Rating: 
Summary: Two minds on this one ...
Review: Firstly, I have the PC version. The PS2 bit on the description has thrown me a bit! That aside, I loved Simcity 3000. Played it for hours. Heard about SC4, got it, unwrapped it.... and..... Well it looks nice. Has a bundle of extras that 3000 didn't have. So I dived in to the rich graphics and started building my city. CRASH. Frozen computer. Hmm. The read-me's said ensure you have the latest drivers for your soundcards, graphics cards etc... so off I went... spent about 3 weeks upgrading drivers, playing the game for a bit... watching it crash, trying another driver.... watching it crash... So I contacted the admitedly very responsive EA tech support via email. We spent about a week trying different things to a point where it worked ok in VERY slow software mode. At this point EA told me how I could get a refund. Not impressed. All my computer specs exceed those printed on the case. I'm also a bit of a PC geek, so following the read-me instructions, tech support advice and upgrading drivers wasn't a problem. So why am I left with a very nice looking but unstable game? I have now got it working with medium detail settings rather than the full glory I should be able to see, but after several weeks of constant crashing, I can't face playing it again. I fear the next crash! (Yes, I have tried EA's first issued patch for SC4. No it doesn't help).
Rating: 
Summary: The best keeps getting better
Review: I bought it when it came out, and haven't got tired of it yet. Definately the most realistic yet, the detail is amazing when zoomed to full view. Very, very challenging game- money goes out fast. Cities can be more interdependent then ever- sims will work in one city and live in the other. Characters from the Sims can be moved in (even pets from unleashed) and can tell you how they like the place. Also, you can put in your own mp3's in the music folder and they will play in the game (sweet!). The controls are much like the ones in The Sims.
As far as system requirnments go, don't use this on an older computer or if you have less then 128 megs ram- i have p4 1.7 with 256 rambus and a 64mb graphics card, and even then it still can be a little slow changing the zoom (all that wonderful detail).
I haven't noticed any bugs so far- there is a patch out now but there wasn't any problem before that. Runs smooth, once you buy it you can't put it down! Definately recommend to any fan of Sim City or the Sims.
Rating: 
Summary: Amazing city simulator
Review: I've gotten Simcity the past weekend and I was glued to the PC every night when I got back home until 1 am. It's really addictive... Ever dreamt of having the city of your dreams? Well, you can now build your very own! You can customize the land: add mountains, valleys, trees, exotic animals, rivers, etc etc.
When you're finished you can start laying the foundations of your first buildings. Will you have a powerful but polluting energy generator coal powerplant or install a moderate gas one?
Will you dedicate more funds to establish a complex road network or favor the mass transit system? Will you treat your trash or just dump it anyplace?
Decisions like those are to be taken at every moment and the success of your city depends on them! One main feature Sim4 has is the ability to play with multiple cities simultaneously. You can start a city with the goal in mind to make it become the heavy industry center of your country, while making its neighbor the pole of wisdom and culture. And you can connect them so your sims can live in one city and work in the other! Overall this is a really addictive game but keep in mind that you need a powerful PC to play it. Mine is P IV 1.5 Ghz with 256 RAM and the game drains all the resources from it, enabling a barely playable game.
Rating:
Summary: Almost Perfect...
Review: This is a real good game. But if you put it up with SC3KU (Sim City 3000 Unlimeted), SC3KU just might win. The really bad things about this is it is WAY to hard (Example: H2 Power Plants $100,000) and the cheats are VERY lame. The best one gives you $1000. The new region design is perfect. Other then the 2 problams I mentioned. It's GREAT!!!
Rating:
Summary: Big dissapointment.
Review: The graphics aren't the problem in this game. It's the actual gameplay. Gone is the EXTREMELY detailed level editor of SimCity 3000. All you can do now is affect large areas with one setting. Aside from not being able to make cool mountains around your city anymore, there's the region thing. You have a large map with tiny to large areas to play. The idea is to link them all together. Cool idea but doesn't work too well with business deals. The main problem though, is...ROADS! In this new version, the game thinks it knows what it's doing, and makes roads for you when you zone land. HORRIBLE idea. Whenever enlarging an area the roads become a tangled mess. Even worse, if you try to copy how the game makes roads to do it manually, somehow the layout doesn't work and it still makes more roads. Of course the Sims of your city hate this and let you know with constant complaining. Menus are another atrocity. The menu works but just doesn't fit the game well. It's to "Simized." Meaning it's the exact same menu The Sims uses. The whole game has actually been "Simized". The robot maid is one of the disastors...
