Before we were married, my husband got this as a Christmas gift. I watched him play it a few times & he made me try it. After just a few minutes, I was hooked. He made me a copy of the game, which I took home & would play for hours on end. At first glance, the game doesn't seem that interesting. But after you start building your city & see it start to grow & progress, it's hard to pull yourself away. It's pretty easy to get the hang of & the graphics are quite realistic. I am looking forward to trying the new edition of the game.

As I received the product, it could not be installed as one of the files on the CD was damaged. I contacted AE and they never read my emails, finally after about 2 weeks going back and forth, they understood my concern and told me I needed a new CD.

I was very happy with Amazon. As soon as I contacted them, they shipped another one before I even shipped my copy back. I received the new one in 2 days

I played SimCity 2000 way back in the day, and decided to get back into mayorship after moving to NYC. Maxis as certainly advanced a lot in this version of the game. Lots more to take care of like garbage and high schools, but what I love working with the most is designing an efficient transit system, now with separate rails, subways, and monorails, plus a plethora of other options. And instead of in the previous game aiming for a general residential-goes-to-industrial/commercial route for mass transit, you can actually see where individual Sims live and work and make the best routes. My only complaint is it's sometimes a huge pain to actually lay out some transit elements like rail and highway. Messages like "this terrain is not valid" aren't too helpful in figuring out an alternate way. However, I would recommend this game to anyone who has thought "they should make a subway that goes like this..." or "why do they need a landfill here".

Best game I ever played in my life. I built a city with 1,045,934. It's way better than societies, even if it's old i never seem to get tired of it. If there is a contest for best city I am going to win it sure enough. I recommend this game than societies. My video of my city will be soon at youtube.com.

Ign score:
Simcity 4: 9.2

And Rush hour: 8

Gamespot score: 8.3

First off, great highly addictive game. I was hooked on it the first time I saw it in action at my friend's house. I bought it last year and I still like playing it every once in a while.

I was a bit upset though when I played it on my old computer. I found that the vehicle missions would get complicated because the graphics would "chunk up" as my graphics card would struggle to keep up. It's no fault of the game though, I just had a very bad computer >_<.

I like this game, I sort of like the music, and the replay value is high.

What an unbelievable game!!! It really lets you take control of whatever you want. The tutorials are good for getting you started, which is exactly what they were meant for. Not too short, not too long. The gameplay I felt was fantastic. Especially for the price. You just cant beat it. Start small and just watch your cities grow. There are alot of decisions to make which makes the game really appealing for me. Im also a big C&C fan and I felt the interface was very similar. Great buy for an ever better price!!!

Sim City 4 Deluxe is a great strategy game with outstanding graphics and effects. It is fun for any skill level plkayer, even older children. It can even be a great learning tool into land usage, geography, economics and social studies. I can't stop once I begin playing.

I was a big fan of SimCity 2000, a huge player of SimCity 3000, and waited anxiously for months for SimCity 4 to come out in 2004. With the release of the Rush Hour expansion pack, the game was made that much better.
I've played this game for four years, and it's still as entertaining as it was when I first got it. Yes, it's a little complex. Yes, it's "hard" at times. But who hasn't played a first-person shooter where you can't get past the 4th level and it frustrates you? Balancing a budget and growth while still maintaining the crucial aspects such as transportation and public safety and education are at times addictive.

What really makes this game amazing is that it allows you, the user, to add what you want into the game through downloads. There are numerous websites that let you download buildings, car skins, new roads, more buildings, etc, and put them in your cities. It's for this that I say among SimCity fans, there are no two copies of SimCity 4 that are exactly alike and can always keep the game somewhat fresh.

There are some problems, of course. The more you add to the game, the more likely it is to crash. To fix this: save early, save often. Sometimes it doesn't make sense why the game won't let you do something like place a road here or a railroad there. I don't get it, but it takes some work to fix that.
The good news is that because it's a four year-old game, it runs fantastically on newer computers.

