Customer Reviews

SimCity 4 (Prima's Official Strategy Guide)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

This book is pretty good and will be helpful for every Sim City 4 player. It explains many overall strategies, and gives valuable tips.

Unfortunately, the book could have been much better. The game itself doesn't have a real manual, leaving the player wondering about the most basic game mechanics. While it shouldn't be up to a strategy guide to explain these things, it would have been a great oportunity for the authors of this book to provide that type of information, which would have made this book a must-buy.

Without that information, this book is a good resource for people who are serious about this game and have already figured out the basics through trial and error.

Overall I am glad I bought this book.

In terms of offering hints and tips on how to build your dream city, this guide offers very little. This book is essentialy 350 pages explaining all of the different features and gaming tools Sim City 4 has to offer. The book offers pages and pages of charts and tables that explain hom this city simulator works. But I would recommend playing the built in tutorials to learn how to play instead of wasting your money on book. The book offers little that you can't figure out on your own through playing the game, and I couldn't find a single "strategy" in the book that could help me with city layout and money management

This guide is a step up from the travesties that were foisted off on fans of SimCity 3000, but still leaves much to be desired. Long on mostly-useless facts, but short of any real strategy or commentary.

Why, oh why, can't we see something on par with the old SimCity 2000: Power, Politics and Planning guide? Now THERE was an excellent companion book for a simulation game.

This is highly technical, but not very helpful. It doesn't give you any ideas on how to build a better city. Read it if you've never played any SimCity games before, but otherwise, try out the tutorials first before you spend money on this book.

This manual is a very weak and nearly completely useless manual for newbies trying to tackle the scope of this complex game. The game itself is challenging enough but this manual only scratches the surface of what needs to be done in order to run a successful city. A dissapointment. The Simcity 4 "Rush Hour" expansion pack though corrects many of the mistakes of this older manual.

SimCity 4 is very different than the previous games. I had trouble at first building cities without going bankrupt. I also realized quickly that land values aren't nearly as important as in previous games. There were quite a few things I just couldn't understand or make them work correctly - mass transportation for one. This book does help you understand quite a bit about how each building or prop affects the game - which is helpful since it is so different than previous games. But, all in all, most of the information in this book I had already learned from other game players on the SimCity4 Website Bulletin Board. So, it was kind of a waste of money to me.

Everyone in our family LOVES Sim City 4. It is addictive. But while the game interface may be fairly intuitive, the strategies and tips that help you build really big cities can be elusive. This guide gives you all the details you need and gives many useful tips for taking your simulation to a higher level. The book is well organized into chapters on getting started, modes of play, zoning, finance, utilities, transportation, education, rewards etc, and finishes with multiple city play, business deals, disasters, landmarks and even cheats; however, this book does not offer help with the Rush Hour expansion that may be included with your game, so there is no help on driving the many vehicles and their accompanying missions. I also found that some of the things I especially wanted to learn about, like monorails, were not included, so there must have been subsequent changes to the software. Stil this book has been very helpful. There are lots of pictures, though they are a bit fuzzy.

I would recommend this book to someone who wants a handy list of the many details needed to step up the gameplay.

I've read this book in 1 weekend because I wanted to play this game. I've played Simcity 3 somewhat. This book describes more of how the game was 'written' (as in what the program looks for). If you are a beginner, it is not as helpful because it does not offer you the basic tips of how to play the games specifically, like the other review stated. I guess this book assumes that you are familiar with Simcity and went on from there.

On the positive notes, it covers many aspects of the game. It has a chapter for each topic (i.e pollution, traffic, demand, utilities, etc). But if you are looking for specific details for each subtopic in each chapter, it does not give you that on everything.

Overall, this book is helpful, but if you are a beginner, you might have difficulties following it. The best advice is play the game, and if you have any trouble with anything, find that section in the book, and you will understand it better.

If you are serious about learning to play Sim City 4 Deluxe, this is your key. Great insight to the game's inner workings and idiosyncrisies. It allows you to cross reference and find the answer to your questions as the arise without having to read it cover to cover before starting the game.

i got this and its helped me out tons and now iunderstand the game alot more!