SimCity 2000 30 Years Later: An LGR Retrospective
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Date: 2023-11-17
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Comments and reviews: 19
Philo
I have a lot of memories about Simcity 2000. I desperately wanted to play it, and it required 640x480 and 256 colors. It was one of the first games that REQUIRED this resolution and color depth.
It was SVGA, and I had an SVGA card. So I spent many days trying to get the card/drivers/settings (command line switches? bios settings? plug it into a different eisa slot) figured out to make it work. Finally, I found the manual to the Oak Technologies video card I had, and discovered that my card only supported SOME svga resolutions/color depths, such as 800x600 and 16 colors and 1024x768 and 16 colors.
So as a 13 year old, I spent more days whining to my dad that we needed a new video card. To my dad it seemed awfully expensive to spend 250 to play a video game. I eventually bugged him enough to make it happen, and it is still one of the happiest days of my life when we got that Cirrus Logic VESA-supporting SVGA card. Seeing that ultra-smooth 16-bit color scale in Windows 3. 1's color-chooser blew my mind (I had only previously seen 16 colors dithered. I immediately downloaded a full-color 1024x768 wallpaper of the horsehead nebula for my windows wallpaper from my local BBS. I felt like I was truly in the future with these photo-realistic backgrounds!
Oh, and finally getting to play the game was sooo satisfying. I loved building subways and highways - so much better than the rails-or-roads options in the original simcity.
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I have a lot of memories about Simcity 2000. I desperately wanted to play it, and it required 640x480 and 256 colors. It was one of the first games that REQUIRED this resolution and color depth.
It was SVGA, and I had an SVGA card. So I spent many days trying to get the card/drivers/settings (command line switches? bios settings? plug it into a different eisa slot) figured out to make it work. Finally, I found the manual to the Oak Technologies video card I had, and discovered that my card only supported SOME svga resolutions/color depths, such as 800x600 and 16 colors and 1024x768 and 16 colors.
So as a 13 year old, I spent more days whining to my dad that we needed a new video card. To my dad it seemed awfully expensive to spend 250 to play a video game. I eventually bugged him enough to make it happen, and it is still one of the happiest days of my life when we got that Cirrus Logic VESA-supporting SVGA card. Seeing that ultra-smooth 16-bit color scale in Windows 3. 1's color-chooser blew my mind (I had only previously seen 16 colors dithered. I immediately downloaded a full-color 1024x768 wallpaper of the horsehead nebula for my windows wallpaper from my local BBS. I felt like I was truly in the future with these photo-realistic backgrounds!
Oh, and finally getting to play the game was sooo satisfying. I loved building subways and highways - so much better than the rails-or-roads options in the original simcity.
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GreyWolfLeaderTW
SimCity 2000 is still my favorite entry in the series due to it being a happy medium between the very high-level, low detail, and restricted feature set and player control of the original SimCity and the extreme close-up detail and highly gradular focus of SimCity 3000, which required a lot more time and effort focused on tweaking particular city policies and utility/infrastructure placement.
I personally would have preferred a successor to SimCity 2000 that kept the same tile scaling and added more building types and subtypes (like smaller schoolhouses, police outposts/firehouses, ability to build (in a restricted fashion) on slopes, mixing of building sets, more industrial structures particular to specific industries, introduce multiple surface road types (like unpaved/gravel roads, 2x2 median-divided 4-lane roads, et cetera, along with some more simulation of city systems at the scale and level 2000 did.
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SimCity 2000 is still my favorite entry in the series due to it being a happy medium between the very high-level, low detail, and restricted feature set and player control of the original SimCity and the extreme close-up detail and highly gradular focus of SimCity 3000, which required a lot more time and effort focused on tweaking particular city policies and utility/infrastructure placement.
I personally would have preferred a successor to SimCity 2000 that kept the same tile scaling and added more building types and subtypes (like smaller schoolhouses, police outposts/firehouses, ability to build (in a restricted fashion) on slopes, mixing of building sets, more industrial structures particular to specific industries, introduce multiple surface road types (like unpaved/gravel roads, 2x2 median-divided 4-lane roads, et cetera, along with some more simulation of city systems at the scale and level 2000 did.