EA took a risk with SimCity Societies, and hopefully one day SimCity 5 will rectify this for us SC4 fans. (I haven't played SimCity Societies, so I can't Until then, SimCity 4 remains a fantastic game that proves a challenge and is still fun.

Okay so I hadn't play SimCity in a while before buying this game, and surprisingly it is exactly the same game I played when I was ten (that was eleven years ago). Besides bringing up memories which were pleasurable, this game was not that entertaining but mildly addictive until I built everything I could possibly build in two days. While it was difficult to maintain a city when I was ten, this time around I was given buildings from the happy citizens, and had completely run out of space to build and my city budget was still in the black. I tried to play rush hour but found that to be very irritating and stupid. The missions and controls were horrible. So if you enjoy a challenge and have never played any version of SimCity, this game is for you. But for me, until they make a new ground-breaking city simulator, I'll hold on to my money.

This game is great but some previous experience with the other sim city games is recomended although, you don't have to. There is a training program in it but if you wanna jump right in then you might want to be familiar with the buttons. Also it is very easy to go into bankruptcy.

This is about a week long into ownership of this game. I have frequent crashes to desktop so I have learned to save progress often. The game is immersive and I really enjoy it. It's not so hard to learn and it is very rewarding to play. Therapeutic in some ways. I am happy I bought it.

This is a great game from Maxis for the price it is selling at now. What makes it so great is not the product itself, but the amount of support that is available in the form of mods and new buildings, etc. made by designers from all around the world.

This one is a definite 5. Looking for a good fun game to spend your time? Then pick this one.

The only difference between games made today and games made 5 years ago are the graphics. And the graphics of SimCity4.0 aren't that bad - they certainly won't make you cringe like you were playing the original Oregon Trail (hey, another fun but really old game!).

The complexity of this game makes for a steep learning curve. However, that intricacy is what makes this game so fun and challenging. There is no real objective to this game except to keep building. It sounds stupid but once you start, you can't stop, except to occasionally sit back and admire your work.

If you've never tried SimCity before, then don't hesitate to give this one a shot. It's the only game of its kind (thats worth playing anyways). Now that Amazon has it for so cheap, there really is no reason not to pick up a copy.

This game really stands up to the expectations I had for it. I LOVE that you can now create multiple cities that can interact with one another by making "neighbor deals".

I find the game quite frustrating when playing without using any cheats, but that's not a fault of the game, just that I haven't worked out the best city planning strategies yet.

Fun to play, time flies by

Every city planner should be required to be proficient with this tool

Being very honest... I've to say it's a very interesting game, but think it's much more "complex and theorycal" than older versions, and that makes it less fun (at least for me), in the begining.
And the graphics... don't know... sure that the people at EA GAMES and MAXIS could make it better in this apect, if they're planning a new version.
Anyway, maybe when I got more practice as a "Mayor" of this new version the fun will increase... must say and I'm not meaning that the product is bad or poor... just think it have some points that could be better.

The first SimCity game I played was on my uncle's computer when I was barely old enough to understand how to figure out how a city works. It was SimCity, the classic 2-D birds eye view. Nothing was more entertaining to me than attempting to reach the population goals and trying to figure out how to turn the residential and commercial zones into their highest form. I'd be exciting when the white skyscraper gained a floor and even more upset when it would lose one.

The franchise has come a long way since then without a doubt has not taken a single wrong step along the way. Even if the graphics in this game did not look magnificent the game play itself warrants the buy.

This newest has many new features over 3000. The news ticker returns, but with clickable reports that can take you too the point of interest and offers suggestions for repairing or sustaining the status of that point. More choices in transportation helps clear up traffic congestion. Desirabilities are now also based off of more than land-value and pollution. And taxes can now be more finely tuned to shape the economy you want.

The biggest change is the region system, that has you building your neighboring cities instead of having imagined neighbors that barely interact. Your sims can and will commute between you and your neighbors to shop and work, so having strong neighbors can strengthen you.

Complaints: The game can be taxing on your system. My computer isn't top notch but still has a few instances of slowdowns and even freezes.

