SimCity 2000 is a city-building simulation video game and the second
installment in the SimCity series. SimCity 2000 was first released by Maxis
in 1994 for computers running Apple Macintosh Operating System. It was later
released on the Amiga, DOS & Microsoft Windows, followed by a release for OS/2.
In 1995, SimCity 2000 won "Best Military or Strategy Computer Game" Origins
Award. Gameplay
The unexpected and enduring success of the original SimCity, combined with the
relative lack of success with other "Sim" titles, finally motivated the
development of a sequel. SimCity 2000 was a major extension of the concept;
the view was now dimetric instead of overhead, land could have different
elevations, and underground layers were introduced for water pipes and subways.
New types of facilities include prisons, schools, libraries, museums, marinas,
hospitals and arcologies. Players can build highways, roads, bus depots,
railway tracks, subways, train depots and zone land for seaports and airports.
There are a total of nine varieties of power plants in SimCity 2000, including
coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, solar and
the futuristic fusion power and satellite microwave plant. Most types of
power plants have a limited life span and must be rebuilt periodically.
Players can build highways to neighboring cities to increase trade and
the population. The budget and finance controls are also
much more elaborate—tax rates can be set individually for residential, commercial
and industrial zones. Enacting city ordinances and connecting to neighboring
cities became possible. The budget controls are very important in running
the city effectively. Another new addition in SimCity 2000 is
the query tool. Using the query tool on tiles reveals information such as
structure name and type, altitude, and land value. Certain tiles also display
additional information; power plants, for example, display the percentage of
power being consumed when queried, and querying roads displays the amount of
traffic on that tile. Querying a library and selecting "Ruminate" displays an
essay written by Neil Gaiman. Graphics were added for buildings under
construction in the residential, commercial, and industrial zones, as
well as darkened buildings depicting abandoned buildings as a result of urban
decay. News comes in the form of several
pre-written newspaper articles with variable names that could either be
called up immediately or could be subscribed to on a yearly basis. The
newspaper option provided many humorous stories as well as relevant ones, such
as new technology, warnings about aging power plants, recent disasters and
opinion polls. SimCity 2000 is the only game in the entire series to have this
feature, though newer versions have a news ticker. The newspapers had random
titles, and prices based on the simulated year. Certain newspapers have
a special monthly humor advice column by "Miss Sim". Some headlines have no
purpose whatsoever in the game, such as "Bald Radio Found" or "Frog Convention".
Though there is no "true" victory sequence in SimCity 2000, the "exodus"
is a close parallel. An "exodus" occurs during the year 2051 or later, when 300
or more Launch Arcologies are constructed; the following January each
one "takes off" into space so that their inhabitants can form new civilizations
on distant worlds. This reduces the city's population to those who are not
living in the Launch Arcologies, but it also opens wide areas for redevelopment
and returns their construction cost to the city treasury. This is related to
the event in SimEarth where all cities are moved into rocket-propelled domes
that then leave to "found new worlds". The game also included several playable
scenarios, in which the player must deal with a disaster and rebuild the city to
meet a set of victory conditions. These were based in versions of real-life
cities, and some were based on real events such as the Oakland firestorm of
1991, the 1989 Hurricane Hugo in Charleston, South Carolina, the Great
Flood of 1993 in Davenport, Iowa, or dealing with the 1970s economic
recession in Flint, Michigan—but also included more fanciful ones such as a
"monster" destroying Hollywood in 2001. More scenarios added with the SCURK
included a nuclear meltdown in Manhattan in 2007.
Expansion In 1994, Maxis released an expansion
pack to SimCity 2000 called Scenarios Vol. I: Great Disasters, which included
new scenarios based on a number of possible disasters. These disasters
generally destroy the city and require the player to rebuild the city. They
include: A UFO attack, two nuclear meltdown scenarios, two major chemical
spill scenarios, a large flood, a major hurricane, two firestorm scenarios, a
volcano, an earthquake, a high power microwave beam misfire, riots, and a
typhoon. Alongside the Great Disasters Scenarios
package came the introduction of a separate toolset called the SimCity
Urban Renewal Kit. It enabled players to modify the images used in-game to
represent various buildings in much the same manner as general image
manipulation software. The player was able to create basic bitmap files of a
standard size with a standard 256 color palette. The use of limited palette
cycling, which permitted animation, was also possible. A number of pre-altered
graphics packages were distributed, including some which replaced the reward
buildings with images of various well known international buildings, such as
the Eiffel Tower, but most buildings were made by fan-artists and shared on
the Internet. Several SCURK designs influenced the designs of SimCity
3000‍ '​s original buildings. The cities made in SCURK can be saved and used for
SimCity 2000. SCURK would also pave way to a hobby of creating custom cities for
SimCopter and Streets of SimCity. Ports and special editions
SimCity 2000 has been released on a wide range of platforms and version since its
debut in 1994, ranging from ports of personal computers and video game
consoles, to special editions. = SimCity 2000 Special Edition=
A re-packaged version of SimCity 2000, SimCity 2000 Special Edition, was
released in February 7, 1995 for Microsoft Windows and DOS PCs. In
addition to containing All expansions, it also featured the SimCity Urban
Renewal Kit, the Vol. 1 scenario pack, remade music, new cities selected by
Maxis from a 1994 competition, bonus scenarios and cities, and movies.
