89 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
89 lines
5.2 KiB
Plaintext
|
||
|
||
SIMEARTH
|
||
|
||
SIMEARTH for the Macintosh (on which this review is based) arrives with both
|
||
color and black-and-white versions in the same box, along with a massive, and
|
||
copiously illustrated, instruction book. Copy protection consists of the
|
||
requirement that you enter easily-located information about planets in our solar
|
||
system.
|
||
|
||
After entering the required data, you can choose to create your own world, or
|
||
play with pre-designed scenarios (including Earth 1990). As in SIMCITY, you can
|
||
specify the difficulty level, from experimental (unlimited Omega energy or cash)
|
||
to Hard (only 2000 Omega and an unregulated Gaia). If you choose to create your
|
||
own world, you may select the time period, ranging from the beginning of your
|
||
planet, all the way up to the Industrial Age. Then you're off to run your
|
||
planet!
|
||
|
||
In the color version, you're greeted with a marvelous layout of your planet as
|
||
it cools down. Land appears as volcanoes erupt, and then the freshly cooled rock
|
||
begins to drift around the planet. You quickly become aware of all the
|
||
interesting things you're going to be able to do with your planet, including
|
||
manipulating the Geosphere, Atmosphere, Biosphere, and Civilization.
|
||
|
||
The Geosphere allows you to modify the heat from your planet's core, the rate
|
||
of continental drift, meteor impacts, volcanoes, and so on. Atmosphere allows
|
||
you to toy with your planet's greenhouse effect, rainfall, amount of energy from
|
||
the sun, reflectiveness (Albedo) of the clouds and the ground, rate of heat
|
||
exchange between sea and air, etc. Biosphere lets you play around with the
|
||
lifeforms that develop on your planet. Here you can increase the amount of heat
|
||
your critters can take, the amount of CO2 that can be absorbed, reproduction
|
||
rate, advancement rate (evolving), and the like. And Civilization lets you tell
|
||
your SIMEARTHlings what types of energy to use, and how to use it.
|
||
|
||
From the menu at the top of the screen, you can view your planet's atmospheric
|
||
content, which type of life you have, which type of biomes (jungle, desert,
|
||
forest, etc.) are on your plant, and a few other things. You can select the Gaia
|
||
window, in which Gaia (in the form of a planet) watches the mouse cursor on the
|
||
screen and comments on the game; you may also obtain a graph of anything from
|
||
CO2 levels in the air to the rainfall on your planet. You can view a report
|
||
showing (depending on the time period) the highest lifeform you have, the amount
|
||
of Biomass (in general, life), growth on a planet, the level of civilization,
|
||
and what it's like to live in your SimCivilization (if and when you get one).
|
||
|
||
After a few hundred million years, oceans form, and continents begin to race
|
||
across your map (you can run a short replay of the movements to watch continents
|
||
hustle around). You can view your planet as a spinning globe: By double-clicking
|
||
on the globe, you obtain a cross-section of the planet, showing its internal
|
||
makeup. While this is fun, and lets you see what your planet really looks like,
|
||
the regular map is best for working.
|
||
|
||
Suddenly, life forms! And your seas start to crawl with bacteria and
|
||
single-cell organisms. Then life evolves even more, and plants spread onto the
|
||
land; life begins to comprise more and more creatures. (There are a total of 16
|
||
life forms, plus robots. Only 14 of the organic creatures can become
|
||
intelligent.) Although it's useful at any time, the edit window really gets a
|
||
workout now. (SIMCITY players will feel right at home here.) You click on an
|
||
icon and a nice hierarchical display of options appears. From the edit window,
|
||
you can drop new life forms, put some trees here and there, drop an atomic bomb
|
||
or a meteorite, or even a monolith (which helps to evolve a species). For those
|
||
of you who love disasters, in addition to meteorites and atomic bombs, you can
|
||
create earthquakes, tidal waves, fires, hurricanes, plagues -- all sorts of fun
|
||
stuff!
|
||
|
||
Soon, life forms become sentient, and everything goes haywire. At first, that's
|
||
okay, but then they pollute the world, kill off other life forms, and sometimes
|
||
nuke themselves into extinction! But if they're good little Sims, they might
|
||
move into the exodus stage, where they attach rocket engines to their cities and
|
||
blast off into space. Once they're all gone, life returns to normal, and
|
||
creatures compete to evolve into intelligent life forms. Radiation eventually
|
||
disperses, and things are happy...until another life forms evolves, or the sun
|
||
gets so big that it crisps your cozy little planet (definitely the ultimate in
|
||
SimDestruction...heh).
|
||
|
||
To put it plainly, SIMEARTH is complicated. Pretty much everything you do
|
||
affects everything else. And a small change in one variable can really create
|
||
chaos on your planet. While complex and challenging, SIMEARTH is nevertheless a
|
||
blast to play. It looks great, too: SIMEARTH runs in 16 colors, but you'd swear
|
||
there are 256. (It will run in 256 colors, as well, but it's slower). The
|
||
black-and-white graphics aren't as nice, but they're still pretty good, and
|
||
playing in black-and-white won't affect your enjoyment of the game.
|
||
|
||
SIMEARTH is a must for anyone, especially gamers who loved the very popular
|
||
SIMCITY.
|
||
|
||
SIMEARTH is published by Maxis and distributed by Broderbund.
|
||
|
||
*****DOWNLOADED FROM P-80 SYSTEMS (304) 744-2253
|
||
|