SimCity 4

Leccyton begins it's journey to being a heaving metropolis.

We've all been there; we've all had those urges. You know what I'm talking about, the urges that make you want to march on the capital city, just to have the pleasure of improving that shoddy bus service that should run from your home to the local shops, but doesn't. No? Well maybe I'm just the only one then, which probably isn't a bad thing. But if you sympathise with me, now we've got a new way to show that you could, in fact, do a better job than most of your local (if not all) politicians. SimCity 4 - the latest in Maxis' longest running Sim franchise.

Maxis aim to give their loyal customers more than just another graphical over-haul with SimCity 4. This means they've put in several new features and ideas into the franchise to try to enhance the player's enjoyment of creating and, if they wish, destroying their own personal metropolis.

Playing God

Ophela Woodard moves into Leccyton to take advantage of the low house prices.

From the outset, SimCity 4 takes you on a much more interesting and detailed path than previous Sim City games. The game comes on a whopping two discs, making it the biggest (at least in terms of hard drive space) SimCity yet and none of the space seems to be wasted. From the first time you run the game, you're given the choice of six different regions on which to start building your metropolis.

Four of these regions are based on real world locations; Berlin, London, New York and San Francisco, whilst the two remaining are created by Maxis; Maxisland and Fairview - all of which you are able to terraform to your liking. You're also given the choice of creating your own region, shaping mountains, riverbeds, canyons and ocean shores. It lets you put an even more personal touch on how you want your final cityscape to be.

Voyeurism

Every great city must take advantages of it's neighbours. Hopefully for everything they've got.

Once you get into the game, it offers you a huge array of buildings for your Sims to enjoy, ranging from your basic white house, to the Empire State Building and that isn't all. Maxis have taken great care in putting in an astounding level of detail for everything in the world, for example it's possible to see the mail-boxes on street corners, newspaper stands on the pavement and washing lines in people's gardens. You're even able to see the type of car each household has parked in their drive way. Apart from buildings, you're able to watch Sims as they go about their daily business, travelling to work, the shops, even school children coming home from the local comprehensive.

This level of details all works to draw you into the game, and to hold your attention for as long as possible; you could literally spend hours looking at all the different things you can spot as you wander through your cityscape. However, this all comes at a cost of performance. The game will slow down as your city gets bigger and more complex; even if you have a top of the range system. This could come as a bit of a shock to many Sims fans, as Maxis have always tried to deliver maximum performance on minimum machines.

My Sim and Auto-Zoning

Balancing the books has never been so much fun!

After, what many call the disaster that was SimCity 3000, Maxis have tried their hardest to keep the player's attention on the game. The style of previous games have been heavily based on the business and books side of it and whilst this stays much the same in SimCity 4, Maxis have also added a lighter side to the game, meaning the player can set up a few zones and just watch the city grow. Maxis seemed to have strived to put in new features that would help the player run a better and more organized city. The My Sim feature allows the player to move one of their (or a prefabricated) Sims, from the game The Sims, into their city, they in turn let you know if you're doing a good job and where to improve.

There's also the Auto-Zoning feature, which can be turned on or off. When creating a new zone, the game automatically creates a road every few map tiles - whilst this sounds like a small feature, it really lets the novice player learn, a lot faster, how to design a well organised city. Another new feature, or perhaps lack of, are the almost complete void where pre-made cities or scenarios used to be (I must admit, I was never a fan of the previous game's scenarios; but this doesn't mean everyone thought the same). This means that it's up to the player to create new cities to trade and develop with.

This isn't a completely bad thing. In fact it adds more purpose to building up a useful and worthwhile city; as it means the player will have their choice of what specialities their city can trade in and depends on from outside your borders, this all adds more depth and longevity to the game.

It's a Disaster

The rich start to move into Leccyton. Always a good sign of prosperity.

The humble disaster is a main-stay of the SimCity series. The option to totally obliterate your hardworking, loyal Sims with a jumped up gust of wind, or a slightly aggravated tectonic plate, has always been there and SimCity 4 is no different. Well, apart from the addition of a couple of new disasters and the stunning effects that have been added to already well-known friends. There are two new disasters, a Lightning Strike, which can be used for setting individual buildings or forests on fire, as well as knocking out power supplies.

There's also the choice to set loose a huge mechanical robot on your city, straight from a Japanese disaster movie. Needless to say, the robot is bent on destroying everything in its path, which normally includes the local museum and hospital.

Not All Good

Hey, even your everyday Sim needs to buy a new Pick-Up once in a while.

All the above may lead you into believing that SimCity 4 will be a top contender for Game of the Year 2003, but unfortunately this isn't the case. There are several major factors that really let the game down, and they all have to do with how long the game will stay installed on your computer. Whilst Maxis have strived to incorporate new features to keep your attention on the game for longer, and whilst they mostly work, they don't for an overly extended period of time and that could ultimately damage the game's chances of staying in the charts for as long as that other Maxis title.

Firstly, Maxis have somewhat failed in their attempts to grab the player’s attention by adding more detail in the game, whilst it works for a little while it eventually leads to the familiar feeling of repetitive gameplay, something which dogged previous titles. Whilst this has never really been a problem for people who are determined enough to carry on playing until their cities cover the whole landscape, it's certainly been a problem for the player that wants a quick fix, and it still is. But on top of this, the game brings up the question of performance, something that has rarely been brought up by previous Maxis games.

Keep it in the Family

A perfect mixture of farms, housing and shops. Great things to come, for sure!

Whilst the game isn't bad or terrible to play, it's not much of an improvement over the previous Sim City titles, with only a few new features for you to experiment with. It's more likely to appeal to someone who's already a big fan of the series, but the new graphics could entice a few more people to take it off the shelves. I'd still recommend the game. However, as Maxis have established a high level of polish into the game and after all, it is still SimCity.