Rating: 
Summary: Fun so much fun i bought rush hour
Review: sim city 4 is so much fun because if i build somehting then don't want it demolish it. i had so much fun with sim city4 i bought sim city 4 rush hoour now that is fun!
Rating:
Summary: Great Version of a Great Simulation Game
Review: SimCity 4 (SC4) is the latest entry in the popular, excellent series of city simulation games of the same name. The basic "point" of the game is to create, run and grow a city successfully from a fledgling community up to a megalopolis -- the game play is therefore open ended and limitless in variety.As the city's mayor, you will need to balance wants and needs with your budget -- and in Sim City 4, that can be quite difficult because the budgetary aspects of the simulation are quite difficult (the "Rush Hour" expansion bundled with this edition mollifies this somewhat by providing an "easy" difficulty setting, which was not available with the original edition of SC4, that provides additional funds to start with, making the budgetary crisis easier to manage). You must zone effectively, make effective decisions about providing utilities, education and other civic resources, manage transportation and work-related issues and the like in order to make your city an attractive place and attract Sims to your town, increase the population and tax base and grow, grow, grow. And the fun doesn't stop there -- in SC4, you are able to widen the focus to include an entire region of interdependent cities and towns -- with one acting as the downtown, another as the industrial port town, and still another as the affluent suburb -- all linked together by utilities and transportation links into one major conurbanation. The game is really limitless in terms of what you can do with it once you get the basic hang of it, and it is not like other computer games that require extensive fingerwork or hand-eye coordination skills -- this is a pure strategy simulation in urban planning, development and management. The "Rush Hour" expansion bundled with this edition adds a few notable features, including the difficulty setting noted above. Most of the more useful ones involve additional transportation options, such as overhead subway lines or Els and surface-level highways, that are more useful for when your cities achieve a certain size. In addition, there are some further bells and whistles, like the ability to name streets, parks, neighborhoods and natural formations and give them signs visible in the game, as well as the addition of "missions" -- essentially minigames within the larger game that have you playing the role of a policeman, fireman, etc., fulfilling a certain defined task in your city in exchange for the reward of unlocking a certain type of buidling or landmark that will later appear in your city. Bottom line: if you have a penchant for (or even an interest in) urban planning or design, this is a great, immersive simulation that will keep you happily occupied for quite some time.
Rating:
Summary: Great Version of a Great Simulation Game
Review: SimCity 4 (SC4) is the latest entry in the popular, excellent series of city simulation games of the same name. The basic "point" of the game is to create, run and grow a city successfully from a fledgling community up to a megalopolis -- the game play is therefore open ended and limitless in variety. As the city's mayor, you will need to balance wants and needs with your budget -- and in Sim City 4, that can be quite difficult because the budgetary aspects of the simulation are quite difficult (the "Rush Hour" expansion bundled with this edition mollifies this somewhat by providing an "easy" difficulty setting, which was not available with the original edition of SC4, that provides additional funds to start with, making the budgetary crisis easier to manage). You must zone effectively, make effective decisions about providing utilities, education and other civic resources, manage transportation and work-related issues and the like in order to make your city an attractive place and attract Sims to your town, increase the population and tax base and grow, grow, grow. And the fun doesn't stop there -- in SC4, you are able to widen the focus to include an entire region of interdependent cities and towns -- with one acting as the downtown, another as the industrial port town, and still another as the affluent suburb -- all linked together by utilities and transportation links into one major conurbanation. The game is really limitless in terms of what you can do with it once you get the basic hang of it, and it is not like other computer games that require extensive fingerwork or hand-eye coordination skills -- this is a pure strategy simulation in urban planning, development and management. The "Rush Hour" expansion bundled with this edition adds a few notable features, including the difficulty setting noted above. Most of the more useful ones involve additional transportation options, such as overhead subway lines or Els and surface-level highways, that are more useful for when your cities achieve a certain size. In addition, there are some further bells and whistles, like the ability to name streets, parks, neighborhoods and natural formations and give them signs visible in the game, as well as the addition of "missions" -- essentially minigames within the larger game that have you playing the role of a policeman, fireman, etc., fulfilling a certain defined task in your city in exchange for the reward of unlocking a certain type of buidling or landmark that will later appear in your city. Bottom line: if you have a penchant for (or even an interest in) urban planning or design, this is a great, immersive simulation that will keep you happily occupied for quite some time.
Rating:
Summary: Great game at any time
Review: Simcity 4 could probably be one of the best of its kind ever. The game is very realistic and involves most of the daily problems a city mayor has to deal with. It is even very difficult to keep the budget balanced. But here is a tip for this: when you start a new city, always create industrial zones and some commercial that will start to generate new business that would add an income to the city and they do not need any or but a few public services. One you have a big budget surplus you start creating residential zones and leaving space for public buildings. Never create small hospitals, fire and police stations, because in the long term you'll need about 3 times de number of big buildings to keep your citizents happy.
The only bad thing the game has is the fact that it needs a super pc to run always at a normal speed. I have a Pentium 4 2.80 ghz and 512 RAM with and excellent Video Card and when you use the zoom in your city it sometimes goes a bit slow. So I would suggest that if your planning to get this video game you better have a superb pc or you'll find it frustating to see that the game runs slow.
I don't know if this game can get any better but I sure hope so. Buy it, you'll end up playing it for hours.
