I
don’t think city-
building games,
despite the
perspective of looking
down on all the tiny
people and making decisions that
can bring them happiness or ruin
their lives, really make me feel like
a god. I usually feel more like a
Peeping Tom mixed with an
exasperated parent. I delight in just
spying on my citizens to see what
they’re up to, and getting annoyed
when they need something from
me. “Fine, I’ll build you a hospital!
Now stop bloody complaining all of
the time so I can get back towatch the teensy, tiny aeroplanes inching across the
screen for hours. I always rushed to build seaports just so
a little boat would appear in the waterways. It was like a
live feed from a webcam pointed at a real metropolis, long
before live webcams were even a thing. SimCity 2000 was
one of the first PC games to really sink its hooks into me,
and I’d often eat dinner in front of the screen, not even
playing but just observing.
And when I wasn’t just staring at my city, there was so
much to fiddle with. Taxes to increase when I ran into
money troubles, underground views for laying down
utility pipes and subway lines, and graphs showing
various attributes of my city that... well, I probably never
really understood all the graphs. But at least they were
there if I wanted to look at them.
And there was just something so mesmerising about
peering down at the little world I was building, seeing the
cars on the roads I built obeying the little traffic lights,
experimenting with city ordinances, watching the city
slowly grow until it was so incredibly big I’d just about
run out of room. And then I’d start a new one.SMASH THE SYSTEM
It was also extremely rare at the time: a game that had a
beginning but no real ending, with no genuine win-state,
or even a way to let you know if you should give up and
start over or keep working on the city you had before you.
It was open-ended, and you could build and manage your
city indefinitely. Once I even left my game running
overnight while I slept, just to see if it could sustain itself.
I’m pretty sure it was in bad shape the next morning.
There was also the satisfaction that comes along with
building something beautiful – knocking it down so ILEF T: I wouldn’t have
a water shortage if
you people would
drink seawater.
RIGHT: I hate to raise
taxes for the 75th
time in a row. But
I’m gonna.BUILD ME UP
The joys of creation and destruction in SIMCITY 2000.
By Chris Livingstonblissfully squinting at all the little
cars driving around.”SimCity 2000 was a revelation to me.
I’d played the original SimCity, but
SimCity 2000 swapped from the
top-down view and 2D graphics to an
isometric perspective, which made
my little cities feel absolutely alive
and real. There was so much detail
packed into its pixels, giving every
tiny house and park and skyscraper
its own personality. In a few days I’d
know my virtual city’s
neighbourhoods and roads better
than the one I actually lived in. After
building an airport, I could happilySIMCITY 2000PC GAMING LEGENDS