SimCity is the classic simulation game that started it all! This modern version functions very nearly the original, yet gives you the advantages of modern technology: ride in a car, walk the streets, see unique building styles, and import your own Sims. Even if you don't like simulation games, you can enjoy terraforming, building, and destroying! For me, I can never create quite the perfect city, so I'm always revising or starting over, which means hours of endless entertainment.

I got this for myself this Christmas :) It does work on Vista unlike another reviewer said. My husband's laptop pc has only Vista and it played fine. It did crash once, however...just shut down. I have since then saved it over and over. Why though, I ask myself as I keep losing lol I can't figure out this game, my finances tank and there are riots in the streets...I can't beat it! Hours and hours of fun.

First the scary stuff, then the review.

SCARY STUFF
If you have Windows Vista Don't bother with SimCity 4 or its sibling SimCity Societies. I'm suck with both and neither of them work under Vista. They load, they start, they run for 20 to thirty minutes, then its constant crashing. Societies got to the point where it would crash every 4 to 6 minutes. I tried all the fixes that Microsoft and EA suggested, which weren't much, and they still didn't work. I even tried updating and falling back on new and old drivers for my Video Card, Nvidia 8500 GT, and still no go. I dumbed down the display to 640x480 at 256 colors and crash away they went.

REVIEW
Both games can be fun, but in different ways.
SC4 is a micro managers dream, you'll end up spending so much time laying water pipe and figuring out sewage, power, and etc., etc., etc., you won't have much time to sit back and enjoy your creation.
SCS is less demanding on your hands-on skills, it lets you tune the style of city you build more then dealing with the exact number of water pumps you need to keep your city humming. Only the SCS Sims are much more likely to run you out on a rail then the SC4 folks, if things aren't going right. That's when you start to change from a Artsy Utopia to a Fascist Police State, in order to maintain control and stay in power.

Anyway, I suggest you stick with Windows XP to enjoy either of these games.

first of all, I am a working mom and this is one of the few games I ever had.I use to play the original version long ago. Now I got this nice game, very cheap, and enjoy it again. My impression is that it is much harder to get a big city really work now! It also has some bugs. But overall I have a good time. And when my son tells his friens (proudly)that his mom is playing games in the computer...they can't belive it!

Sim City 4 is like a nuerotic mind trip. ALL THE POWER you have on your sims! I have caught myself playing for literaly hours... connecting roads here, building bridges there, saving money for a rail station and an airport...it's just great!
-AK

It is the most complex, realistic, and fun game thus far in the series(Simcity societies notwithstanding). Missions, Zoom levels, towering skyscrapers, farmland, and more! I even liked zooming in from time to time to see what my 5 sims were doing and what they thought of my city. It was tough at first, but to me, if it wasn't a struggle it wouldn't be worth it. The tutorial could have been a little better, but other than that, a great game it was! Like others have said, play only if you have many hours on your hands b/c you won't want to leave the computer.

SimCity 4 has obviously better graphics than any of the preceding versions, and is fun just to build all the possible canned graphics, plus the abilty to edit your own additional graphics.

However, it falls short in three areas:
1) The game's logic model is a bit too complicated for all but the most intensive players.
2) SC4 will not import city files from SC3 properly. I found that the cash balance in SC2 was kept in two widely seperated bytes, and bunped my bank balance to $2 Billion for a empty city. SC3 imports these city files correctly, but SC4 will not.
3) The video requirements are much greater, so beware. It worked best for me using Win2000 on a machine that was close to state of the art when Win2000 was in general use. Win XP also appears to work OK, but Vista has a few problems when you use SC4 for long periods, so don't.

Overall, it is a great game, but requires much more time to learn and build than SC3.

First the housekeeping: Sim city begat Sim City 2000, then 3000, then 4, then an enhanced version of 4 called Rush Hour. This deluxe edition rolls 4 in with Rush Hour; it doesn't add to the package of 4+rush hour, just consolidates it. So I will speak about "4" to mean this 4+rush hour=deluxe edition.

