textfiles/games/REVIEWS/simcity.rev

 SIMCITY

 SIMCITY is a "System Simulation" written by Will Wright (RAID ON BUNGELING
BAY), published by Maxis, and distributed by Broderbund. This stunning program
allows you to step into the shoes of mayor, city planner, and financial manager,
and design, zone, build, and operate an entire city, right up from bulldozing
the ground for the foundation. This review is based on the Commodore 64/128
version; Macintosh, IBM-PC, and Atari ST version notes follow.

 The Gods of Software Marketing, operating under the false assumption that no
one (especially a gamer) is interested in new knowledge, allowed SIMCITY to
gather dust for three years. Although game elements have been tacked on, SIMCITY
is not even remotely related to a game. It is an educational experience that
illuminates real life in ways we usually complain about or ignore completely.

 The object of SIMCITY is to design and build a city on a parcel of
computer-generated land. Each facet of the city model costs money; you start
with a $4000 fund. This amount shrinks as work is done and the city rises, and
increases as taxes are collected. You have to clear and zone land for
industrial, commercial, and residential use, lay roads and control traffic,
construct waterways and power plants, and deal with disasters, such as fires,
tornadoes, earthquakes, and Godzilla.

 New terrain is generated each time you boot the program. This terrain can be
used as is; it can also be modified or (should you desire to design your own
terrain) completely cleared. Terrain and cities can be saved for later use.

 The Map Screen is the initial C64 display, and it consists of a Map of the
newly-generated terrain, and a Map Menu. Icons on the Map Menu invoke different
map views or lead to other screens, including the Disk Access Menu and the
Terrain Menu. Additional icons bring up graphs of population, commerce,
industry, standard of living, and unemployment. Population, traffic, pollution
index, land value, and rate of growth icons use color-coded bars (which appear
to the left of the map) to illustrate densities, values, and growths.

 The Map itself consists of wooded areas, open land, and usually a body of
water. Selecting Edit Screen zooms in on the main Map, and changes its large
rectangular cursor into a target cursor. The Edit Screen Menu allows you to
bulldoze forests, create landfills, destroy existing areas in order to rezone,
or clear disaster rubble. You can also lay roads, add power lines and direct
them to the city, add waterways, build airports, seaports, and parks, and zone
the land for industrial and commercial enterprises, and residential areas.

 From the Disaster Menu, you can start fires, create tornadoes and earthquake
and set a monster loose. The cities of Dullsville, San Francisco, Hamburg, Bern,
Tokyo, Detroit, Boston, and Rio de Janeiro are included, and the manual suggests
"game" scenarios: Load Tokyo, select Monster from the Disaster Menu, and let
Godzilla leisurely trash buildings and start fires. Or, load San Francisco and
select Earthquake: The Map shakes violently for a few moments, after which fires
erupt throughout the city. The "game" is played by putting out the fires,
clearing the rubble, and rebuilding the destroyed areas. None of this
constitutes gaming in any sense, since you have to perform these same actions
during the simulation anyway.

 SIMCITY is controlled with the cursor keys, return key, and joystick. The
cursor keys highlight Menu selections; the return key selects. The joystick
controls terrain editing, and all construction functions: Select a function with
the cursor keys, move the target cursor with the stick, and invoke the function
on the Map with a button press.

 The program disk is copy-protected, but once the program loads, no further disk
access is needed. The cities that are included can be loaded, modified, and
saved, and as many as 16 cities can be saved on a previously formatted disk.

 The SIMCITY manual is well-written and understandable. It includes a
mini-tutorial, a look into the workings of the program, and an essay titled
"History of Cities and City Planning." By sending in the registration card,
you'll be informed of upgrades and expansions, and as a special bonus, you'll
receive SIMCITY Tip #1: How To Embezzle Funds.

 SIMCITY graphics on the C64 are not state-of-the-art, but they're okay. There
is more screen flicker than usual. Since the idea behind the program is so
immediately interesting and so valuable, the flicker is something you'll notice
but pay no attention to. Everything does work the way it's supposed to.

 Design contributor Jeff Braun of Maxis told me that city files will eventually
be exchangeable among several machine versions (though not with the C64/128
files). Newly-designed cities have already appeared in the libraries of online
user groups, and SIMCITY is rapidly becoming a favorite program.

 Amid the torrential downpour of repetitive arcade games, endless role-playing
quests, and laughable "Top Gun" simulations, SIMCITY is too good to be true:
This is a real computer program, with profound educational possibilities.
Thought, planning, and intelligent use of resources must go into the creation of
Utopia or it will become a ghost town. If you have children in grade school, buy
SIMCITY for them and tell their teachers about it. Otherwise...buy it for
yourself!

 MACINTOSH VERSION NOTES

 The Mac version of SIMCITY has attracted many devoted fans, and for good
reason: It exploits the Macintosh's graphic and sound capabilities to the utmost
in creating a convincing atmosphere that should satisfy even the most
discriminating city planner.

 The gameplay is virtually identical to that of the C64 version. SIMCITY uses
the standard Mac interface, with windows and a menu bar. From the menu bar, you
can change the game speed or pause the game, launch disasters, and open the
numerous windows that display all the crucial information for playing the game.

 There are five windows: Maps, Graphs, Budget, Edit, and Evaluation. The Maps
window displays geographical depictions of high pollution, population, crime
concentration, and the like. The Graphs window displays statistical data such as
industrial, commercial, and population growth. From the Budget window, you can
set tax rates and allocate funds to the police, fire, and transportation
departments. The Evaluation window indicates how you're doing in the public
opinion polls, as well as the net migration from your city and your overall
score. Zoning and construction take place in the Edit window, along with vivid
graphics and sound to give you the impression that you're in the middle of a
thriving metropolis. All editing operations can be performed by clicking on the
icons along the left-hand side of the Edit window. When a disaster occurs, a
button appears in the upper right-hand side of the screen; pressing the button
instantly shifts your view to the disaster area.

