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SimCity 3000

SimCity 3000

List Price: $14.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Almost too realistic to stay any fun.
Review: Sim City 3000 is a really neat game (at first). It is by far the best in the Sim series. Graphics and sound are greatly improved over Sim City 2000. And it is very easy to just overload yourself with all of the new options available for construction around the city. It will take you several days and practice cities just to get the options down and to figure out what all the new structures do.

My greatest problem with the game is that after 100 years or so, you spend 95% of your time running around the town performing maintenance. The game has gotten to the point where it is to realistic to be any fun any more. Trust me, it is zero fun to spend all your time looking for dilapidated water pumps and repairing damaged streets.

My second problem is that citizens in the game are constantly petitioning the mayor (you) for any and all types of new ordinances. This stops being interesting after about 50 years of game play. After that you just wish they would leave you alone. Once again, realism starts sapping out the fun. But overall, Sim City 3000 is a good way to waste a few hours. Just don't be surprised when you hit that breaking point where it changes from a game into work.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Minor changes have 'mayor' effect
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: very good and perhaps better than SC2000
Review: I found this to be a delightful game. I played it the most on my mother's old HP Celeron 466 with only a small video card so sometimes it ran slowly. On today's computer's I'm sure it won't be a problem though. I loved the older version--Sim City 2000--and this seemed to improve on that (other than the need for a fast computer) and it struck a good balance between being realistic and being too complicated.

I suspect you will really like it and you will be happy you bought it.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Keep 'em coming
Review: 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.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A game that can be easy, or hard!
Review: Making a City, it's a change for once. I like this game because it gives easy control, and it's fun to play. There are some down-sides to it too, like it takes too long to make a big city, and Sims complain tooooo much, but it's all good other then that. My favorite thing to do is save the city, then rip it down by disteasters. The good thing is you don't have to save it after you destory it. This game can be easy or hard, like if you want to make a big city, it takes time, and it's hard, but if you use codes like:I am weak, Call coison Vinnie, I love Red Tape, Power to the masses, Water in the desert, Garage in garage out, and nardz rool(actually spelling) it's eazy (...). Graphics, well it isn't that good on making small sims, but good on everything else, 9/10 Fun, a very fun game, isn't has fun as some games, but it's cool,7/10 Gameplay, well, if you like making cities, then it has long gameplay, 8.5/10 Sound, I really like the sound because it makes me think more,9.5/10 Overall, you would love this game, but it's fun isn't like some games 8.5/10 which is Great/Awesome and 4 stars for Sim City 3000!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: It's better than SimCity 2000, but....
Review: First off, let me clear up some misstatements about the features listed above by amazon.com:

*Realistic 3-D environment

Wrong. The game is 2D, it merely looks 3D. It IS realistic, however. There is far more detail in 2D than could ever have been done in 3D and still hae it run on everyone's machine.

*View cities from up to 50,000 feet

I guess...you have 5 zoom levels. The above implies that you can zoom to any level.

*Detailed control over businesses and other facilities

None whatsoever other than being able to zone blocks of residential, commercial, and industrial areas, along with other specialized zones. You can't micromanage any individual businesses.

*Everything and everyone moves

Cars and SimCitizens move, so do some animated buildings, but certainly not EVERYTHING.

*Optional load-in sets for customization and enhancements

That's handled much better in SC3K Unlimited.

SimCity 3000 is a mixed bag for me. I love being able to play a fully updated version of 2000, but whether it should be called 3000 or 2100 is something of a dilemma.

Graphics-wise, 3000 is beautiful! No two ways about it. A lot of hype has gone into the fact that you can now zoom in and see little sims walking, driving around in individual cars, and so on. The building images are now fully 4-sided entities so that rotating the view yields 4 different looks at each feature. Five zoom levels let you choose the size you're comfortable with to build on. Some people claim that the buildings are blocky and pixellated at the highest zoom. I don't have that problem, but they are definitely not the crisp renders that the other 4 zooms are. They are merely enlargements of the 4th zoom. Vehicles and pedestrians remain crisp and distinct at any zoom.

Gameplay: here's the sticking point for me. If you've continued to play SimCity 2000 until you're red-eyed and guaranteed to be late for work/school, you'll probably do the same with 3000. Given all the new bells and whistles, it'll take some time to try them all and see how this affects that. From this point, however, two camps emerge. One camp will continue playing the game for years and loving every minute of it, relishing the freedom to create anything they want. I fall into this category. The other camp, once having seen everything and mastered building megalopoli at will, are going to wonder what's the fun anymore. So depending on your expectations for the game it'll be either a gift from heaven or something you may well have wished didn't cost 40 to 50 bucks.

As for difficulty, it's no harder really than 2000. Some of the new features like garbage disposal, ordinances, and neighboring city dealings add depth and strategy without making the game unduly complex. Maxis should be commended for that.

Overall? It's good. In fact it's very good. They put a lot of work into it making sure everything balances more or less. Is it worth the money? Not now with SC3K Unlimited out. Get it instead, as it's much more refined. If you haven't played a SimCity game before or if you're a diehard 2000 fan, absolutely. If you just sorta liked 2000 and quit playing it after a little bit, you may want to wait until it hits the bargain rack.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Keep 'em coming
Review: 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.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Buy it!!!!!!!
Review: This is the on of the colest games in history! You are the mayor of a city. You have to think about ploution a lot.It is cool

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Awesome game, but SC3U is out too...
Review: SimCity 3000 is great, but there is no reason to buy this game since SimCity 3000 Unlimited is out. I have both versions of SC3000, and SC3000 Unlimited has everything the regular version does, but with many more features included like the Building Architect Plus, Scenario Creator, and many new in-game features. So, if you are thinking of getting this game, go with SC3000 Unlimited. It is just the same game, but with many new features.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A GAME FOR PEOPLE WHO LIKE POWER!!!
Review: Welcome to SimCity 3000. In this cool adventure, you must build proper facilities, public services, and everything to make a city thrive! Make deals with neighbor cities! Fight your garbage problems!!!

This is a cool game where you start from scratch(with $50,000 or less money) to make a huge city that has skyrocketing income and a perfect population.

I love SimCity. But the only problem is it freezes to much on my Microsoft ME, so I'd reccomend using a different type.


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