Sim City 4 is miles ahead of its ancestors in almost every way. Technically, the graphics are head and shoulders above the old versions, as we should expect from the evolution in the field over those years. Game play is both more intricate and less annoying--there are more choices to make, but they are interesting ones; much of the tedious housekeeping has been streamlined. Things are way more sophisticated, for instance your city is rated for desirability not just overall, but differently among different demographic "types" of sims (citizens). You need to attract and retain both yuppies and blue-collar people, by providing different amenities and industries. The people on your panel of advisors in city government now all have their own devious agendas, so you need to scrutinize their advice before accepting it! A nice touch, and done with humor, if not subtlety.

When you zone land, a grid of streets builds itself automatically. Touches like that make the world of this version manageable while also complex enough to be interesting. Water systems are a nuisance but an interesting challenge. Power stations and water stations function in very complex and interesting ways, affected by surroundings (a water pumping station near a garbage dump will provide very little useful water, because of the pollution, for instance) and degrading in gruesome ways. Every facility from a firehouse to a school to a power station can and must be tweaked to reduce costs: the number of teachers reduced at first, then more hired as the student population grows. Turn down the usage of the power station until the surrounding area grows to require lots of power. Schools and fire stations can be tweaked not just by staff levels but by funds spent on buses and fire engines, to extend their area of coverage (which is conveniently indicated by a faint surrounding circle).

Commuting imperatives are visible in great detail: Click on any house, and see how many people live in it, where they work, how long they must spend getting to and from work, and even the route they take. Sometimes they will be unemployed because they can't get to a job easily or quickly; that's a warning sign.

The view zooms down to micro level, where you can see individual sims and their cars getting into accidents, overheating, etc. Very impressive.

To my great surprise, the nuts and bolts of making this game go are in some ways smoother than the previous versions. Of course it demands a beefier PC, but it seems to be more stable and perform better on its platform than versions 2000 and 3000 did on the PCs of their day. It even runs better on a modern PC than 3000 does on the same computer. They seem to have optimized something in their code. I notice, though, that often the whole screen will "smear" when I pan in a certain way--very annoying. Might be my wimpy video card; I don't know. I've figured a workaround: Instead of panning, I click and make the city jump, instead of slide, to a new position.

The most glaring omission in my view is the facilities to design buildings that was so much fun in the earlier versions. From what I can tell, there's nothing like the old extensive tool sets for design and construction of unique buildings. Also, the structure of the game is less building- and city-oriented, and more "zone"-oriented. No more trading of prefabricated cities among other players. It's all "zones."

Also, writing in 2007, it's a MAJOR problem that the third-party books (by which I mean the Prima books, which became the standard reference for the series) for 4 have gone out of print! They're available from Amazon marketplace merchants, used, for staggering prices more suitable for original Gutenberg bibles. As always, the tiny booklet that comes with the game is very, very minimal and inadequate in every way. So if you're starting fresh, or if like me you've lost your Prima book, you're either out of luck or in for a major expense, many times greater than the cost of the game or the cost of the book when it was published. Actually I refer to the documentation in the original box for sim city 4 and for rush hour; I haven't seen deluxe edition's booklet, but I doubt it's large and comprehensive. The usual course is for documentation to get ever smaller.

As did 3000, SC 4 has an endlessly annoying feature that requires the game CD to be present in the CD drive of the computer, even when the game is installed on the hard drive. This isn't to save space on the hard drive, or any other useful function for the player/customer. Its only purpose seems to be a misguided and stupid attempt to defeat piracy. Requiring the CD means you can't just install it and give the CD to your friends, right? Um, right, unless you COPY THE CD. (DUH!) Copying a CD is the simplest thing in the world, so this does nothing to prevent piracy. In fact, because the CD has to be jammed into the drive every time to play, and thereby will get scratched and damaged from the repeated handling, one has to make a backup copy just to have a working disk at hand. Thus, EA's boneheaded anti-piracy scheme ends up requiring users to make copies of the game disk, exactly the act EA presumably doesn't like.