 The initial Mac version is in black and white, but the game uses good gray
scales to effectively illustrate a very complex view of a growing city. You can
even see the traffic moving along the roads (albeit in the wrong direction!).
color Mac II version is in the works; however, the normal Mac version does take
advantage of large screen monitors, and if you ever get to see your city in its
full glory, I'm sure you'll agree that the sight is only a bit less than
awesome.

 I experienced a problem with the mouse cursor freezing, which forced me to
restart once. In addition, the first release of SIMCITY for the Mac was
incompatible with some old Macintosh ROM chips, and wouldn't run on some of the
earlier Macs. Maxis promises that these problems will be rectified in the next
version. Unfortunately, because a game as complex as SIMCITY requires true
multi-tasking, it's incompatible with Multifinder. These shortcomings aside,
SIMCITY is an excellent game and should provide hours (if not months) of
entertainment for Mac owners.

 SIMCITY requires a Mac 512K with one 800K drive. The game can be copied onto a
hard drive, but must access the original disk before play.

 IBM-PC VERSION NOTES

 Great things come to those who wait. In this case, MS-DOS users waited (over
six months) for the IBM version of Maxis's SIMCITY. The good news is that IBM
SIMCITY cleans up a lot of bugs and adds at least one significant feature. This
is truly one of the finest programs produced in years.

 For starters, there's no flicker anywhere. Nor did I experience any freeze-ups
with the mouse (a Mouse Systems PC Mouse), even after many hours of play. The
graphics are nonpareil (more about them later). And the greatest change is the
deletion of on-disk copy protection. The IBM version relies on a document check
with a four-page black-on-red folder that's nearly impossible to photocopy.
Unfortunately, you must re-enter a code every time you load a scenario or
restore a game in progress -- the infamous "ZANY GOLF syndrome." Still, this is
a major improvement over earlier versions.

 Please note that, contrary to earlier reports, the Commodore 64/128 version
city files are _not_ compatible with the IBM, or with other versions. However,
the data files for the IBM, Tandy, Amiga, Mac and Color Mac II are all
exchangeable.

 Along with the well-written manual (completely recreated for the IBM edition
copy protection document, and user reference card, the game includes both disk
formats: There are two 5-1/4" disks and one 3-1/2" disk. You'll need 512K, or
640K if you want to take advantage of the highest-res graphics.

 Speaking of graphics, the following modes are supported: CGA in hi-res
monochrome (640x200), Hercules Monochrome (720x348), Tandy (320x200x16 colors),
EGA hi-res (640x350x16 colors), EGA low-res (320x200x16 colors), and EGA hi-res
monochrome (640x350). I played the game primarily in the EGA hi-res mode (which
requires 256K ram on your EGA card, in addition to your system's 640K). The
graphics are absolutely stunning in this underused mode, and there's an
incredible amount of detail. Notice the stadium, for example: You can actually
identify the two teams -- with different-colored uniforms -- running up and down
the field; and the industrial pumping stations are really pumping away smoothly.
These are some of the best graphics you've ever seen in a piece of entertainment
software.

 Because of the wide range of speeds available among the various IBM-PC
configurations, the game allows you to specify precisely how much animation
you'd like to include in any given game session: Since there are many high-level
computations going on here, you may need to turn off some of the animation in
order to make the game move along quickly. At 25 MHz, the game screams -- even
with full animation, at the slowest "time" setting. Fortunately, you can do all
the building and bulldozing you like while suspended in Pause mode, then switch
off the Pause and watch the animation take over.

 IBM SIMCITY is mouse- and joystick-compatible; I found the mouse to be the
pointer of choice. The Mac-like interface is recreated nicely here, with windows
and graphs that update themselves continuously. You may also reposition windows,
or move front to back and vice versa. Printing requires an Epson-compatible
printer, on which you can print out a single-page map of your current project,
or a mammoth eight-page schematic of the entire area in excruciating detail.

 The sound comes in two varieties: the default sound from the IBM speaker
(so-so), and special sound for those who have a Covox Sound Master. The Covox is
an optional $90 card available from Maxis (information is included in the
package). Presumably, the digitized speech and music are a good deal clearer
with this card; I could barely understand the traffic reports as played through
the puny IBM speaker.

 Fully deserving of its "Game of the Year" status, SIMCITY is one of the finest
entertainment packages available. The IBM-PC version is nothing if not superior
to previous releases. It should be on every IBM gamer's five-foot shelf of
games.

 ATARI ST VERSION NOTES

 The Atari ST version of SIMCITY is virtually identical to all other versions.
It looks great, plays great, and is easily controlled with mouse and keyboard.
There are eight city scenarios, three difficulty levels, and no disk-based copy
protection. ST data files are compatible with IBM, Tandy, Mac, and Amiga data
files, and the program will run on any ST with 512K and a color monitor.

 The SIMCITY package for the ST comes with one 360K disk, an instruction manual
(with a tutorial), and an All-Time High Score sheet that is used for
documentation checks. The program disk is not copy-protected and can be backed
up on a floppy or copied to a hard drive. If you don't have a hard drive, you'll
need formatted disks on which to save your cities.

 I reviewed the C64 version of SIMCITY over a year ago, and now that the ST
version has finally arrived, no one need be left out. You can think of SIMCITY
as a game or an educational program, but in either case, it's one of the best
packages you'll ever load into your computer. Apart from suggesting that you
purchase it immediately, there's nothing I can add that hasn't already been
said.

 SIMCITY is published by Maxis and distributed by Broderbund.

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