Customer Reviews

SimCity 3000

5 star:		(42)
4 star:		(42)
3 star:		(18)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Ever since the debut of the original simulator eons ago (I remember wasting countless hours on it on my Commodore 128) people have ritualistically purchased the next two versions. Both have been wonderful improvements.

Although the basic format has been preserved from Sim City 2000, many details have been modified. The graphics in Sim City 3000 are much cleaner and detailed than its predecessor's. You also get to control trade with your neighbors, including deals for the sale and purchase of water, electricity, and garbage. That's right, garbage. In Sim City 3000 you must also manage landfills and trash-burning power plants to keep your city clean. You also have much more control over ordinances.

This time around, the game is also much more glitch-free. You should have less trouble building that road you want exactly where you want it. Also, a very disgusting aspect of Sim City 2000, the arcologies, has been removed. The problem with this is, they just vanish if you use the 'import' feature in Sim City 3000 to bring in your old cities. Oh well. Deal with maintaining a real city.

All in all a great game. The improvements aren't obvious at first, but play a bit and you'll see how much more enjoyable it is while still maintaining its classic touch.

I stayed out of the whole Sim"What-haven't-we-done" thing for quite a while. I didn't buy any previous version of SimCity, which may or may not be a bad thing. SimCity 3000 (3K) I found really enjoyable - for a while.

The graphics are pretty good, the behavioral modelling is excellent for a game - you really need to pay attention to what you're doing if you want to be a successful city mayor. Its all good fun - at least for the first couple of months.

Then it starts to fall apart - things start to become pretty repetitve after your city has been going for around 100 years. The new things to discover dwindle. Much of your time is spent repairing things going wrong (sewer lines, power stations, etc etc). It does get rather monotonous.

The fun is in building the city (for me anyway). The maintenance side is tedious to say the least, it becomes kind of hard to be creative. You'd have to be a genius to get your road layout "right" first time out the box - so expect to build a few cities until you get it right.

On the whole, I've got to rate SimCity 3000 a "3-star" - its a lot of fun for a while, but the excitement starts to disappear after a few rounds. Its not going to keep offering something new every time you play (although the scenario may differ slightly). It'll be interesting to see what a follow-up offers in terms of "keep-playing-ness" (if a follow up will ever happen). Buy it for less than full price, and you shouldn't be too disappointed.

Simcity 3000 is a lot better than Simcity 2000 for the fact that it has much better graphics and it's more challenging. In SC2000, your citizens don't really react to anything. In this version, the citizens actually come to you with their wants. It is also much more challenging. You also get more room to build a city and more rewards and oppurtunities that change your city forever.

Yeah, I know. SimCity 3000 really hasn't changed from its predecessor SimCity 2000. But you have to look behind the package -- SimCity 3000 has a much stronger and detailed simulation engine. It calculates more variables than its predecessor -- city aura, for example. And the removal of that ugly and annoying newspaper in favor of the great new ticker and advisors. Ordinances play a bigger role in the simulation, too. You can have much bigger maps, and it is designed to interact with simcity.com. Pipes and subway can be laid easier, and roads look better. My only gripe is the lack of a terrain editor (but you can get an external program), and the lack of a sign tool. But, that's minor, isn't it? If Maxis released its 3d version of SimCity 3000, it'd be like running Microsoft Office 2000 on a 286. (I mean all 7 apps at once). We should be thankful that Maxis used an isometric view instead.

The best part of this game is the zoom feature. If you're like me, you'll spend most of your time building your city about two levels up from the strongest possible magnification. At this level, you can see enough of the surrounding neighborhood, while not straining your eyes to see each particular parcel of land. However, the real joy comes in zooming in and out on what you have created. When you're up close, you see your people -- the citizens of your city -- going about their business. You'll hear the ambient noise of your city -- the sirens, buses, electricity and voices. You have to admire the quality of the programming.

Then, you zoom out and -- at your farthest point -- you're a mile up, and all you see are your biggest buildings and you hear nothing but wind. You look back to admire your entire city -- your creation -- and you're moved by the beauty of the thing you have made.

I really enjoy this game. I will play it for many days to come. However, I reserve my 5 Star rating for Caesar III, which not only matches SimCity 3000 in detail, but also provides an opportunity for battle that SimCity 3000 does not.

I have been a fan of Sim City since the original version, and have been upgrading and installing on new PC's ever since the first version. This is one of the few games to ever really capture my imagination. It also has proven to be a lot of fun for my kids, as well -- and it is probably teaching them a few things about cities, geography and government at the same time. This version is the best -- some very nice, thoughtful upgrades; much better graphics. It's worth buying if you've never owned it; worth upgrading if you have an earlier version.

I loved SC2000, and when I first got SC3000, I wasn't sure I liked it. But it didn't take long before I was a convert. By comparison, SC2000 is a bore. Yes, it's difficult--sometimes very difficult--to get your city started. And yes, it takes time. That's what's interesting about it. Finding the problems and finding ways to solve them. Is SC3000 perfect? No, there are a few things I'd change, but they're little things and they don't lessen my fun. SC3000 lives permanently in my CDROM for good reason!

I bought Sim City 3000 a while ago and I play the game a lot. I also have Sim City, and Sim City 2000. The game is a lot of fun, detail is a lot better than 2000, and there is more to do with this game. BUT even though it is a great game, it is almost the same as 2000. My sugestion is that if you have Sim City 2000 and want beter game play I wouldn't buy this, but if you don't have Sim City 2000 and are trying to decide whether to buy 2000 or 3000, I would definately buy 3000, even if it cost a little more.

I had got into the "Sim" games by playing SimTower and I loved that game, and it got me into those kinds of games. I saw SC3K in stores and read about it on the back of the box, and it looked neat. I bought it and I was truly excited when I started playing, it was one of the best games that I had ever seen in my life! After that, I had decided to get the SC2K demo, just out of curiosity, to see what that's like. As I was playing the demo of SC2K, I was very disapointed because it was very weak compared to SC3K, and when I saw so many people complaining about this being just like SC2K, I was puzzled. I hated SC2K because: the graphics were weak, I couldn't even get the city started because people wouldn't move in, they're are very little options to control what your city looked like, and the power plants wouldn't even power a tiny little city! I think that SC3K was a wonderful change from SC2K.

Anyways, I thought that SC3K was a very interesting and entertaining game. Not one of those games where you shoot as much people as you can, this a game where yoiu plan out a city and watch it grow, you really had to think while building your city. I have made 3 cities right now that have covered the whole terrain, each with a different theme (I called them Porcelina, New York 2, and El Golde). This game took me into another world, and you really care about your sims and your city. The graphics are spectacular! You can see all of your sims (by the way, sims are people) and you can see cars in traffic jams or alone on the roads. Another great thing is how you can control the way you want your city to look like, unlike in SC2K. I love how you can shape the terrain in your city better than SC2K. I also think that it's very neat how you can put landmarks in your city and you can pick real city terrain to build a city. If your one of those people who like games that you just kill a bunch of people, than this is NOT the game for you, but if you like intelligent games that make you think and entertain you at the same time, than this is the game for you. Don't get SC2K, get SC3K! :)

Remarkably detailed in just about every way you can think of. Outstanding graphics. Simple interface. Easy to read maps and graphs to help analyze your city. Riots, fires, earthquakes, tornadoes, alien attacks, water pollution, air pollution, traffic jams, selling utilities to neighboring cities, ordinances for water meters and stairwell lighting, taxes, loans, bus stops, subways, the list goes on and on. What more could you want? Get rid of that hideous background music!