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Jonathan
Sounds like you and I spent our childhood summers in similar pursuits! I got an LC III when I was in third grade in 1993, and I'd already played SimCity on my dad's PowerBook, so when I saw the first ads for SImCity 2000 in MacWorld, I knew I had to have it. I would spend literal days in a trance, building and tweaking cities to perfection. I also racked up hundreds of dollars in hourly AOL charges downloading cities and talking with other players in the chat rooms. I also called the Maxis 800-number for technical support and sort of made friends with a guy there, just talking about how much I loved the game, although I tried to come up with some sort of technical or product question as an excuse to call. until one day, I called and a woman answered who angrily told me to stop calling them! I did get a nice package in the mail from the guy I originally talked to, though, with a SimCity 2000 t-shirt and pin.
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Sounds like you and I spent our childhood summers in similar pursuits! I got an LC III when I was in third grade in 1993, and I'd already played SimCity on my dad's PowerBook, so when I saw the first ads for SImCity 2000 in MacWorld, I knew I had to have it. I would spend literal days in a trance, building and tweaking cities to perfection. I also racked up hundreds of dollars in hourly AOL charges downloading cities and talking with other players in the chat rooms. I also called the Maxis 800-number for technical support and sort of made friends with a guy there, just talking about how much I loved the game, although I tried to come up with some sort of technical or product question as an excuse to call. until one day, I called and a woman answered who angrily told me to stop calling them! I did get a nice package in the mail from the guy I originally talked to, though, with a SimCity 2000 t-shirt and pin.
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NickOfTime99
I definitely related to Clint's excitement over this game. I too, remember how awesome it was when I first started playing it at our school Mac lab. I just had to have it. I saved all my money and purchased it at an Incredible Universe store during Christmas. I had to wait an agonizing 3 days, before I could get home and play it on our computer. Except once I got home I also had the issue of our aged 486 wouldn't load it. After much tweaks, I was able to get the game to load, but the graphics were still horrid. I finally got a newer computer a couple years later and got to fully enjoy it. I still have it, in its box and always cherish it.
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I definitely related to Clint's excitement over this game. I too, remember how awesome it was when I first started playing it at our school Mac lab. I just had to have it. I saved all my money and purchased it at an Incredible Universe store during Christmas. I had to wait an agonizing 3 days, before I could get home and play it on our computer. Except once I got home I also had the issue of our aged 486 wouldn't load it. After much tweaks, I was able to get the game to load, but the graphics were still horrid. I finally got a newer computer a couple years later and got to fully enjoy it. I still have it, in its box and always cherish it.
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yizzer2
You had all those mauals and neither of them mentioned compatibility troubleshooting issues? I remember running warcraft 1 on a VGA 386 with HIMEM. SYS in the config file, I got Transport tycoon to run on a 640+384 extended 286 with a RAMDISK and EGA graphics both pain in the butt for a kid, good times. These days I'm more accustomed to running old programs on newer hardware rather than the other way around. Constantly on the hunt for good Win XP and Win 7 compatible parts. I don't think I'll ever mess around with MS-DOS again. but windows 3. 0, 3. 1 and 3. 11 I'm sentimental about. If I could only boot Windows 3. 0 one more time.
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You had all those mauals and neither of them mentioned compatibility troubleshooting issues? I remember running warcraft 1 on a VGA 386 with HIMEM. SYS in the config file, I got Transport tycoon to run on a 640+384 extended 286 with a RAMDISK and EGA graphics both pain in the butt for a kid, good times. These days I'm more accustomed to running old programs on newer hardware rather than the other way around. Constantly on the hunt for good Win XP and Win 7 compatible parts. I don't think I'll ever mess around with MS-DOS again. but windows 3. 0, 3. 1 and 3. 11 I'm sentimental about. If I could only boot Windows 3. 0 one more time.
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David
I absolutely LOVED SImCopter, even though the game had lots of technical bugs. (Rescuees spawing in places impossible to rescue them from, etc) I wish to this day someone would make an inspired knock off or upgrade to make use of more modern graphics and capabilities. It really bums me out they never had an upgraded or enhanced version. I have played lots of actual helicopter sims like Jane's Longbow, and of course all the modern flight sims, but I've never found anything that had the progressive advancement, civic mission-based play. I want my SimCopter!