The movies were a first for Maxis; SimCity 2000-SE was the first "Sim" game
to feature "real" videos. These videos included the introduction movie and four
commentary videos by Will Wright; the latter were accessed via the "WillTV"
application that came with the game. In December 2014 Electronic Arts offered
SimCity 2000 Special Edition as a free download for an unspecified limited
time. Unlike the original release versions of the game, this downloadable
version requires connectivity to the Electronic Arts cloud for saves and
gameplay. = SimCity 2000 Network Edition=
SimCity 2000 Network Edition, sometimes unofficially referred to as the "Gold
Edition", was released in 1996 for Windows only. The game featured slightly
different gameplay in network mode, where mayors may start with more money,
but must buy land before building upon it. Players of the Network edition had
the ability to share in-game resources and to compete or cooperate with other
cities. This version also features a revamped
user interface. Instead of a static toolbar, items are accessed via
cascading menus from the right of the screen, resulting in more screen
real-estate for SimCity itself, without sacrificing functionality.
= SimCity 2000= The first console version of the game,
one of the first games announced for the Sega Saturn, and one of the first titles
for the American Sega Saturn, it was released in fall of 1995.
This version had several changes. The game has enhanced graphics for all
buildings. The buildings will change at the year of 1950 and 2050. There are
also 3D animations displayed for each building in the building query windows.
The scenarios from the Great Disasters expansion packs are included. The
gameplay remains the same for the most part. Instead of the Braun Llama Dome,
there is a Space Terminal which assist the launching of the Arco. The arco can
be seen launching from the city along with a special animated video. There are
several new animated videos. The opening sequence displays a scene of the
Alien/Monster chasing a Launch Arco in space.
= SimCity 2000= The PlayStation version of the game is
based on the Saturn version, however with some features removed and others
added. This version was released on the PlayStation Network in Europe for both
PSP and PS3 on November 20, 2008 and in North America on Aug 28, 2009.
This version features the same graphics as the Saturn version, however the city
does not evolve. The only additions are new scenarios from Great Disasters
scenario pack, including one that involves a new volcano forming in
Portland. The Silicon Valley and Washington, D.C. scenarios are on the
disk but are not used. The port also allows the player to tour
their city from a car's perspective and has a full motion video intro. The
graphics are identical to SimCopter. = SimCity 2000=
A Japan-only release of SimCity 2000 for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, produced and
published by Imagineer Co., Ltd. It featured some additional features,
mainly mini-games, a dating game, TV to replace the newspaper, horse races and
monster breeding, among others, all of them in 3D. A few new "natural"
disasters were also included, most of them being giant monster attacks.
= SimCity 64= Another Japan-only release, SimCity 64
was based on the SimCity 2000 game but was heavily customized for the Nintendo
64DD game system. The ability to view the city at night was added, pedestrian
level free-roaming of a city, and individual road vehicles and pedestrians
controlled by their own AI wandered the player's city. Cities in the game are
also presented in much more advanced 3D graphics, making SimCity 64 the first
true 3D SimCity game. = SimCity 2000=
This was one of the first console ports of SimCity 2000. However, there were a
lot of losses and differences from the original version.
The scrolling screen takes much longer to scroll. The in-game controls were
modified. As in the previous SimCity title, there is no SNES Mouse support.
Riots and volcanoes were removed. The game has fewer songs than the original
PC version. Also, the SNES port omits the cheat codes, limits the city maps to
six, has no difficulty setting and only includes five generic scenarios. There
is only one newspaper for the whole city, no matter what size that the city
is. In addition, the stock photographs were replaced with more Japanese
anime/manga-like pictures. This is the only port of the game to feature such
pictures. All team names, city names, and mayor names were limited to 8
characters, whereas the PC version allows for up to 32 characters. There
are additional gifts: a bigger city hall at 1,000,000 population, a TV station at
2,000,000 population, and a rocket launching pad at 3,000,000 population.
The player can see an actual launch of a single launch arco by achieving
5,000,000 population in the last scenario.
= SimCity 2000= Released by Zoo Digital in 2003, SimCity
2000 for the Game Boy Advance featured most of the same content as previous
versions, but several features are omitted, such as launch arcos. There is
no water system, but it is unknown whether this was to make it a better
portable experience or because of technical limitations.
Reception Famitsu magazine's Reader Cross Review
gave the Super Famicom version of the game a 6 out of 10. Sega Saturn Magazine
gave the Saturn port an 86%, criticizing the slow scrolling in the Saturn version
but applauding the game itself for its depth, realism, and addictiveness,
calling it "one of the few games that appeals to just about everyone. It ...
has the strange ability to convert full-time arcade shooter fans into
around the clock urban planners with a sense of civic duty." Maximum commented
that the Saturn port contains all the considerable content of the PC version
and is good fun to play, but has worse graphics and more slowdown than the PC
version does, even when running on computers which are much less powerful
than the Saturn. They gave it 3 out of 5 stars. In 1996, Next Generation ranked
it as the 33rd top game of all time for being "easily one of the most
enthralling games playable." Legacy
In December 2012, the Museum of Modern Art acquired SimCity 2000 to its
permanent collection of video games. As one of the more complex and longer games
in the exhibition, the game is presented as a specially designed demo.
Several games were released as spinoffs to SimCity 2000.
SimHealth – Released in 1994, the game simulated President Bill Clinton's
healthcare reform proposals for the US; designed for a niche audience at best,
the simulation never achieved great popularity. It featured a user interface
that resembled a city in SimCity 2000. SimCopter – An arcade helicopter flight
simulator based on the cities of SimCity 2000, SimCopter was published in 1996.
It had the capability of importing SimCity 2000 cities and allowing the
user to pilot a helicopter around them and accomplish missions such as rescuing
people or putting out a fire. Streets of SimCity – Published in 1997,
Streets of SimCity was a racing game based on the SimCopter engine. In
addition to racing, it also featured courier missions and vehicular combat.
However, the fact that this game was incredibly processor-intensive prevented
it from becoming a commercial success. References
External links SimCity 2000 at MobyGames
Patch updates for several SimCity games