Remember when SimCity was the best game… ever
Yeah, me to. When Sim City 2000 came out, I stayed up until 3:00AM on a school night making my metropolis. This isn’t it, but you get my drift. It extended into a 3D space something that I had done since I was a kid. I used to draw cities on graph paper, inventing streets, geographies, metropolis’ and more. Then I’d draw the macro view of a country naming geographic features after those that I had studied.
Sim City 2000 was a singular experience in isometric beauty. It showed a commitment to vision by a brilliant designer (Will Wright) and focus as a company (Maxis, at that time independent).
Sim City has stagnated since Sim City 4. At some point before Sim City 3000, screen shots were floating around that had an entirely modeled 3D city scape. None of that came to be. It’s sad that Sim City, something that could benefit entirely from the massive parallel processing today’s computers have, not to mention the video capabilities, is doing nothing of the sort.
I stumbled upon the DVD for Sim City 4. I might just have to install it.
Have you seen this video and interview? It’s pretty interesting; this fellow managed to make a nearly optimal, yet brutally totalitarian city in SimCity 3000:
http://www.viceland.com/blogs/uk-games/2010/05/10/the-totalitarian-buddhist-who-beat-sim-city/
Cheers and happy urban planning…
I *loved* Sim City 2000 also and spent many many days/weeks/months etc enjoying it, and then discovering it again every few years. Sim City 3000 was also good, but Sim City 4 totally churned on my PC at the time, so I gave up. I’d love to see a new Sim City game, although I don’t think the chances are that high.
Actually I intentionally missed a day of school after installing it, it was that addicting. Of course I have the game (and the original SimCity) installed and every now and then I give it a run, still fun as it used to be. The problem with the “sequels”, if I may call them that, is that they brought nothing new to the game, it was just the same thing re-done again and again. Truth be told, I didn’t give SimCity 3000 a lot of run, but I guess that for some reason it just didn’t grab me by the throat like the others did.
I wonder what can be done with such a project nowadays, if someone finds the way to integrate into the game an online mode, Google earth, social media, etc. The possibilities are pretty much endless.
After 2000, I played 3000 for a bit. But I missed arcologies. Sim Farm was fun for a bit too.
Maybe I’ll try Sim City 4 as well. Should be able to get it for under $10 somewhere, right?
I loved SimCity. I played one of the originals back in the 1990s and was quite addicited. It was always fun to save your city and then send out the monster that looked like “Godzilla” on the city.
I played some of the other iterations of the game later on, but nothing was quite like the first game to me.
i used to play Sim City when i was still in high school and this is simply one of the best games of all times.:-.