The reason i play this game
because i find its CD in here, my parent house. Not because i played as the
famous gang-busting mayor on last article [average city-sized honesty]. So this time
i play Maxis' Sim City 2000 (1996) on PS1 again after some eternity hiatus.
Believe it or not, this is
loading screen and not the main screen. This screen gradually appears from
center top in clockwise direction. It takes very skilful screenshot to capture
this loading screen in perfect state. If you take it too late, the game finish
loading and this screen vanishes. If you take it too soon, the screen will
still have that black gap. I would like to say that spider-y robot is your
avatar on building the city but the truth is not, sadly. It's Alien invader
that will ruin your-made city but i will talk about that much much later.
Once the loading screen fully
appears, this main screen immediately appears and as i have mentioned before
it's boring. Asking for Classic Doom-like main screen will be asking too much,
i know. But there's certainly no fun element on these steel plate that looks
like bathroom tile from dull part of Honda's bathhouse. There's no controller
setting so far but just so you know, d-pad controls the movement's of that dull
white cursor and 'X' button to confirm. I don't want fiddling too much on the
game so let's hit the "Start New City" option immediately!
The game automatically generate
the world for me and it takes 3 step of smoothing: 1) Smoothing; 2) More
Smoothing; 3) Yet More Smoothing. If the generated world isn't as smooth as
velvet, i'll be mad.
On to naming the city. I can name
it to Duckburg, Metro City, or Gotham City but i choose not because i believe
in my incompetency on managing the city will remains the same with the last
time that i play this game which is when i'm still high-schooler. For the
definition of iseng: whim of doing
something as respond to overcome one's boredom, seek excitement/fun, or
(plainly) be strange. It's on glossary section.
Next, i have to choose the
initial setting of finance and years. I choose the most top options
because i'm lazy to change the settings. Years determine what technology you can build, by the way.
Extra! Extra! A city with stupid
name, is born! Very funny that there's line about the citizens is troubled with
dense traffic considering i haven't build any road or residential even. Wait! Something or someone, stuns a cat!
That's immoral violation of animal's right! Scout_jeers08.wav
Pressing start in the middle of
gameplay, only pauses it (but you can use it to change the music that currently played). If you want to bring menu that contains save/load
game, controller setting, etc, you should press select button instead. I have
no idea why they put the nearly completed sketch of the controller there
instead of real photo of it. If you press the "next" option, it will
change the control setting in other pre-fixed configuration. The problem is
unlike in other game that has naming on setting like Setting A, Setting B, etc
there's none here. So it's very difficult to me to change the setting to
default. Besides the button function, the configuration allow you to use either
normal or reverse directional. The question is why would you want to use
reverse direction control in not plane simulator game? >:I
Finally, i show you the real
screen of the gameplay. Lots of toolbar there! Then there's rolling flash news
on top of the screen, tells me that my city need Power Plant. So what i need to
do is: drag the cursor to that electricity icon on bottom-left corner. But
wait! I need to move the screen to other less hill-y area for the power plant
site. How do i pan the screen, again?
On the electricity tab, there's
option for power line and power plant. Choosing power plant option, leads me to
this selection of power generator: 1) Coal powered plant, is the cheapest and
has good proportion of provided electricity-build cost; 2) Dam power plant, that
doesn't provide much electricity per unit and requires waterfall to run.
Meaning, it requires terrain engineering thus extra cost; 3) Oil powered plant,
has quite smaller proportion of provided electricity-build cost and more
expensive but more environmental friendly than Coal powered ones. Turns out, i
can pan the screen while choosing the site of the power plant.
Citizen need road and i shall
give it to them. The road tab contains more options! From top to left, we have:
flat road, highway, tunnel road, freeway (maybe), and bus stop. Let's settle
with nice and simple yet cheap flat road for now and put it near the
power plant.
The terrain surrounding the power
plant is too hill-y so i figure i have them flatten just a bit. I said just a
bit! God damn it! Not making a crater like that for God's sake! So yeah. The
lower elevation tool is freaking iffy! No wonder, i don't bother with terrain
engineering back in the day.
There finally some nice and cozy
plateau! Like in control setting, i can zoom out the screen by pressing
"R2" button and i can hardly see anything there. I mean sure, you can
still see the power lines, road, and the power plant. But you can't see the
water pump station clearly there. Yes, that tiny building is water station. You
can't tell it, no?
Speaking of water station, i need
to put on some pipeline too. After powered, the water station will supply water
through the pipelines to any building. While in underground view mode you can't
see any buildings, instead you can see their underground water pipes. Did you
see green blocks on previous screenshot? Those are residential zone which can
turn into house if there's power line and pipeline under them. But it takes
quite long time for them to be occupied with housing. I think certain
residential demand also required. That's funny, nonetheless. So before there's
houses designated by me, the citizen probably lives in wagon or camp in
wilderness to wait the housing project. Due to absence of house's underground
water pipes (because there's not there yet), you can use the power line to mark
the residential zone.
The white house tab provides me
with government option. I reckon dollar symbol is about city budget. Let's see
there!
