Rating: 
Summary: Big disappointment
Review: I have owned every version of Simcity. By and large, they have all been very well done and obviously well-tested. This version is neither. So far, one patch has been released and another is imminent because of severe problems with performance and gameplay. It is apparent from gameplay that playtesting prior to release was insufficient. The time it takes to master this game, assuming that is even possible, is far too lengthy to make Simcity 4 enjoyable.
Given how many people are likely to be turned off by this release, we may be seeing the end of what was once the best sim series in gaming.
Rating: 
Summary: As of April 1 - wait for Patch 2
Review: I purchased this game a few months ago and only recently started to really get playing. My first word of advice: Go to SimCity.com and check the BBS. Currently, Maxis/EA updates the board there to tell when the second patch of this game will be out. This patch is geared toward fixing some of the larger bugs in the game (for example, you can have schools and hospitals all over the city but when you look at the color coded view to see where education/health is lacking, the entire city is in red indicating poor education and health). The board is filled with many unhappy SC4 customers and longtime SC players who have refused to continue playing this game without the patch. Part of their frustration is that EA keeps posting updates that say "soon" - then "very soon" and most recently (today), "...very, very soon." Make sure this patch is out before you buy the game not because the game is currently unplayable but simply because you won't go through some of the frustration - and the price may drop.On to the review. The graphics really are incredible. Downloading new buildings makes for a very diverse looking city, too. The cons are that you can't save your city's progress. That is frustrating. I'd like to have the same base city and then go in completely different directions with it. I can't do that wish a simple save. Also, like someone else said, it would be nice to have some campaigns. I hate to only bring out the negative, though. There are good things about this game that will only get better with the patch. It does require some serious micro-management. The gameplay is great - make sure you have a great system running it. Best advice: Wait for patch 2 before purchasing.
Rating: 
Summary: Crisp graphics, realistic simulator and hard to master
Review: This version is very challenging in comparison to earlier ones, you¡¦ll really feel how hard it is to make your city grow and not loose your entire budget trying to do that. What makes it realistic even more is the ultra crisp graphics, the cosmic disasters mode where you can send down lightning, robots, meteors, or erupt a little volcano to doom your bankrupt cityƒº. You also need to learn how to make adjacent cities collaborate so the entire region may prosperous.
Rating:
Summary: A great game, as long as you have the computer to handle it
Review: This game is a very good follow up to Sim City 3000, and is better and more realistic than any previous version. Plus, it has so much more involved in it. There are numerous more options of things to build and everything has a budget to control which can make or break your city. This way, if you have a power plant which you're spending a lot on per month in upkeep but is running at 3% of it's max capacity, you can cut down funding until its at like 60% or anything you want of its max capacity.
As long as you have a fairly good computer--mine has 1 GHz, 256 RAM--it will work fairly well. You can cut down certain things to make it flow better, but it works well enough. Personally, I wish they had given you a free strategy guide or something to help you out with the game itself because the manual didn't help at all. But if you've played the earlier versions, you can figure it out. The only other thing I wish it had was actual big cities to look at in one of the regions or something. The cities it has at the beginning have like between 3000 and 7000 people. I wanna see a well-built metropolis.
Rating:
Summary: Don;t blame Maxis, Blame EA!
Review: Maxis has created the best computer games out there. Simcity, Simcity 2000, SimFarm, SimAnt, SimTower, Sim Copter, The sims etc. Up until when SC3000 was maid, Maxis did their first bad mistake, join with EA. I'm sure if maxis was still working alone, this game would have been a huge succes. Don't think Maxis is sinking, they still have their skill. And, chances are you are probably having trouble with this game, I suggest you download the patch on SimCiTY.COM
Rating: 
Summary: Fun, then crash, then wait, then fun, then crash, then ....