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I absolutely LOVED SImCopter, even though the game had lots of technical bugs. (Rescuees spawing in places impossible to rescue them from, etc) I wish to this day someone would make an inspired knock off or upgrade to make use of more modern graphics and capabilities. It really bums me out they never had an upgraded or enhanced version. I have played lots of actual helicopter sims like Jane's Longbow, and of course all the modern flight sims, but I've never found anything that had the progressive advancement, civic mission-based play. I want my SimCopter!
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XBluDiamondX
Oh boy, brings back memories. I never heard of SimCity until I purchased my first computer as a kid (saved up all my money. Before that, the only PC gaming time I got was whenever I visited my grandparents as my grandpa was quite the early adopter of computers and what they could do. Anyway, that PC I bought came with SC2000 preinstalled. That was a pleasant surprise as it definitely had me hooked and was my first introduction into city builders. Man. that was a long time ago lol.
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Oh boy, brings back memories. I never heard of SimCity until I purchased my first computer as a kid (saved up all my money. Before that, the only PC gaming time I got was whenever I visited my grandparents as my grandpa was quite the early adopter of computers and what they could do. Anyway, that PC I bought came with SC2000 preinstalled. That was a pleasant surprise as it definitely had me hooked and was my first introduction into city builders. Man. that was a long time ago lol.
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TB
There was a car driving game that used or could use sc2k cities for driving around in, with powerpoint speed 3d and input lag, however I have forgotten the name and can't for the life of me find it again.
Edit: I saw you mentioned a playstation mode that allowed this, but i distinctly remember doing this on a pc, maybe windows 98, so it is very unlikely an emulator. Maybe there was a leaked development version, it lines up with thr warez era.
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There was a car driving game that used or could use sc2k cities for driving around in, with powerpoint speed 3d and input lag, however I have forgotten the name and can't for the life of me find it again.
Edit: I saw you mentioned a playstation mode that allowed this, but i distinctly remember doing this on a pc, maybe windows 98, so it is very unlikely an emulator. Maybe there was a leaked development version, it lines up with thr warez era.
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Kamyla
Wow, you really made me remember how good I felt playing this game when I was a child. I started playing SC2K in the 2000s since my pc couldn't run SimCity 3000 and I'm really glad that happened. I never played the original, but I fell in love with this series and with this game's unique features (I love the different buildings/technology for different time periods. You really captured how special it felt at the time. Incredible video!
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Wow, you really made me remember how good I felt playing this game when I was a child. I started playing SC2K in the 2000s since my pc couldn't run SimCity 3000 and I'm really glad that happened. I never played the original, but I fell in love with this series and with this game's unique features (I love the different buildings/technology for different time periods. You really captured how special it felt at the time. Incredible video!
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Ben
I had a very similar experience of poring over strategy guides for months before getting the actual game for The Movies. We didn t have a PC that could run it for a while. Then the excitement of upgrading our family PC, getting the game, and waiting all night for it to install. Still my favorite game of all time, that soundtrack is embedded in my head somewhere deep. Thank you for reviewing it a while back and letting me revisit it.
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I had a very similar experience of poring over strategy guides for months before getting the actual game for The Movies. We didn t have a PC that could run it for a while. Then the excitement of upgrading our family PC, getting the game, and waiting all night for it to install. Still my favorite game of all time, that soundtrack is embedded in my head somewhere deep. Thank you for reviewing it a while back and letting me revisit it.
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Judacris
I still think about SC2K every now and then. The game was monumental in sparking my love for the building sim genre. SC3K and 4 had their better graphics, but there will always be something about the pixelated sprite-based buildings and ploppables of SC2K that will hold a special place in my heart, along with the soundtrack and every cheer and jeer that accompanied my decision making.
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I still think about SC2K every now and then. The game was monumental in sparking my love for the building sim genre. SC3K and 4 had their better graphics, but there will always be something about the pixelated sprite-based buildings and ploppables of SC2K that will hold a special place in my heart, along with the soundtrack and every cheer and jeer that accompanied my decision making.
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Cazra
I got the CD Collection boxed set as a kid for my birthday one year and had a blast with it! Previously I enjoyed playing the demo version of Sim City 2000 sometimes pre-loaded on friends' and relatives' computers. I especially enjoyed the city painter mode, and although I wasn't very good at pixel art at the time, I customized a bunch of buildings to have lots and lots of dragons!
