SimCity 4 is Maxis's latest game in their very popular and successful SimCity series. Maxis was bought by EA about 8 years ago, and is currently situated in Walnut Creek, CA. This was a very smart move for EA, as Maxis produced the #1 selling computer game of all time a few years ago: The Sims. The studio has grown massively since the release of the Sims and its various expansion packs, and now stands at close to the 200 mark. A team of about 80-100 people are constantly at work on the Sims and it's expansions. Another team of about 70-80 people are working on The Sims 2.

Compared to such massive projects, SimCity 4 had a team of a mere 40-50 people during its final 6 months of production. Previous to that, a skeleton team of about a dozen people worked on planning and designing the game for about 2 years. Lots of player feedback from SimCity 3000 helped the design team. And after a total three years of work, the game was finally released.

Before I really get started on this review, let me say that though SimCity 4 is an excellent game, I really burned myself out of this genre after playing SimCity 2000 for 6 months straight. So I might not consider this as great a game as someone new to this genre would...

SimCity is hard. It's meant to be. My first 5-6 cities were complete failures that fell into the debt hole and couldn't get out. Making money will always be your first problem in SimCity. Pollution will probably be your second. Jobs your third. Add housing, police, fire and school coverage, water, electricity, crime, lifespan, traffic, tourism, desirability... And that's the fun of it: finding different ways to make your cities tick.

Not that a failed city can't be fun. This is when you get offers to add things to your city like military bases, toxic waste dumps, and missile testing grounds. These special additions will pay you monthly to be placed in your city. Of course, all of them tend to scare would-be residents away; bored army guys tend to fall to crime and drinking, toxic waste dumps might accidentally poison your water supply, but a missile testing ground shouldn't cause any problems. After all, the guy in charge assured you that the chances of a missile hitting your city were almost non-existant...

Should these not appeal to you, natural disasters are a superb way to enliven a dying city. A meteor here, a tornado there, and as a grand finale, a volcano on the mayor's house! The effects for these are, of course, superb.

Graphics in general a excellent if your hardware can support them. Watch out with this though; the bigger your city, the slower it will run with high graphics. I have a GeForce 4 Ti4200, and it still takes a few seconds to switch zoom views; judge wisely.

The music and sounds are well done but quickly -- and I mean quickly -- get old. That basted ambient music that all sounds that is much too repetitive is the worst; if the game didn't have the option to play your own MP3s...

Gameplay is lots of fun and very addictive. Still, it can be hard to try new city layouts and strategies once you finally get one that works. The advisors will tell you when things in the city need help, but don't expect too much from them. And keep a look out for those rioters...

The interface is quite well done, if a bit large. I find it a bit intrusive when I'm working on my city. Luckily, you can hide it completely if you wish to have a unobstructed view of your city.

• Mac OS X 10.2.3 or later (10.2.6 or later recommended)
• Power Mac G3/G4, iMac G4/eMac, PowerBook G4 (DVI model or later), iBook (32MB VRAM model only)
• 500mhz, 256mb ram, 1 GB of HD space
• Hardware 3D acceleration required: ATI Radeon or NVidia GeForce card (32 MB VRAM or better)

• Over all: 8.5/10
• Graphics: 9/10
• Sound/music: 8/10
• Gameplay: 9/10
• Interface: 8/10