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Sim City 3000
- November 24, 2000 14:47 PM PST
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The third release in the SimCity line feels less like a leap forward than a measured step--more like SimCity 2300. Strategy players who have somehow missed earlier versions will certainly want to get this, but otherwise, it's not a mandatory upgrade.
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Fundamentally, this is the city-building sim that established a new genre at the turn of the decade. While you clear and zone land, place roads, train stations, and utilities, issue ordinances and set tax rates, it's your Sims (citizens) who decide over time what structures get built and occupied--and demolished or abandoned.
The most obvious change lies in the graphics. SimCity 3000 offers four times the room to build than in the last release, with 3D rendering of structures for multiple views. (This was successfully faked in SimCity 2000.) You can zoom in closer and watch animations of joggers, traffic jams, and buildings under construction.
All this comes at a price, of course. After rotating the map or slowly moving it, I experienced a series of notable pauses as views and locations were gradually recalculated. The kicker is that I'm running on a PII 450 with 120MB RAM and a Diamond Viper 550 card. I'll gladly take bets from anybody who doesn't believe they'll feel the drag more on a slower system.
My reactions to the new interface were also mixed. It's certainly cleaner and more attractive than its predecessor, and the ticker tape at the bottom of the screen really creates a sense of being in the middle of events as they happen. Laying water and electricity is also far easier than before. But I miss the menus with their access by key-combo to various functions. Optional menus should've been made available to those of us who still think hitting two keys is easier than fiddling with a mouse. Different strokes, and all that.
However, there can be no question about the value of SimCity 3000's increased level of interactivity with its citizens. As mayor, you have seven advisors (environmental, transportation, and financial among them) who provide detailed suggestions for handling each situation. You'll also receive petitioners from time to time who offer proposals: the addition of a casino, for instance, or a nearby town that wants to buy or sell electricity. Each arrangement has its pros and cons, which helps determine the flavor of your city as it grows.
Frankly, much more of this would've been welcome. Although SimCity 3000 adds a greater variety of graphics for identical buildings, there remains a sense of sameness to it all--an absence of feeling for cities' uniqueness. You can't design a city for people who hate high density, like some Californian towns, or for people who regard public areas and cultural buildings as essential historical sites, as in Paris. And what about cities reliant on local building materials and landscape, like Siena, carved from a mountainside, or Venice, with its canals and pollution problems?
I can't help feeling that Maxis missed the gondola a bit on this one.