For newcomers to this game, and for sim city fans of previous versions, who weren't too attached to making their own buildings, this is absolutely a winner. Especially if you can track down a Prima book for it that costs less than $50.

This is easily playable on older machines, the price for both SC4 and the expansion cannot be beat. The driving missions are a nice touch as it familiariazes you with your own city as you drive by blocks which normally I would never do, I just control from a birds eye view.
Not too many bugs but save often anyway as there is no autosave. This is the complex sort of game that at first is easily playable but makes you search out details to find out how to better use certain aspects such as mass transit, parking garages, etc. I find the easy setting is similar to SC3's Medium setting, the game is tougher. One thing I am finding is that although my bottom line does not appear to support expensive items such as high schools and bigger hospitals, once I build them they create enough demand in the city for more housing that the tax revenue keeps making up for it. This game is perpetual yet fun. Perpetual that when you create one facet such as commerce or industry it creates demand to create more housing, which in turn creates more demand for commerce or industry and so on. Probably in my top ten of hundreds of games played for FUN.

There is one downfall. It states on the box that it is for up to Windows XP only. Vista will run this game but there is a graphical glitch that appears from time to time. Every now and then (and I haven't figured out what triggers it yet) all the textures on you city will smear, contort and just plain go crazy. I am a big enough addict that I don't let it phase me, I just save and exit then re-enter the city.

I'm sure if your reading my review you have read others so mine is short and sweet. With that said this game is great! Not only can you build and run you're city but for fun or when you're strapped for cash or good ratings you can do the vehicle mini-missions such as crop-dusting a cemetery for an evil genius who wants to create zombies, fly a helicopter for the same evil man and annoy neighborhoods with your loud-horn and searchlight and run down the bad guys in a cop car!!

I'm very happy with my purchase of Sim City 4, i'm just sad that I paid $19.99 at best buy instead of the great price here.

Sim City 4 was a good buy for me. The Region mode irked me, I liked it when I didn't have to build my own cities to trade with. The micromanagement is helpful to me, because I now determine how much funding a certain school/hospital/police/fire station gets, unlike SC3k where I only controlled everything at once. That resulted in over funding and more losses than normal. The stupid AI problem is easily fixed by a patch (not made by Maxis), but still fixed. Overall, this game is very fun, but not for everyone.

I've been a SimCity addict since I met it back at SC2000, and I would say that this one is definitely the best. Very complicated. I agree with the reviewer who says that polticians should have to prove themselves by playing it.

If you're used to 2000 and SimCity, the more realistic way railroads have to be laid in will cause issues until you learn to think about it.

Make sure to only play this when you have PLENTY of time before you have to be anywhere else, and set an alarm, or you'll find yourself being late to everything else. It's that addicting.

I really enjoyed SimCity 3, or 3000 as it was called. Sim City 4 definitely has some improvements over sim city 3, but I don't think it is better. It has more features, better graphics, and is more real to life than sim city 3 is. However, it is also more difficult, and because it is more difficult than sim city 3 was it isn't as much fun. I got bored with playing it sooner than sim city 3 because it was just harder to make any progress.

For the low price that this game is going for around retail stores and on this site, this game can't be beat.

It will run on most any fairly modern computer since the game was actually released in 2003, but regardless, it's got a wide open interface. Build a massive city and tear it apart via God-Mode. Build a small city and rack in the cash. Build an industrial city, jam packed with polluted buildings that totally destroy Sim Earth, or build a green city that every Hollywood Activist would be jealous of.

It follows suit of all other Sim City installations, but improves on graphics, game play, and functionality. Even with Sim Societies approaching its release date in November, this will remain installed on my PC for some time to come.

I bought this based on the countless hours of time I spent on prior versions of SimCity over the years. I hadn't played the last few iterations, but the prior products had a good enough place in my mind to warrant this purchase. Man, the game sure grew a lot more complex!

The complexity is both an asset and a hinderance. I especially liked the multiple city aspect, which was a nice layer of added complexity. However, there is just so much detail in the options of teh rest of the game that it is overwhelming at times.

