SimCity 3000 Unlimited Edition

DEVELOPER : Maxis
PUBLISHER : EA 

 

System Requirements Pentium 166 Mhz, 32 MB RAM

Recommended Pentium II 300MHz+, 192+ meg RAM, 8X CD-ROM, 8+ megs video card

Ratings
Code Issues Graphics: 8 Effective art design. You can usually tell how successful a zone is just by glancing at it. Audio: 6 Nothing special here. It gets the job done, but not much more. Interface: 9 Very intuitive and easy to follow. The ticker tape display does an excellent job of keeping you informed about events.	Play Issues Solo Gameplay: 8 This encompasses the entire game. Replayability: 8 Lots of user created scenarios, buildings, and cities to download from the official site. Multiplayer:  5  Sharing cities, buildings, and scenarios is about as close to multiplayer as you'll get. Learning Curve: 8.0 The essentials are easy to grasp thanks to tutorials. Getting a "feel" for what works where takes time.
Other/Notes Documentation: 9.0 The 224 page manual covers lots of play issues. The scripting language for the scenario editor is also touched upon. Pros: Just as addictive as the old Sim City games. A scenario editor and building creator is included. Cons:  Gets old after awhile. May not be worth it for people who already bought Sim City 3000. Overall: 8.5

Sim City is one of the few computer games to break out of our humble little gaming community and enter the pop culture lexicon. I once took a college course about engineering and the environment, and one of our homework assignments was to play the original Sim City. The game was an unquestionable hit (it did quite well on the Super Nintendo system as well as the PC) and spawned a whole line on "Sim" games and a few bona fide sequels. The first was Sim City 2000, which featured much more complex systems (such as the water table) and a more free-form zoning interface. Next came Sim City 3000 which suffered a torturous journey through development hell (the degree of how three-dimensional the game would be went through several transitions). Honestly, I can't tell you much about the original release of Sim City 3000 because I never played it. But I have played Sim City 3000 Unlimited, and that is the subject of this article.

The mechanics of SC3KU remain basically unchanged from its predecessors. Gameplay consists of zoning areas (residential, commercial, industrial) and building structures that are necessary for the well being of your citizens (police stations, hospitals, schools, etc...). The catch is that many essential structures have negative effects on each other. Jails and residential zones are both needed, but the two certainly don't work well when they are in close proximity. Industrial zones are good for jobs and tax revenue, but the price you'll pay is damage to the environment and a higher crime rate. Creating a city where all these conflicting (but necessary) elements combine into a harmonious whole has always been the ultimate test of skill in this series.

Sim citizens expect their mayor to do a lot more than to just tell them where they can build houses and factories. Power, water, and garbage must all be responsibly managed. The much maligned water system (introduced in Sim City 2000) is not that difficult to deal with as long as the map has sufficient water reserves. Managing power can be a little tricky, especially in scenarios that take place in the early part of the century and only offer primitive, pollution creating energy sources.

Great mayors realize that ultimately it is citizens that build a city and not politicians. A talented population is generated from high health and education levels, which in turn effect the level of industry and eventually the land value. Colleges and schools keep the young ones sharp, and adding a little extra cash to the recommended Education budget never hurts. Occasionally, you will be able to enact an ordinance, such as a reading campaign, to further the education of your citizens. Educated sims are sims that can work in high tech industries. And high tech industries raise land value. And high land values mean more taxes.

Which brings us to money. We all need it. There is never enough. This is certainly true in your first few years as mayor, where you will repeatedly run the poor government into debt. Thankfully, you can take out loans from the bank. These loans are often essential for getting a struggling town on its feet. Eventually, your city will hit a critical mass and the tax revenue will outweigh the spending, although taxes are not the only way to make money. Some no brainer laws such as parking fines can be enacted. But there are also money making schemes that you should think hard about before pursuing. For example, rival cities will frequently offer to pay you for garbage disposal, but there is a catch: your city may run out of room to dispose the garbage, and canceling the deal incurs a serious penalty. The same situation occurs when offering to sell water to another city. Clearly, there are quick ways to make a buck in the Sim City world, but it might not be the best choice for the long run.

Throughout all the trials and tribulations, the only constant is the interface (and even that changes a little bit as new buildings become available). The colorful and intuitive system lets the player focus their energy on playing the game and not wrestling with the controls. Budget issues, taxes, and ordinances are adjusted with simple sliders or check boxes. My favorite part of the display is the ticker tape, which is a little window at the bottom of the screen that is constantly scrolling text about the latest headlines. The text is usually hyperlinked, and clicking on a topic of interest will bring up an advisor who will give you a more in depth briefing.

Beginning on a randomly generated empty map is not the only way to start a city in SC3KU. "Starter maps" contain a few prezoned are to give the player an initial boost, and there is also a list of empty maps that have geographic features from real cities (Boston Harbor, for example). For those yearning for a little more history, look no further than the premade cities and scenarios. These maps usually feature a fairly developed city with some crippling social problem. I liked the way the player is brought up to speed when starting some of these maps: before gameplay begins, the view scrolls to several "hot spots" while the narrator informs you what went wrong and what you should prepare for. It's a nice touch that adds to the feeling of being there. Personally, I prefer to start my cities from scratch, but people who like to solve problems will have much to keep them busy. SC3KU has strong support from the web community, and there were over 500 cities available at the Sim City Exchange the last time I checked.

Besides building cities, the SC3KU package also contains several other tools for players to flew their creative muscle. Toolkits that let you edit individual buildings as well as scenarios. The building editor is about as easy to use as can be expected (making 3D models will always be difficult on some level) and seems to contain all the art from the game. While I don't have the ability to create anything worth putting in ANY town, skilled designers will have a field day. Most people will probably find the scenario editor to be much more accessible. There is even a scripting language that can be used to set conditions and goals. The manual goes into a surprising amount of depth on this topic.

My biggest problem with SC3KU was stability. The game consistently locked up after a half an hour of play every time I ran it. I also wish the game didn't require the CD in order to run (although there is already a crack to get around that). The game also could be choppy on my PII 300mhz, but I expected that so I am not too miffed about it.

Overall, Sim City 3000 Unlimited is a further refinement of the Sim City gameplay introduced so many years ago. Is it worth buying if you already have Sim City 3000? Well, as I said at the beginning, I don't know. The game didn't strike me as being that different from Sim City 2000, never mind Sim City 3000. It never grabbed a hold of me the way the great Rollercoaster Tycoon did, but I did enjoy most of my time spent playing the game. Fans of the series won't be disappointed. In fact, newcomers may find themselves being the ones most satisfied. Sim City 3000 Unlimited doesn't radically improve upon a classic, but it sure as heck doesn't step backwards, either.

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Reviewed by Trent Lucier