3. SimCity 2000
It was around 1993 - I was 10 years old and thought Tetris was the pinnacle of gaming technology. A friend of mine invited me over to show me the new computer her dad had bought. In the space of 30 minutes I was introduced to Windows 3.11 (whoa!), a mouse (oooh!), and a 256-colour display (wow!).
The rest of the day went something like this:
"Hey, let's try this game my dad got!"
"What is it?"
"I dunno. The book says we have to build a power plant."
...
"What are those yellow boxes?"
"Hey there are buildings growing! Haha, look at the newspaper!"
A couple of years later, we got our very own Windows machine, complete with internet connection. It was a whole new world. There are only three games which I distinctly remember playing alone as a teenager: The Dig, Leisure Suit Larry (ha, to this day I am amazed my mom did not find out about this), and of course, the best game of the 90's, SimCity 2000.
I'm pretty sure I don't need to describe the game - is there anyone who hasn't seen it/heard of it/played it obsessively? I spent weeks building my little metropolis. Disasters were turned off, pollution was down, and the money was flowing in. My residential and commercial zones were so pretty, and high-tech industry was booming. I had one aim, and one aim only: to build an arcology. Eventually I managed to save up $100k and lure in 30,000 residents, and voila! It was like, so freaking cool, man.
The next day, I booted the game and loaded my saved game. Shock, horror, anguish! "Cannot load file" or "File corrupted" or "Error opening file" or some such message greeted me. Ohmigawd. Just like that, my SimCity-ing days were over.
 |
| SimCity file error, you broke my heart. |
A couple of years ago I tried out EA's SimCity 4. I sorta kinda got into it, but they had taken all the fun out of it and turned it into a micro-managing nightmare. It was slow and clunky, and totally missed the spirit of the original game. And it just wasn't the same without that cute midi background music.
I don't think I've forgiven EA for this yet, though they did redeem themselves a little in my eyes when I played The Sims (can you say most addictive game ever? woohoo!). I don't even want to think about how many hours I spent cultivating my little Sim family. My husband and I still use Simlish whenever we're sniffing a pot of food ("it's freduche!"). No, really, I know what you're thinking but it's not as sad as it sounds. It's just a little sad.
But I digress. SimCity 2000 is still my favourite simulation game and probably will be for a long time. It was smart, funny, rewarding, and oh so addictive. Here's that awesome midi theme song.
Next up, Spiderman 2.
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