Sim City 2000
Proof that Y2K did happen
Tags: Sim City 2000 Categories: GBA Reviews, Reviews
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jul 23rd, 2004
| Title | Players | ||
|---|---|---|---|
| Sim City 2000 (title page) | 1 | ||
| Developer | Publisher | Genre | Online |
| Simulation | No | ||
Sim City 2000 for the PC was an awesome game. Its predecessor, Sim City, laid out the groundwork for an entire genre, and the sequel took the original and expanded it in multiple directions. The land you were building on was no longer flat like the original, and you had to take into consideration things like plumbing. These are features that did not make it into the GBA version of the game, meaning that already from the start, this is more like Sim City 1.5.
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Graphically, the game isn’t quite on par with the PC game, but this could well be because of the limitations of the GBA screen. However, while the graphics are forgivable, the sound isn’t. Aside from a few sound effects when you build things, the game is completely silent. Nothing, not the sound of music, the drone of traffic or even the sound of the wind can be heard unless something happens. In a PC game, one could argue that this frees the player to play a CD or some MP3s in the background, but in a GBA game it’s just stupid.
Those who’ve played Sim City before will know the speil: Either play through a number of scenario cities with a set goal or create your own in any way you want. Sim City acts like a blank canvas, and it’s completely up to you what picture you want to paint. Will you make a serene paradise? An economic gold mine? A bursting metropolis? Or maybe you’re just building things up to destroy them with one of the game’s various disasters ranging from earthquakes to riots to alien invasions. The choice is up to you.
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Of course, that’s not to say it’ll be easy. You’ll have to deal with the same problems as any mayor. You’re on a tight budget, and while you’re trying to expand your city to new heights, you also have to pay attention to the needs of the people. Are the taxes too high? Is the crime rate a problem? Is the commute to work too far, or crowded by traffic? As mayor it is your responsibility to find solutions to these problems, or you’ll never see your town’s population grow.
Unfortunately, while the original game gave you a plethora of feedback to show you how your city was doing, the GBA game is inexcusably lacking in this area. The original game had everything from population density maps to people polls and growth and development graphs to help the player get a feel for what needed to be worked on. If people had a problem with pollution or expensive land values, a quick look at a map could show you the problem areas. Not so with the GBA version, which gives you maps for police and fire coverage and overall layout. Toss in a few in-game hints and occasional status updates and that’s all the feedback you’ll have to go on.
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My city isn’t attracting enough people to pay enough taxes to pay the bills. Every now and then I see a message claiming that I don’t have enough police coverage, but I have three stations that cover just about everything. Is that really why no one’s settling in my residential zones, or is it because I need to build more industrial and commercial zones nearby? The little icon in the corner says I need to build all three, but how can that be when I’ve built so many that haven’t been used?
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These are questions that the game does not answer, which will make it extremely frustrating for those familiar with the series, and outright impossible for those who aren’t. This genre is called “Sim” because it’s meant to simulate something with a great deal of realism, and in reality, a mayor who can’t get a healthy and thorough stream of feedback from his town’s population is doomed to a term of failure and futility. Being mayor of a Sim City is no different.
| What Works | Score |
|---|---|
| + It's Sim City 2000! Well... more or less... | 6.0 |
| What Doesn't | |
|
- The GBA version is missing some of the more notable features of the PC game. - Where's the sound? - Unforgivable lack of feedback and information. |
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| Under the Shrink-wrap | |
| Playing the GBA version of Sim City 2000 is like feeling around in the dark, which is what you'll be doing when you run out of money and can't afford to keep your power plant up and running. | |
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Tags: Sim City 2000
Posted by Jake McNeill on Jul 23rd, 2004 and is filed under GBA Reviews, Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
