All of those systems and tools are explained in depth in the game’s manual, which is surprisingly difficult to find online. A large part of the struggle is that the game doesn’t explain itself. No real control, at least when compared to other games in the series. Those first ten to fifteen minutes are the most difficult! Ugly. Given the progress other games have made with time, would this first offering be too basic to enjoy now? The answer to that question is yes. When I dove into the game about two weeks ago I’ll have to admit I didn’t expect to have much fun playing a twenty-eight year old city simulator. Floods, tornadoes, earthquakes, nuclear meltdowns, and even a giant radioactive lizard are capable of reducing your city to rubble. There is an entire list of disasters that can and will befall your city. Debt isn’t the only adversary in the game. Build too much too quickly and there’s a chance the city will go bankrupt, ending the game. Everything costs money to build, and roads and services have recurring maintenance costs to consider. As the city grows Sims may demand police and fire coverage, as well as the occasional sports stadium. Though busy, commercial squares carry less negative effects than industry. Commercial zones can be freely interspersed with residential areas. Waterfront properties are particularly desirable. Residential zones are ideally placed a ways away from the industrial arm of the city. Belching pollution and providing a place for miscreants to hang around, industry nevertheless provides a means for your Sims to earn living. A nuclear reactor will only set you back $5,000, so it’s the logical choice! Draw some roads and power lines from the plant to your nearby industrial zones. Two varieties are available, coal and nuclear. It’s your job as the mayor to use the game’s tools to manipulate these systems to the desired end: turning a barren plot of dirt into a bustling megalopolis.Ĭities begin with the creation of a power plant. There are other systems like traffic, land value, and crime that interact and feed off one another. Building residential zones satisfies the system’s immediate need, which in turn generates other needs which need to be fulfilled. But as more jobs become available and land values climb, more citizens – referred to as “Sims” in game – will want a place to live. If there aren’t any jobs available, or if crime and pollution are too high, there may not be any demand for new residences. For example, residential demand is a system that is governed by and responsive to job availability, tax rates, and quality of life elements such as crime and pollution. Everything that happens onscreen is a result of the cause and effect relationship between the rules and tools as used by the player. Tools are the hands-on gameplay elements a player uses to manipulate those systems. Systems are sets of rules that determine how the city behaves. It’s a game built around what the developers call a “system simulation”. Establish a city on an empty plot of land, provide infrastructure and zoning, then sit back to watch it grow. The principle of SimCity is simple: build it and they will come. Unfortunately, time has been cruel to the original game’s accomplishments in that its own sequels have managed to improve upon it in nearly every way, rendering the original release obsolete.
#Original sim city for pc series#
A short half an hour of play time is all that is needed in order to see the building blocks of a series that’s remained relevant thirty years later. Playing it in 2017, I don’t think it’s possible to appreciate SimCity for what it was when it came out. Beyond that, people who didn’t know a thing about computer games knew what SimCity was. Any game that makes it into schools and the lexicon of real-world urban planners has to be doing something right! City management gameplay captured the attention and imagination of a large portion of a computer savvy culture. When SimCity was released in 1989, it was clearly the beginning of something special.
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