SimCity 2000

• Release Date: 1997
• Genre: Simulation
• Style: Construction/Building Sim
• Similar Games: SimFarm (Macintosh), SimTower (Macintosh), SimTown (Macintosh), SimAnt (Macintosh), SimTower (IBM PC Compatible), SimAnt (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), SimCity (Super Nintendo Entertainment System), SimEarth: The Living Planet for Windows (IBM PC Compatible), SimFarm (IBM PC Compatible), SimPark (IBM PC Compatible), SimEarth: The Living Planet (Macintosh), SimAnt (IBM PC Compatible), SimFarm [DOS] (IBM PC Compatible), SimTown (IBM PC Compatible), SimCity (Commodore 64/128), SimCity Classic (Hybrid Windows/Mac), SimCity (Atari ST), SimCity (Commodore Amiga)

Game Description

The ground-breaking 'city simulation' game, SimCity, has long been the standing claim to fame of game developer and publisher Maxis, Inc. SimCity 2000 first appeared for the PC in January 1994 under the Maxis label, shortly before the company was purchased by Electronic Arts. The game was later translated to the Macintosh and then after many changes and improvements to the PlayStation in 1997.

All of the popular features found on the PC version of SimCity 2000, such as the water pipe grid and improved graphics, are all here, plus extras only found on the PlayStation -- including a first-person 3D walk-through of your city once it's complete. As Mayor, you will build and manage cities of your own creation or use the pre-set scenarios to challenge your planning and management skills. You will have to clear the land, build roads, railroads, power plants and necessary infrastructure, zone the building areas, levy taxes, control crime, juggle budgets, deal with natural disasters and much more...

Unlike many games, SimCity 2000 doesn't have one specific goal or 'winning' scenario (unless in the scenario mode). The game supplies you with the tools to design build and manage your cities (as well as the people in them) -- what you choose to do with those tools is up to you. The three main options available to you are pre-set scenarios, explore and modify the default cities already provided or build your own cities from the ground up.

As you begin you can select to play the Mayor's Boot Camp practice session. Here you can test out gameplay, controls and navigation to prepare yourself for the tasks ahead. The game uses toolbars with icons for all building and management features.

SimCity 2000 for the PlayStation is compatible with the PlayStation Mouse, all controls can be customized and saved games use 8 blocks of memory on a Memory Card (the Memory Card is required to save games).

Roots & Influences

The SimCity series of games and the related spin-off sims are all products from the creative brain of Will Wright. Wright spent a great deal of time building and playing with model airplanes and ships as a child, and went on to attend college (spending five years studying architecture, mechanical engineering and aviation). He taught himself how to program computers and in the mid-1980s he began work on Raid on Bungeling Bay, a game that featured a helicopter that ran bombing attacks on islands. During the development of the game, he realized that he was having more fun building the islands than designing the game.

He began researching the subject of urban planning and became especially interested in the works of MIT professor, Jay Forrester. Wright would test theories he read about by using his island editor and build people, cars and small communities. In 1987, he released the game called SimCity for the Commodore 64 though it received little notice. Later he met a technician named Jeff Braun and they decided to publish the title themselves. In 1987, the partners founded Maxis, Inc..

The two began working on SimCity, and after two years they completed the game for the Macintosh. Despite slow initial sales, the game became an all-time blockbuster, it was released for the PC and Commodore Amiga and recorded sales of three million dollars in the first year alone. Wright performed nearly half of the coding and two-thirds of the design work on the follow-up release, SimCity 2000. The game was released in January 1994 for MS-DOS and was an immediate smash, selling nearly 300,000 copies in its first four months.

In June 1997, Maxis was acquired by Electronic Arts and plans to continue development of SimCity 3000 in 3D were scrapped. New Maxis head of development, Lucy Bradshaw, realizing she had a legendary game developer on her staff, began surrounding Will Wright with top design talent. The team went back to look at SimCity 2000 and added additional enhancements instead of trying to rebuild the game from scratch.

Production Credits