Is there a way to play this on Mac today?
SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
171–180 of 252 posts
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#172I think SimCity 4 is the best city simulator game. Cities Skylines is an excellent city painter ; however.
All of these city games need to simulate bureaucracy. For example, if trying to demolish an apartment, you need to solicit 400 approvals and gain local support before doing so. Or to build to a railway you need to buy out all of the land and organize environmental studies for every square foot of it before laying track.
I'd rather have a city builder that doesn't involve starting a utopia from scratch, I want to show up to an existing rural area and industrialize it, convert an unwalkable nightmare dominated by highways into a medium density sprawl, etc.
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#173Earlier quoted context omitted.
High content, big budget, games still exist, e.g. Elden Ring + Zelda (as someone mentioned) are two recent releases. There's also plenty of sim games in the indie market, Factorio, Banished, Frostpunk. Then things that are close to the market like They Are Billions, Kenshi, etc. to name a few I've personally had time to play. Kenshi is a bit rough around the edges, but absolutely brilliant in terms of sandbox play. T…
Let’s not forget all the Paradox games: City Skylines, Crusader Kings, Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron. Very much content over graphics.
My issue with the Paradox games is that they have gotten too complicated for their AI, which suuucks. Hearts of Iron's AI has no understanding of its own military strategies, and I don't know how I could have a multiplayer game lasting 80 hours with multiple friends.
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#174Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought 3000 was the best showing, though perhaps that's looking at it back later when performance is not as much of a concern. It felt like an upgraded SimCity 2000, rather than a big change in game mechanics that 4 was.
Age of Empires 2, Sim City 3000, Diablo2 and Red Alert 2. Released in the span of 3 years. What an incredible era. Can’t shake off the feeling that 3D took away as much as it gave gaming. Also can’t believe it’s just my age-based selection bias.
Homeworld, quake 2, Half-life, counterstrike, starcraft, diablo, 97 to '00.
I cannot think of a more revolutionary span of games over 3 years.
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#175Is there a way to play this on Mac today?
Already mentioned in another comment, but they just released an Apple Silicon version: https://support.aspyr.com/hc/en-us/articles/12168615035405-H...
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#176I prefer SimCity 2000. I feel like it hit a pretty good sweet spot between simulation and fun (which is to say, not even a vague gesturing at anything remotely realistic). Realistic simulation in games is almost universally less fun than simple, predictable game logic. Probably the most extreme example of this is chess: way more enjoyable than real warfare. Back on topic though. My beef with SimCity 4 is that it adde…
100% agree, simcity 2000 will always he THE simcity for me.
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#177Earlier quoted context omitted.
We already have OpenTTD and OpenRCT. Maybe someone somewhere is creating an C++ remake of our favourite isometric city simulator, with multiplayer support!
How the multiplayer mode would look like? Do you think about competing against the other real player? Or maybe collaborating with some friend? I am asking, because I think I haven't seen the multiplayer support in any railroad/transport-tycoon game. I remember in Railroad Tycoon 2 and then in Sid Meier's Railroads [0] we could play against NPC. Same as us, NPC is establishing a company and we may buy all his stocks t…
Probably a lot like Simcity 2000 Network Edition.
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#178Earlier quoted context omitted.
Age of Empires 2, Sim City 3000, Diablo2 and Red Alert 2. Released in the span of 3 years. What an incredible era. Can’t shake off the feeling that 3D took away as much as it gave gaming. Also can’t believe it’s just my age-based selection bias.
The "best (according to me)" games are still 2D or 2.5D: Roguelikes Dwarf Fortress Factorio EU4 My theory is that deep gameplay and AAA 3D graphics are mutually exclusive because deep gameplay fundamentally requires "tile grids" of some kind, which don't lend themselves to AAA 3D graphics. (Diablo 1 and 2 kind of railed against this by taking the approach, "Hey, what if we took a tile-based roguelike and rendered it…
I have very similar opinion. Presenting things in perspective projection (where things closer to you are taking up more space on screen, and are potentially obscuring things farther from you) is a very peculiar approach, applicable only to FPS and TPS games, where seeing things from the eye of the camera is actually the main gimmick. For some reason they are immensely popular, but they're only a tiny minority of available genres. For everything but FPS/TPS, an orthographic projection creates a much better view of what the heck is actually going on in the game, and thus leads to better gameplay.
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#179I prefer SimCity 2000. I feel like it hit a pretty good sweet spot between simulation and fun (which is to say, not even a vague gesturing at anything remotely realistic). Realistic simulation in games is almost universally less fun than simple, predictable game logic. Probably the most extreme example of this is chess: way more enjoyable than real warfare. Back on topic though. My beef with SimCity 4 is that it adde…
100% agree. Fond memories of SC 2000. The open creation of any layout you could think of was my favorite aspect of the game. Anyone have a particular recommendation on how to play SC 2000 today on Windows 10?
If you can find the Win95 version it's preferable over the GoG DOS version. You need this guys patchers tho: http://www.krimsky.net/patchers.html
Re: SimCity 4 was released 20 years ago
#180Eh... I loved SC4, but the peak of the franchise was 2000 and 3000 (either one is fantastic).
SC4 trended heavily towards unnecessary complexity.