When pollution levels get out of control, an ecologically correct spaceship lands to blow up the polluters and sow the landscape with electricity-generating windmills. A lack of employment opportunity leads to stories of the "sims" selling their body parts to raise cash. Tax changes are met with riotous cheers when they are lowered, and with rioters, if they are raised too high. Furthermore, they are plumbed more for their entertainment value than their contribution to the viability of the urban environment. While there are real choices about which policy choice to take in the simulation, the outcomes are only superficially explored. The basics of problems like traffic control, the establishment and maintenance of a viable economic base, decisions on whether to pay for more police or teachers and the results of attracting pollution-intensive industry to a city can all be explored with the game. The simulation is accessible, easy to play and can be a real eye opener when, despite city wide blackouts, the "sims" won't allow the construction of a new power plant in their back yards. In the classroom, the game can be an effective way to get undergraduates into the fold, in a range of urban planning, politics, policy, and design courses. In addition to the public opinion poll that was the primary tool of evaluation in older versions, there is now a newspaper that pops up to trumpet your achievements-and your setbacks-as a municipal leader. The player is also responsible for the establishment of a range of facilities and services, including police and fire services, roads, rails, recreational outlets, health and welfare provisions, and, in an attempt to create an educated "sim" citizenry, a university system. Instead of taxing industry, commerce, and residents at the same rate, the game allows independent assessment across the zones as well as the ability to set rates differentially among specific industries.
In their place is a flexible system that allows the user to set the size and density of those zones. Gone are the "one size and shape fits all" commercial, industrial, and residential zones. Selecting from a range of options that include different types of public utilities, transportation systems, municipal services, zoning rules and taxation policies, the player builds a town that can grow from a collection of houses around a small factory, at a sleepy crossroads to a bustling megalopolis, which is populated by millions of simulated citizens, the "sims." While retaining much of the whimsy and humor of the earlier version, there are many new features that make the program a more realistic simulation of an urban environment than its predecessor. The player, who assumes the role of mayor, starts with a piece of terrain-complete with hills, valleys and running water-and a certain amount of money. SimCity 2000 is the latest version of the popular computer simulation that allows you to build and manage your own city (Simcity Classic was the earlier version).
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