Review: I've loved every simcity game since the first and, in theory, I love this one as well. The graphics are rich and vibrant and the level of complexity is awesome. Now for the down sides.... The game crashes mind numbingly awesome. My machine screams with ever game I've played, including massive strategy games, but playing this you would think my P4 was a comedore 64. The game just keeps going down. As for playability, it seems excellent, if only the game stayed up long enough to really enjoy a full game. This really needed a few more months of Beta.
Rating:
Summary: Looks, sounds, and plays great - on the right computer
Review: Being a politician has never been easier than with SimCity 4, the John F. Kennedy, Jr. of simulations. This scion of the first and greatest simulation of all time is the latest, and most elegant of all the members of the SimCity dynasty. Blessed with stunningly realistic graphics and a hip nouveau-easy listening (I believe the word is "ambient") soundtrack, this game kicks the wow-factors like David Copperfield in Vegas. However, the game requires serious performance from your PC, so don't expect it to play in high-detail mode if your computer isn't pretty souped up; even if you do have some newer hardware on your PC and an abundance of memory, your larger cities might slow down significantly or even cause your computer to freeze or crash. Modeled after it predecessors, SC4 works much like its earlier incarnations. You start as the Mayor of a bare piece of land, add residential, commercial, and industrial zones, establish roads, power and water sources, and those little community necessities such as schools, police and fire stations, waste disposal and parks. You can't specifically choose what will be developed in each zone, but you can exert influence with your Mayoral choices. No school around? Watch the low-income tract houses with dirt patios spring up. Got a hospital and a library nearby? Tract houses are torn down as mansions and cottages quickly replace them. As your city grows, traffic, pollution, fires, and shrinking open space become concerns the Mayor has to address. But what's a game sequel without never-before-seen features? Before you start your political career, SC4 has an amazing God Mode that allows you to click topography into being and then erode it all away, sweep trees across the land and populate it with wild animals, and unleash disasters onto your unsuspecting landscape. You can also view your city in the day or night, or allow it to cycle through the entire day. (This is fun to watch the first few times, but it's hard to manage your city when it gets dark outside). In addition, SC4 gives you a region containing many cities that serve as your saved game slots (much like the neighborhoods in The Sims), and your cities can share resources such as water, railroads, or power. Be aware that your odd topography will have to be "reconciled" to the edges of neighboring cities in order for the cities to interact. In order to give SC4 crossover appeal with lovers of The Sims, SC4 is equipped with a Sims mode where you can move your favorite sim into a home within your city limits. (The game provides a docket of prefab sims, but you can also import them from your own Sims or Sims Unleashed games.) Once moved in, however, your sim interacts with the city without your intervention (unless you decide to strike Deuce Flyer's house with lightning, that is). The interface is another detail that is more reminiscent of The Sims than of previous SimCity games, and this is definitely a plus, as it is fairly intuitive and makes city management painless. Once you are done terraforming, you're ready to embark on a city-building mission. You start with $100,000, which is enough to build a fairly impressive city, however, the money quickly runs out if you don't budget well (city management is the name of the game). The game has city advisors who are each in charge of a particular facet of the city, and who give advice with their own agendas in mind. The only way to make your city prosper is to figure out the right balance of restraint and commerce. Even seasoned SimCity freaks will spend hours of game play strategizing before they hit upon the ideal city-building and management process. Once your city starts growing, Mayoral bonuses are unlocked, based on the specific achievements of your city or region; have a lot of agricultural areas, and you might just get that Farmer's Market. If you get in trouble financially, your money advisor might arrange for other less-savory special offers that can generate additional income, such as a missile test range. For a price, landmark buildings such as the Empire State Building or the Great Pyramid are also available for installation in your city. This is fun, but the landmarks don't actually do anything except make your skyline pretty. Bottom line: breathtaking graphics, cool music, and long hours of game play make this a great game, but make sure your computer meets the minimum technical requirements for installation. Don't expect much personal interaction, a la The Sims, but do expect to become an addict to yet another absorbing simulation game.
