SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition turns you into a citizen, a criminal, an architect, a mayor, even a god -- bringing you deeper into SimLife than ever! As you create railways, ferries, plan out streets, you also get to use that transportation in a series of great new driving missions
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition Accessories
 Civilization 3 Complete
SimCity Societies
Zoo Tycoon Complete Collection
Sid Meier's Civilization IV
Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword
Crazy Machines: The Wacky Contraptions Game Win/Mac
Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Gold Edition
Spore
Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 Platinum
Sid Meier's Pirates!
SimCity 4 Deluxe Edition Reviews
They can be used as guidelines, but being able to draw property lines would make it more interesting. I will continue to like this game, but Maxis should get the title back and make a better scalable involvement one for those of us who wouldn't mind micromanaging, but keeping the bigger picture for those who just like watching cities grow. Also need to ditch the squares. I really like the game, though there needs to be a real sequel. Just an idea.
First off, I wish the diplomacy was a little more involved. Also, it is fairly difficult to get HUGE skyscrapers. You can trade with neighboring cities, by selling water, power or garbage, or buying these things. Next, the game play is very exciting. In some cities, I reach what some people call the "peanut butter points", where nothing builds anymore. All right, I better stop, I have pretty much told you EVERYTHING, almost too much.
Though not 3D, like Sim City Societies (please don't consider getting that game, it is very unrealistic), it is full of detail. For example, if there was a "governmental" option, the game would be much more cool. Don't worry, every game out there has weak points. You will feel very proud when that first deluxe villa pops up.
The game is that detailed. Gaining population isn't too hard, and many of the missions (though not all) are very fun. It is not too hard to get small skyscrapers, although you do need at least 30,000 people, unlike Sim City 3000. That first 10+ story skyscraper will be a sight to see. Also, it is not too hard to get the rich into your city (unlike Sim City 3000).
Just go buy Sim City 4. I bought it, and it is worth every penny I spent. Or, take a look at the slums in your city (if you have any), and you'll see graffiti, and things like such. Just driving around your (hopefully) metropolis is a highpoint of the game. You can even see crime occurring in your city, such as car theft, or kids toilet paper rolling (although most people wouldn't want crime in their city).
The graphics are definitely worth 5 STARS. I do think there is a patch you can download for the game that makes it easier to build high-rises, but I cannot say for sure. The graphics and game play are state-of-the-art. YES, EVERY GAME. There is no demand.
I purchased Sim City about 3 years ago, and I still LOVE it. This makes the game play simply astounding. Sure, you can get skyscrapers, but for me it is hard. Just zooming in at a local elementary school, and you will see school buses, cars, and kids running to school before the first bell rings. So basically what I am saying is that, as you gain population (like 400,000+), the game gets fairly complicated (but not unmanageable).
The best part of all this is.the game is continuous. Yes, Sim City 4 is "the best modern-day city building game on the block.". Or even declaring war would be awesome, but that would distract players from the main focus of the game. The best is when the high-rises come flying in. Like being able to chose the style of government would be very cool. However, Sim City DOES have some MINOR weak points.
Despite some weaknesses, Sim City 4 is still "the best modern-day city building game on the block.". You will not regret it. There are SO MANY FEATURES. It might just be me. THERE IS NO END TO THE GAME.
Many new buildings and attractions combined with easy navigation make for a great game. Sim City 4 is by far superior than the previous ones in terms of fun.
It is the current king of city-builders, can easily consume hours of your life, and still has a wide fanbase despite being released about five years ago. It wraps up all that is good from the previous SimCity games, puts a nice 3d look on everything, and adds complexity and features in just the right places. Highly recommended. (Some third-party addons help stop some of the worst offenses: check Google for the Network Add-on Mod and see if that suits your needs). Disappointing to say the least. Without it, managing road maintenance and upgrades is nearly impossible. I personally get a great deal of satisfaction when, for example, I sink a bunch of cash into an urban renewal project and actually manage to revitalize main street without everyone running for the hills. Even the disasters are beautiful.
SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition comes with the Rush Hour expansion pack, which adds a bunch of features I didn't care about and one absolutely indispensable button: the "transportation query" tool. There is so much complexity in the game, and much of your time is split between building up the city, balancing out the budget, and finding some way to manage all the problems that plague every major metropolis. And the regions system, while interesting, just ends up getting abused to funnel all the garbage to one tiny landfill town. Other features help the player out too: things like elimination of power lines, automatic street placement, lots of charts / graphs / map overlays to ease analysis, improved pipelaying, etc.
There are downsides to the game. It really gives a good sense of a thriving city. A tell-tale sign of the enormity of scale is that the official strategy guide to the game is the size of a textbook. Micromanaging funding for all your various buildings gets tedious fast.
You now have the ability to (for example) click a factory, see where most workers are coming from, and set up bus stations from start to finish that will actually see utilization. The U-Drive-It missions and Add A Sim features are pretty useless, though they can give a nice tour of the town. And even more stuff is available online when you've exhausted everything the game has to offer. Another problem is that it is possible to lose the game - not so difficult early on, but when your city is sucking down millions of dollars each month in expenses, a single disaster can wreck your cash flow and cause you to lose instantly. Buildings are constructed in a very wide range of size and style, pedestrians walk the streets, car get into accidents, smog settles over the heavily industrialized areas, trees sway in the breeze, and waves roll up and down the beaches. SimCity 4 is, by far, the greatest city-building game yet released.
The primary challenge of SimCity 4 is balancing. There is a slew of unlockable buildings and real-world landmarks to spruce up and personalize your town. The modeling of real-world city growth is astonishing, and your cities will go through all the stages on the path from tiny manufacturing town to major commercial metropolis. Thankfully you can turn them off and get back to the business of city planning. Unfortunately there's not much of a clue that the budget needs adjustment until your teachers go on strike or you start having blackouts. Some players are turned off by this as it can be frustrating to contend with all the issues. It shows you utilization of your roads, and how your citizens get from point A to point B. all help streamline the game and fix some of the worst annoyances in previous incarnations.
Time was, you needed a pretty sweet PC to handle the game. Nowadays the required hardware is pretty standard stuff and it still looks great. If you're a fan of city builders at all, you owe it to yourself to give SimCity 4 Deluxe a chance. For the builders, SC4 does not disappoint. Public transit made manageable at last. Who wants to manually set bus funding for a dozen elementary schools across the city.
lightning, eruptions, meteors, robots, dinosaurs. It was fun. lots of fun. but WOW. My 10 year old loves this game. My first SimCity came free with a computer I had purchased in the 90's. The graphics on this and the options are amazing. Some days he builds cities, others he builds islands with volcano's and releases God's fury on them.
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