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I got the CD Collection boxed set as a kid for my birthday one year and had a blast with it! Previously I enjoyed playing the demo version of Sim City 2000 sometimes pre-loaded on friends' and relatives' computers. I especially enjoyed the city painter mode, and although I wasn't very good at pixel art at the time, I customized a bunch of buildings to have lots and lots of dragons!
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Zeliard
I remember playing this with my friend s house and always wanted a copy. I did get this one CD copy but it had this strange problem with not having the music files! That sucked
Recently I was thrifting and picked up this one game that actually had a CD copy randomly stashed in the same case! Does the music work? No idea I still need to find a machine to run it
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I remember playing this with my friend s house and always wanted a copy. I did get this one CD copy but it had this strange problem with not having the music files! That sucked
Recently I was thrifting and picked up this one game that actually had a CD copy randomly stashed in the same case! Does the music work? No idea I still need to find a machine to run it
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Violante
lol, i thought i was the only one drawing cities in paper just because of simcity, i've even drawn what i imagined could be a sequel to simcity 4, with user interfaces and all since simcity societies couldn't even be considered a real sequel by the fans haha. i got so excited when i finally got to play simcity games instead of just watching videos of them
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lol, i thought i was the only one drawing cities in paper just because of simcity, i've even drawn what i imagined could be a sequel to simcity 4, with user interfaces and all since simcity societies couldn't even be considered a real sequel by the fans haha. i got so excited when i finally got to play simcity games instead of just watching videos of them
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SlamBolts
My first and only experience with SC2K was on the PS1. I never knew how to do anything, I liked messing around with the city editor and that's pretty much it. But the thing that made a huge impression and always stayed with me was the music, especially the PS1 version. It's so. Weird and dark and melancholic and almost uncanny. Definitely memorable!
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My first and only experience with SC2K was on the PS1. I never knew how to do anything, I liked messing around with the city editor and that's pretty much it. But the thing that made a huge impression and always stayed with me was the music, especially the PS1 version. It's so. Weird and dark and melancholic and almost uncanny. Definitely memorable!
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Ilfar
SC2000 was both the bane and the joy of my existence at the time. So much fun to play, the problem was that certain individuals in the house with far more authority than I also enjoyed playing it. At least we had the book I could read through while waiting for my turn, so my cities quickly became far better than anything my parents created. :P
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SC2000 was both the bane and the joy of my existence at the time. So much fun to play, the problem was that certain individuals in the house with far more authority than I also enjoyed playing it. At least we had the book I could read through while waiting for my turn, so my cities quickly became far better than anything my parents created. :P
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Mark
I remember playing SC2K before school on my high school's 486 machines in the CAD class! This was probably late '96, and I had played the original Simcity on our own hand-me-down 386, but we only got SC2K Special Edition and played the heck out of that! In fact, I still install that very game as a test on my retro hardware and virtual machines!
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I remember playing SC2K before school on my high school's 486 machines in the CAD class! This was probably late '96, and I had played the original Simcity on our own hand-me-down 386, but we only got SC2K Special Edition and played the heck out of that! In fact, I still install that very game as a test on my retro hardware and virtual machines!
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The
Oh the joys of having proper Instruction manuals. I can completely relate to how much you pored over the manual here, for me it was Tiberian Sun - Couldn't tell you how many times I read that, fantacising about the different units and lore and just enjoying reading all the options available. Kids these days just don't know what they're missing!
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Oh the joys of having proper Instruction manuals. I can completely relate to how much you pored over the manual here, for me it was Tiberian Sun - Couldn't tell you how many times I read that, fantacising about the different units and lore and just enjoying reading all the options available. Kids these days just don't know what they're missing!
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No
My best memory of Sim City 2000 was realizing that hydroelectric and wind power didn't wear out like the poiwer plants did. Then proceeding to build a mountain of power with waterfall tiles and wind turbines on the flat surfaces.
Then Sim City 3000 came out and fixed that, making Hydro electric and wind turbines wear out after 80 years.
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My best memory of Sim City 2000 was realizing that hydroelectric and wind power didn't wear out like the poiwer plants did. Then proceeding to build a mountain of power with waterfall tiles and wind turbines on the flat surfaces.
Then Sim City 3000 came out and fixed that, making Hydro electric and wind turbines wear out after 80 years.
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