SimCity 3000

SimCity 3000, the latest and greatest version of the very popular city simulation game has just been released. Anyone interested in geography, and especially those interested in planning and urban geography, will love SimCity 3000.

In SimCity 3000, as with the prior versions of the original SimCity and SimCity 2000, you're the mayor and it's your job to build a city from scratch. At the beginning of the game, you're given a barren piece of land and your initial task to turn it into a metropolis. This involves building power plants to provide electricity, building roads and railroads, zoning land, placing fire and police stations, hospitals, schools, and even zoos. You'll also have to maintain the budget and ensure that you're not taxing your citizens (called Sims) too heavily (or else they'll move out). Disasters can also befall your city so its best to have adequate emergency response personnel stationed throughout your city. If you do a good job running your city, it will continue to grow as more and more Sims move in and build homes and businesses.

SimCity 3000 includes several fun advancements from previous versions. In addition to ensuring that your city is powered up and has water pipes running throughout, you'll also need to take care of garbage disposal through the creation of landfills and recycling plants. If your landfills fill up, garbage will begin to fill your city's streets. Neighboring cities may wish to make deals with you to exchange garbage, water, or power - these deals can give you needed income or can ease the strain on the number of landfills you have to build.

This latest version of the game also includes a lot more interaction with the public. Sims will ask you (or demand) to enact ordinances, build casinos, and do a variety of other task, each of which will impact your city's operation. You'll also have the advice from a great council of department heads but the decisions are still up to you.

Those familiar with SimCity 2000 will remember the "rewards" provided to the city for its growth; SimCity 3000 has even more rewards and there are many more opportunities for "special" buildings such as courthouses and military bases to be built in your city. Additionally, SimCity 3000 includes dozens of landmarks, from an Egyptian pyramid to the CN Tower, which can be built for free to spice up your city (although there is a limit of ten landmarks per city).

Besides being loads of fun, the SimCity series is educational as well. You'll learn a great deal about land use planning, city management, and more. I once even had the option of working with SimCity 2000 a few years ago in a lab exercise for an urban geography course. The producers of the game, Maxis and Electronic Arts, are planning to place a teachers' guide on their web site to help instructors use the program in educational settings.

SimCity is rated "E" for everyone by the Entertainment Software Rating Board. The PC version requires a 166 MHz Pentium processor although it recommends a 233. The game was slightly sluggish on my 200 MHz and my processor speed kept me from being able to choose the largest land area available for a city (five times larger than the city size on SimCity 2000). You'll also need a lot of hard drive space - 230MB, as well as a lot of RAM - 32MB. The Macintosh version is scheduled to be released in the future.

SimCity3000 is definitely an improvement upon SimCity 2000 and, if you have the processor speed, worth buying. Be forewarned, however, the game is even more addictive than its predecessors. Give yourself at least a full day to install and begin playing SimCity 3000. I guarantee, you'll have a blast!

The official SimCity site includes a plethora of information about the program and even a few cheat codes.

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