On budget menu, there's advisor's
button that you can press to ask for advice. He said i should lower property
tax to encourage growth. Thus i change the property tax rate from 7% to 5% and
it seems my citizens like it.
Still there's no house yet. Maybe
i should build some industrial zone first? There's 3 main occupation zone: 1)
Residential; 2) Commercial; 3) Industrial.
You can see at right bottom corner, there's (probably) demands bar on
those occupations. The left bar maybe represents negative demands while
the right bar maybe represents positive demands. By the reading of the
demand bar, the people want some industrial zone then i shall give them. Only
some, that is. On the industrial tab, i have choice between light industrial
zone and advanced ones. I shall make the light of course because i'm cheapskate
bastard. :p
Oh look! It works even though
there's only 2 of them while the other 2 are in the middle of construction. The
reason why i put residential zone quite far from the power plant: according to
the info that coal-powered power plant exhausts nasty amount of smoke pollution
that can make the houses dirty if it's located too close to them and people
will complaint about it because they have to repaint their house more often.
There's also blue zones that i built for
commercial zone and obviously they're not occupied yet because the demand isn't
there yet.
Turns out, i can bring help if i
press shift + cancel button (default: "circle" + "square")!
Sweet! That on-line part of the text is obviously a lie because i don't need
internet connection to bring the hint but at least i'm safe from the problem of
encountering Microsoft Office's Clippy. I hate that bastard.
With that knowledge at my
disposal, i can bring hint about anything at ease. I find out that the left
center toolbar is about view mode: underground view toggle, network view
toggle, building view toggle, or zone view toggle. Medic_sf12_badmagic05.wav
I can also see the explanation of
building icon like in this case. But the hint doesn't say the detail about the
difference between the regular residential and dense residential except the
cost. I will explain about that later.
Engineer_cheers05.wav. I also can
see the detail of the existing building by using that help button(s). Plus the
picture spins.
I reckon they need extra pump
station for wider distribution and more water supply so i build it next to the
residential area. Oh, right! They're occupied now. You can see 2 different
commercial zones there. One in sky blue and other in darker blue. They're all 2
X 2. Not the power line build area that i just drag to empower dense
residential zone. At this point, we know that occupation zone has 2 type: the
simple and the advanced. The latter called dense or whatever. The former type
has more pale color and the latter type has darker color. The former type is
(obviously) cheaper than the latter. The first type can only change into
one-block building while the second type can change into bigger building. But
it requires 2 X 2 design. So if you -say- build the advanced zone in 6 X 1
zone, you're definitely doing it wrong and you have wasted extra money
unnecessarily. I don't find that zone building explanation in in-game hint, i
discovered that by myself back in the day.
Also back then, i play the game
by conserving budget as hard as i can but end up failure anyway. So i think,
i'll go crazier for this time. I try build some Hydraulic dams and they turn
into dam mess! [pun intended]. I try to build 3 dams with parallel
arrangement like what you see everyday but no. The left dam refuse to face the
same direction as the center. The same problem goes to right dam too but since
it's not on the same height i can give it a break. It seems you don't need to
make water on top of the slope to make the waterfall. You can just put water on
any slope and the game will just consider it "waterfall" enough and
you can put the dam there. That's really saving grace as the cost to put water on terrain in $100 per block! The coal powered power plant will expire at some
time and you have to replace it with new ones. While hydraulic dam can run
forever if i'm not mistaken.
See? The big building are being
constructed. There's slight mis-design on advanced residential zone, though. I
put 2 X 4, hoping to make 2 big resident building of 2 X 2 side by side. But
the game decides to put 1 building of 2 X 2 and the rest is just minor houses.
Might as well as build
harbor/dock. Moreover, we're not so far from river. But we need to lower this
terrain first and it turns quite not well. You see that debris near water
station? There was power line a while ago. It's destroyed because i try to
lower the area that few blocks from it! It's hard to tell how the "lower
terrain" tool works. It sure lower the terrain by 1 level but the affected
area is varied. Sometime it lowers only 1 selected block and that's fine. But
more often than not, the area surrounding the selected block are lowered
instead and collateral damage happens like here. There's also "flatten
terrain" tool that hopefully brings less disastrous result. But it's more
complicated to operate. You have to hold the cursor on terrain that has the
elevation you desire and drag it to the terrain that you want to change. The
problem is the cursor dragging feels janky but maybe because i play the PS1 version.
Maybe, the PC version has better cursor
control due to mouse appliance.
Hufft, finally! We get some
decent dock area with crane and piers after several load state. As you can see
that some roads have cars on them. It means that the traffic condition there
becomes denser. For starting phase of the city, this means good.
Soldier_goodjob01.wav
The advanced residential zone turns
into a church. It looks majestic but why there's medium crime rate inside of
it?
Through budget menu, i can set
the property tax rate in detail and i can see how much tax rate that each
occupation contributes. I conclude that Industrial gives the city most income.
I tempted to rise the tax rate for it but i'm not no-good greedy bastard. I
still have golden part in my heart although just a bit.