Rating:
Summary: to advanced
Review: This game has great graphics. The only thing is it works to slow! Whats so good about a game that doesn't run? Nothin'. It would of been 4 stars if it would ran good.
Rating:
Summary: It's cool.... it [smells]... it's OK, I guess...
Review: When I first started this game (on an adequate computer), I was blown away! Sound and graphics are great, but they require a very powerful machine. I got a P4, 3GHz, 1GB ram, Radeon 9700 graphics card, and the performance is just OK. I installed it on an older rig (year and a half old), and it was not playable at all. If you have good hardware however, this game is beautiful. The city is full of life, and there are a great number of different things happening. Many different buildings and styles. Awesome! Once you get past that, you are in for a few frustrating hours. I do not care what other people say. This game is very hard! Mainly because of the lack of instructions. The tutorial is very short, and the manual is very thin. I have the strategy guide, but it doesn't explain many of the basic mechanisms. Well, it shouldn't. That's what the manual should be for. But unfortunately, there are many unanswered questions at first. For instance, there are no instructions on how to set up the water supply. Should I use water towers, or a pipe system instead? How many water pumps do I need? And where does the water come from in the first place? You can figure this out on your own, but since the economic model is very tight, you can not afford to build more than you need, or you'll fail terribly. After a whole lot of trial and error however, things get clearer, and then the game isn't all that hard after all. This makes the lack of a good manual even worse! I like that Sim City 4 introduces regions. This way, you can create a large metropolis, which is a combination of a number of interacting cities. Unfortunately, the implementation of this idea is sub-optimal as well. The problem is that each city still exists in it's own universe. When you switch from one city to the next, all but the active one just go to sleep. This means that no matter what you do in the other cities, nothing happens in the others. Example: Build a power plant and a power line to another city. Then, sell all the power to the other city. This will make you a lot of money. Then, just before you switch to the other city, turn off the selling operation. This means that although you collected money from that other city (and the money showed up in your account), the other city didn't actually have to pay at all, since nothing changed since you left and by the time you go back you turned off the power transfer. This means that the overall game doesn't have a consistant economy model, which is very disappointing especially in this game. Oh, and talking about powerlines that are built across cities. Whenever you build something in one city that influences another, that other city will update its terrain the next time you go there. This makes sense to me, but should a simple powerline change the landscape of the other city and therefore wipe out buildings? Seems to me that only one building should be moved out of the way to make room for the power line... There is one issue that truely [stinks]: Save games. You can not specify the name of a save game. Sim City will figure that out for you. Unfortunately, this means that there is only one save game per city. No going back to previous ones! So be very careful with those saves (and of course, you can not switch to another city in the region without saving or losing your information). Another point of criticism is the lack of scenarios or even a campaign. There are several different areas you can play, and that's about it. No goals. Just kinda playing away. While this is a cool mode to have, it is also boring and I really crave some more defined goals. How about solving the traffic problem in L.A.? How about getting Salt Lake City ready for the Olympics? How about keeping New York operational after global warming melts away ice caps on the poles, and half the city is about to sink into the Atlantic? How about turning around the economy of Silicon Valley? The could go as realistic or crazy as they wanted, but just give me some kind of goal! And: You always start from scratch. It will take you a very long time to build a city with anything beyond a 4 or 5 story building, let alone sky scrapers, towers, and stadiums. I find that very frustrating. Beyond that, it is a pretty cool game. Not the great game we were all expecting, but pretty good.
Rating:
Summary: It's a Good Game!!
Review: Pros:
A good Game with very good graphics.
Can put your sims from "The Sims" into the game.
Cons:
Very hard to play game, you have to be very strategic.
I've been ran out of town twice.
You need a monster machine to run it on.
Takes a while to install. Despite all the cons, I still like the game. I don't want any game that I play 40 dollars for and beat it in one day, plus I have a pretty good machine. Maybe one day I can win and become senator!!
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