Rating:
Summary: SimCity 4 is Addicting
Review: SimCity 4 is a very addicting game. The first few days I had it I played it late into the night. It is very fun, and very realistic. You have many, many activities that are available to you and you get to control your own city! You can develop it into a great vacation spot and a thriving community, or you can destroy it with an earthquake, a tornado, lightning, a volcano, aliens, giant robots, and a Godzilla-like creature.
One of the most fun things to do is to drive cars and fly airplanes.
This game will be fun to both serious gamers and people seeking a good laugh! It's an all-around well designed game that never gets boring.
Rating:
Summary: Paving the Way of the Future for SIM Games
Review: SimCity 4, Deluxe Edition, was one of the best buys I have ever done in a long time. Compared to SimCity 3000, which you really can't even compare to anymore, is light years ahead! SimCity4 or SC4 does everything now. Literally. There is day and night in your city, and new scenery to view. All of the buildings are new, except for your favorite landmarks of course, which don't change in shape! To add to the fun, you can add your "Sims" from, you got it, "The Sims," another game from Maxis and EA Games. To top it off, you personally interact with your city in a new level that has never been experienced before by the older Sim City games...you can drive anything that moves! From the U.S. Army's AH-64 Apache and the M1A2 Abrams Tank to your own personal limo. Of course if you like sirens and lights, the police car or the ambulance is for you! You can also fly a multitude of helicopters, accomplishing "missions" accumulating either cash for your city's coffers or mayor rating points, which are also good. Which one you want is up to you!
Rating: 
Summary: Disaster of a game.
Review: So many game-breaking flaws in just one game. One of many major errors in the design of the game is the so-called "region play". Because time stops in the parts of your region not played (you can only play one part at a time), major gameplay problems arise. A gamer who wants an easier time with the game can simply dump negative things like trash and polluting industry (pollution doesn't even travel thoughout the region) into never played portions of the map, and have all good items in the played ones. If however, one wants to play all parts of the map, this VERY serious 'time' flaw comes into view - The played portions react to the others toward the last time those others were played and new elements were put into it. This means that the played part of a city in the year 2060 may be reacting to another part that is stopped at 2040, a part in year 2090, another in 2065, etc. Imagine trying to play each and all areas! The horrible problems this creates, is compounded by the truly awful AI contained in this game. SimCity 4's design intends to have one's citizens think about what is within the immediate area as well as the region beyond, and react. This 'AI' is terrible. Citizens choose and stick to already congested streets to get to a destination instead of choosing a clear highway running to the same place. Common too is the fact that one's residents can not seem to find thier way to work even if it is directly across the street! Even if one is to continue to play despite these horrid flaws, many more gameplay issues plague SC4. The claims of this game as "3D" are also misleading, you are still limited to four basic angles of view (with a few different zoom levels), not free motion camera controls as many games have today. The interface is lacking positive features previous versions had such as multiple saves. Released in 2003, the game still contains many game ruining bugs that have yet to be patched. The reviews calling this game "hard" are not due to gamers' poor strategy. Its difficulty is due to a "broken" game. This game is so flawed that the developers themselves could not create a completed large, profit making city. This isn't your old SimCity...It is much worse!
Rating:
Summary: Excellent
Review: The most helpful thing I've gathered from most of these reviews is that people don't read. First, gugegonji, read your installation manual for some help. I agree the installation of this game is not the best, but it can be done. I had to disable almost everything on startup and then it went smoothly. Afterwards, I could turn everything back on to run the game. So, gugegonji, please review the game and not your equipment. And if you still need help, call technical support. As for the "gamer from Texas", I'm not really sure he's played other versions of this game or he'd know that you can turn of Auto Go To Disasters. As for the street situation, it says right in the manual how to not have the game lay down streets for you. Read. Also, the menus are about the same as SimCity 3000. Trust me, if you think about something you'd like in this game, it's probably there. This game was worth the wait, especially with the expansion pack. If you are considering it, get it! You will not be disappointed. The depth of this game is incredible. Of course, the price of that is that you need a fairly decent system.
Rating: 
Summary: good game
Review: There are two complaints I have about the game: (1) placing water/land objects (marinas, etc.) is difficult and tiresome because the game requires that they be positioned in a very specific way that is not clear to the user, and (2) it is hard to switch between the game and other applications running on your PC (such as Outlook), even with a powerful processor and sufficient RAM. I use a 1.7Ghz Pentium with 512 MB RAM and find it slow to switch applications; those who have faster processors and more RAM may find it easier, or this may be a deficiency with the design of the game. Regardless, I find it surprising that a game could use so much RAM and tie up the processor to such a great degree. Other than these two, minor complaints, the game is impressive. The level of detail is greater than in previous versions. One note about the 'missions': I find these silly and annoying and thus never use them. But, apparently from the reviews, there are those who swear by the, so as they say, different strokes for different folks. Make sure your hard drive has at least three GB to spare when installing.
Rating:
Summary: Fun, but easy
Review: This game is fun, but is very easy. Within an hour of loading the game I had 3 cities with a large surplus. This took me weeks to do on SimCity 3000. My favorite new feature is the "U-Drive-It" mission where you drive around in a vechicle in your city. These are really fun and an easy way to get cash. These won't work terrible well if your computer is older. I have a P4 with 256 DDR ram and a 128 video card and I can barely play the car driving missions in large cities because my computer can't keep up and lags. Making multiple cities that can be inter-dependant is also very fun. I recommend this game to anyone that likes the SimCity series.
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