1) The game's logic model is a bit too complicated for all but the most intensive players.
2) SC4 will not import city files from SC3 properly. I found that the cash balance in SC2 was kept in two widely seperated bytes, and bunped my bank balance to $2 Billion for a empty city. SC3 imports these city files correctly, but SC4 will not.
3) The video requirements are much greater, so beware. It worked best for me using Win2000 on a machine that was close to state of the art when Win2000 was in general use. Win XP also appears to work OK, but Vista has a few problems when you use SC4 for long periods, so don't.
Overall, it is a great game, but requires much more time to learn and build than SC3.
Date: 2007-11-24
In most ways, the pinnacle of the series
First the housekeeping: Sim city begat Sim City 2000, then 3000, then 4, then an enhanced version of 4 called Rush Hour. This deluxe edition rolls 4 in with Rush Hour; it doesn't add to the package of 4+rush hour, just consolidates it. So I will speak about "4" to mean this 4+rush hour=deluxe edition.
Sim City 4 is miles ahead of its ancestors in almost every way. Technically, the graphics are head and shoulders above the old versions, as we should expect from the evolution in the field over those years. Game play is both more intricate and less annoying--there are more choices to make, but they are interesting ones; much of the tedious housekeeping has been streamlined. Things are way more sophisticated, for instance your city is rated for desirability not just overall, but differently among different demographic "types" of sims (citizens). You need to attract and retain both yuppies and blue-collar people, by providing different amenities and industries. The people on your panel of advisors in city government now all have their own devious agendas, so you need to scrutinize their advice before accepting it! A nice touch, and done with humor, if not subtlety.
When you zone land, a grid of streets builds itself automatically. Touches like that make the world of this version manageable while also complex enough to be interesting. Water systems are a nuisance but an interesting challenge. Power stations and water stations function in very complex and interesting ways, affected by surroundings (a water pumping station near a garbage dump will provide very little useful water, because of the pollution, for instance) and degrading in gruesome ways. Every facility from a firehouse to a school to a power station can and must be tweaked to reduce costs: the number of teachers reduced at first, then more hired as the student population grows. Turn down the usage of the power station until the surrounding area grows to require lots of power. Schools and fire stations can be tweaked not just by staff levels but by funds spent on buses and fire engines, to extend their area of coverage (which is conveniently indicated by a faint surrounding circle).
Commuting imperatives are visible in great detail: Click on any house, and see how many people live in it, where they work, how long they must spend getting to and from work, and even the route they take. Sometimes they will be unemployed because they can't get to a job easily or quickly; that's a warning sign.
The view zooms down to micro level, where you can see individual sims and their cars getting into accidents, overheating, etc. Very impressive.
To my great surprise, the nuts and bolts of making this game go are in some ways smoother than the previous versions. Of course it demands a beefier PC, but it seems to be more stable and perform better on its platform than versions 2000 and 3000 did on the PCs of their day. It even runs better on a modern PC than 3000 does on the same computer. They seem to have optimized something in their code. I notice, though, that often the whole screen will "smear" when I pan in a certain way--very annoying. Might be my wimpy video card; I don't know. I've figured a workaround: Instead of panning, I click and make the city jump, instead of slide, to a new position.
The most glaring omission in my view is the facilities to design buildings that was so much fun in the earlier versions. From what I can tell, there's nothing like the old extensive tool sets for design and construction of unique buildings. Also, the structure of the game is less building- and city-oriented, and more "zone"-oriented. No more trading of prefabricated cities among other players. It's all "zones."
Also, writing in 2007, it's a MAJOR problem that the third-party books (by which I mean the Prima books, which became the standard reference for the series) for 4 have gone out of print! They're available from Amazon marketplace merchants, used, for staggering prices more suitable for original Gutenberg bibles. As always, the tiny booklet that comes with the game is very, very minimal and inadequate in every way. So if you're starting fresh, or if like me you've lost your Prima book, you're either out of luck or in for a major expense, many times greater than the cost of the game or the cost of the book when it was published. Actually I refer to the documentation in the original box for sim city 4 and for rush hour; I haven't seen deluxe edition's booklet, but I doubt it's large and comprehensive. The usual course is for documentation to get ever smaller.
As did 3000, SC 4 has an endlessly annoying feature that requires the game CD to be present in the CD drive of the computer, even when the game is installed on the hard drive. This isn't to save space on the hard drive, or any other useful function for the player/customer. Its only purpose seems to be a misguided and stupid attempt to defeat piracy. Requiring the CD means you can't just install it and give the CD to your friends, right? Um, right, unless you COPY THE CD. (DUH!) Copying a CD is the simplest thing in the world, so this does nothing to prevent piracy. In fact, because the CD has to be jammed into the drive every time to play, and thereby will get scratched and damaged from the repeated handling, one has to make a backup copy just to have a working disk at hand. Thus, EA's boneheaded anti-piracy scheme ends up requiring users to make copies of the game disk, exactly the act EA presumably doesn't like.
For newcomers to this game, and for sim city fans of previous versions, who weren't too attached to making their own buildings, this is absolutely a winner. Especially if you can track down a Prima book for it that costs less than $50.
Date: 2007-11-21
Not complex at first, easy to get in and play right away
This is easily playable on older machines, the price for both SC4 and the expansion cannot be beat. The driving missions are a nice touch as it familiariazes you with your own city as you drive by blocks which normally I would never do, I just control from a birds eye view.
Not too many bugs but save often anyway as there is no autosave. This is the complex sort of game that at first is easily playable but makes you search out details to find out how to better use certain aspects such as mass transit, parking garages, etc. I find the easy setting is similar to SC3's Medium setting, the game is tougher. One thing I am finding is that although my bottom line does not appear to support expensive items such as high schools and bigger hospitals, once I build them they create enough demand in the city for more housing that the tax revenue keeps making up for it. This game is perpetual yet fun. Perpetual that when you create one facet such as commerce or industry it creates demand to create more housing, which in turn creates more demand for commerce or industry and so on. Probably in my top ten of hundreds of games played for FUN.
Date: 2007-11-21
I am so addicted to this game but......
There is one downfall. It states on the box that it is for up to Windows XP only. Vista will run this game but there is a graphical glitch that appears from time to time. Every now and then (and I haven't figured out what triggers it yet) all the textures on you city will smear, contort and just plain go crazy. I am a big enough addict that I don't let it phase me, I just save and exit then re-enter the city.
I'm sure if your reading my review you have read others so mine is short and sweet. With that said this game is great! Not only can you build and run you're city but for fun or when you're strapped for cash or good ratings you can do the vehicle mini-missions such as crop-dusting a cemetery for an evil genius who wants to create zombies, fly a helicopter for the same evil man and annoy neighborhoods with your loud-horn and searchlight and run down the bad guys in a cop car!!
I'm very happy with my purchase of Sim City 4, i'm just sad that I paid $19.99 at best buy instead of the great price here.
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