Rating:
Summary: The Best Yet
Review: First, a nod to the truth that you'd better have a good computer on which to play this game if you intend to enjoy it. I'm running a pentium 4, 2.4 GHz, with 256MB RAM, etc., with an NVIDA GForce4, etc., and have had pretty good game play, though the play can get choppy with a larger city. If you don't have a system that meet the recommended requirements, you won't be able to enjoy this game. That said, this has to be the best version of SimCity thus far, and I say that haveing played every version since the first one came out. Don't play it expecting it to be much like 3000 or 3000 Unlimited, because it's a different ballgame from the beginning, and the key is strategy. First, you've got a region instead of one city. Though you have some prefab regions, you basically create your own if you want to play another kind of terrain. First you've got to think about whether you want to just pick a tile and play one city or if you want to play a region, because the strategies are different. For a region, you've got to think about what kinds of cities you want to build and how they will relate to each other. And you'd better to it before you lay down the first road or zone. Second, it's fairly easy to get a new city operating in the black right away, because you start out with $100,000 - sufficient funds to start a succesfull city if you don't try to expand to quickly. They key to success is to micromanage your finances. Since you can now set different tax rates for different classes of Sims, you can manipulate the tax levels to attract certain kinds of residential, commercial and industrial developers. You can also micro-manage your service buildings' budgets individually or through the budget panel by category. Oh, and there are no random disasters anymore. As "God," you decide what major disasters are going to happen, as well as when and where. So, you don't have to turn disasters "off" because they are never "on" without your being in control. The major "con" I noticed here was the "auto-street function. There are now "Roads," which are more heavily traveled and "Streets," less heavily traveled, in SimCity, and the good folks at Maxis have added a function that will automatically layout streets as you zone. Don't use it. Hold down the Shift key when zoning to avoid it and place your street where you want them. So, if you're a fan of SimCity, and you have a relatively new, powerful system, get this game. If you accept it for what it i, and don't compare it to previous versions, you'll definitely enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: As addictive as the first one was.
Review: Techie: Your machine has to be top flight to take advantage of this game. I have a 1 gig processor and top of the line geforce4 graphics card, and performance is an issue. I do have all the graphics options maxed out though, and I keep intending to turn it down some. The Manual: I always buy strategy guides, so I don't look at the manual. The strategy guide is a must have for this game. There's a lot of choices and a lot of interaction and without the strategy guide, you will just be flailing around guessing. As an example, you'd never guess how helpful ranger stations are, even in a city, but they are. They are yimby and they have a huge radius of effect. 4: It's the fouth in a series, how could it be anything other than a rehash? Three was a rehash, 4 is a re-think. This one adds the concept of regions, which you won't understand without the strategy guide. This one re-thinks the transportation scheme, and the way demand works. Rewards are handled differently, and so on and so on. It's new. Honest. In summary: I love this game. It's huge and complex. If you see complexity as something to complain about, you'll hate it.
Rating: 
Summary: Dissapointing Customer Service
Review: Hmm as game quality you could change my stars to 4. But unfortunatly there are other factors involved. With this particular game, SimCity 4, Maxis advertised on the box that there would be online play. Well unfortunatly the games been out for months and the online portion of the game still does not even have a projected date of release.
But if your willing to forget that I have others. If you install the game and happen to get it to run fine great! However if your one of many who get some of their bugs or can not seem to get it to work right and patches dont fix it. Online tech support is next to impossible. They have a "BBS" which is a forum for players to get tech support at. However the mods for the board reak of verant type of status where they call everyone complainers and wont listen to even the most polite requests. On top of that the run an aditude against their customers.
And finally if you dont have internet access I would recomend waiting on buying the game untill you get it. The game was released so buggy they've already had to have a few patches to fix some problems. Although Maxis wont come out and just admit there are a few errors for common curtosy. Instead they send you to their trash bin, err BBS where the mods yell at you for asking help. Coming from personal experiance ive posted once on the technical support boards, and immediatly got responded with some very unsatisfying words from the board mod..
Rating:
Summary: boo...
Review: I Have been a huge SimCity fan since the beginning. And this is probably the worst installment yet. It is very hard. After about an hour of playing it, after seeing all the fancy eye candy graphics, I got mad at the game. It takes forever to do anything! I love these kinds of games but this one doesn't do it for me. Sim City 3000 was a much better game.
Rating:
Summary: could have more
Review: i'll start by saying a bought a copy, and the software code did'nt work, so i had to exhange it. that was a hastle. next, i'll agree with everyone that you need a GREAT computer to enjoy this. i have a dell 4550 2.8 Ghz, 512 RAM, 120 GB hd, etc, etc, and i notice it's a bit choppy as the cities get bigger than about 10,000. i do have it on the highest resolution settings, though. Anyways, on to some specific player comments:
Graphics are exceptional, lots of new building styles, etc. esp cool at night.
I don't agree with most of the other writers that this is "too complex to be fun". i have'nt had a problem balancing my budget yet. you just have to make sure if you take out a loan, you build stuff that will bring a tax base, eg. industrial zoning, and not stuff that costs you money like utilities, schools, etc. I have noticed that sim happiness level does'nt effect your budget too much. high taxes will drive them out, but a town with no police and no schools does'nt seem to be a problem (at least not for a while).
I would of liked to see more "new" features with the game. e.g. mining operations available at the base of mountains, massive industrial outfits like a car plant that takes up 6 sq blocks, etc.
Overall i like the game, and have been late for work because of playing all night. i'd recommend it, just don't expect to many new features from the old versions.
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