On the view tab (with icon of
binoculars' view) from top to bottom we have: 1) Inspection trip; 2) Building
view (or alternatively you can press the shift + cancel button); 3) Option menu
that contains save/load game, controller setting, etc (or alternatively you can
press 'select' button instead) 4) Quick help/hint explanation. Let's take joy
ride, then!
The inspection trip allow you to
look around the city from the road section of your choice. D-pad allow you to
change camera view. Pressing/holding 'L1' and 'R1' will make your car turn to
left or right if there's junction. Although
there's indication of dense traffic, my trip goes smoothly. So i imagine the
traffic authority ceases all citizen's car to allow my trip unhindered. Plus i
ride in the middle of road, ignoring the separator line. What a jerk, i am!
Note: there's graphic glitch if you pass on slope.
I look at the junction that
nearest with the dock because it seems the busiest junction in our city. 52
cars/minute quite packs a punch But if i remember correctly there's only 22
houses at the moment. That means each house occupants have at least 2 cars!
Does no one own motorbike or something?
To be honest, i feel bored. I can
designate more occupation zone but it costs money and i have to held back for
the sake city's monetary balance. Maybe, my mistake back there was putting too
many occupation zones that will lead my city into bankruptcy. Therefore, i
fiddle with the budget again. There's many tab above: one of them is city ordinance.
There, my advisor suggest to establish pollution ordinance. So let's do that!
There you go! It cost $3 per year.
I tempted to turn on the Homeless Shelters (that perhaps lower overall crime rate) because i have (just a bit) golden
part in my heart. But i reckon my city's budget need more growth before
establish that.
By the way, here's the full
screen of the budget menu. That blonde bloke icon is the advisor. While the
book icon is the detailed setting. Transit authority includes road maintenance,
right? Maybe, we don't need 100% rate for that so i decreases it by 10%.
Woah! Chill, dude! I believe my
road maintenance budget here is still more competent than in my country where
many road damage left unattended. Our government seldom care about it until
governor/mayoral vote is near. Let alone monthly maintenance, accidental road
repair is rare sight here. So we have to resort to self-subsistent repair where
some of us take this as opportunity to ask alms from passing drivers. But
that's only occur in public road. Freeway are managed more competently, though.
In Government tab, there's option
that allow me to see overall population of SimNation and my neighboring city.
My city is the second lowest in population after Old Boots. At least my city
has better name than smelly cowboy shoe, right? The most populated city is
Little Rouge. They should change it to Giant Rouge anytime soon in my opinion.
By the way here's the complete
setting menu. There's not much content of options there besides sound and
graphic setting. You can also change the game speed here. Normally on Real Time
Strategy game, i'm reluctant to change the game speed. There's 4 speed setting:
Pause, Turtle, Lama, and Cheetah. The default is Cheetah but it still takes
some time for the occupation zones to change even on that speed setting. I
reckon Pause is useful to manage wide area of the city at the same time but my
city is pretty much small right now. Before i set the Disaster, i would like to
read the newspaper. Hopefully, we find that cat violator is getting arrested or
other good news.
Sniper_negativevocalization02.wav.
What's with the sudden news of communism here? Does Cold War still goes on? I'm
currently at 1908 so the answer is probably: yes.
Here's the moment that you
probably waiting for: UFO attack! For some reason it's listed as
"Monster" on Disaster list instead of Alien. Is Alien considered
offensive or something? When i summon Monster, i expect Godzilla or King
Ghidorah razes my city but we got UFO attackinstead.
During emergency situation i can
deploy fire brigade, or police. But since i haven't built fire department
and/or police precinct, i can't deploy them. Instead, the game SimNation
lends me National Guard force. That pillar with tank on top of it, marks that i
deploy National Guard there but it's too late. The UFO runs away. Perhaps the
aliens have bigger city to mess. Sorry to disappoint you, E.T! By the way, they
don't burn the building to the ground or sort like that. They just change road
or building to trees. They're tree hugger type of aliens. They don't seek
destruction, conquest, or gold (like in Cowboy and Aliens). They just want to reduce (some of) human civilization to trees.
Such green solution . How adorable! I think i'm done here.
Maxis' Sim City (1996) is
simulation strategy game about city management and that's pretty much of it.
There's the pre-built city that you can mess around with or you can start build
ones from beginning like what i did there. The main problem that i encounter is the
income rate. More inhabited occupation zones means more income. That much i
know. But it feels uncertain or random. You can't control what building that
will come out except for its category (residential, commercial, or industry).
If i can control it, i will probably go with the cheapest cost yet with most
value and the game will be easier/friendlier. As far as i know there's no
sub-quest that will grant you money reward for further city expansion so all i
can do is build just a bit and wait for the budget to kick in enough for
further spending. I know i can get provide extra income by setting parking fine
or other taxes but i worry that they will only make citizens angry and leave my
city. I know that this game could be basic of other strategy game with
recreational theme like Jurassic World
game where you need to build power generator and power line to empower facilities
and also road to connect them. However those game has more distinct and faster
income rate: visitors per day or month. Not to mention they has more
interesting theme than this game that only build a city. The game could use a
button to pan the screen but instead there's cycle marker function that i don't
know exactly what's about. The game has nice and interesting music. The graphic
looks outdated and simple
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