Sim City 4 is a fun game but i would suggest not getting it because there is infact a new simcity coming out (learn More at simcity.com) but if u cant wait then heres what i think,

heres some pros and cons

PRO,
in simcity 4 you can do drive it missions and u can choose the funding levels for all of your services such as, school funding, mass transit funding (etc. airport, city busses, school busses, sea port, road services).

CON,
you can not choose what type of building you want to be built on a zoned area, so if you zone for low commercial buildings, you can not choose if u want a insureince company, it chooses for u, THAT IS A MAJOR CON.

more CONS,
you can choose where u place bus stops, but u can not choose what routes they all take, so if your like me and like to control every aspect of mass transit then u will find that a major downer. and a VERY BIG DOWNER IS THE PIPES, if u want your city to have more then low living areas, industrial areas, and bussines areas, u have to lay the pipes witch is not fruststraighting but BOREING because if at first there all spread out and every building has water, ok good.....BUT, when your city is bigger u need more pipes then even more boreing...not to mention the the big burning hole they have on your wallet, the water sestems are very exspenseve, so if your in a rut and need bigger buildings (witch comes from higher levels of the three zones) and its time for water, but your in a rut, but then it hits, 'hey i can just lower water funding' but if u do that this happens....the pipes burst and if u dont get new 1s they explode and blow up the road above them so make sure your finacily prepaired for them.. ^-^

PROS,

A MAJOR UPPER, the mass transit, i found placing the mass transit systems to be very ammusing, (etc. subway lines, bus lines, trains, freight trains, passenger trains, monrails, airports, sea ports, & more)
but if your like me and like to have all the lines then you have to have your budget prepaired... But over all the game is very, very, very fun & if your thinking that this is are there is to game, your wrong.... if i listed all the PROS and CONS you would be at your pc for a hour....but like i said at the beggining i do suggest NOT getting this because there is a new simcity coming out (simcity.com) but to make life easyer heres some sites where u can get a lot of downlodable things and helper for simcity 4...

http://simcity.ea.com/exchange/lots/results.php

thats a building download site....

http://www.simtropolis.com/

is a building and cheat site (both sites should explain how to make them work) keep in mind that simcity 4 must be installed *BEFORE* the downloads ^-^

*sigh* Once again I spend some time working on a nice little city, only to have the program abruptly exit to Windows XP. No error message, nothing; just gone. And since Maxis couldn't be bothered to implement an autosave feature (a problem The Sims shares), that's it. Everything I just did is forgotten.

Of course, the ideal thing would be not to have the game crash in the first place. But hey, I'm a programmer. I know it's hard to get all the bugs out, even two or three years after the game's release. That's why other games (e.g. Railroad Tycoon II, Heroes of Might & Magic II and III) have autosave features. Since the game already saves, this feature wouldn't be hard to put in. But whether due to hubris or obliviousness, Maxis fails to do so.

Incidentally, when such crashes first began, I contacted Maxis repeatedly, sent them the autogenerated crash logs, and so forth. I never got anywhere. Support is only by e-mail, and you *never* get the same person twice in a row, so there's really no hope of making progress; each person you deal with has no real investment in helping you get the game working. Suggestions they give are of the "wipe your computer and reinstall Windows...and are you *sure* you don't have a virus?" type. I have the latest patch installed, and still I never know when the game will suddenly crash and lose everything.

Contrast this with, say, Blizzard, a company that keeps working on its games for *years* after they're released, stamping out bugs and adding enhancements. The EA approach seems to be to do nothing that doesn't *directly* contribute to the bottom line. (Customer goodwill, you see, only contributes *in*directly to the bottom line.)

I've learned my lesson. No SimCity 5. I've had enough. Maxis used to make quality games, but it appears that era has come to an end.

I read about the game and thought it sounded fun enough to buy. It's a great game if you like to build-I can't think of another word right off- and/or be in control of things. I find myself playing this for hours without realizing it! My advice is read a description and if it sounds like something you're into, try it! It's fun!