SimCity 3000 Classic

Like its predecessors, the game can't be won or lost. You create and manage the best virtual city you can, using the colourful but simple interface. At worst you'll run out of money but by listening to your advisers and patiently zoning, developing and budgeting, you'll see your turn-of-the-century homes become millennial skyscrapers.

You can start with a fictional model, a randomly generated terrain, or a landscape based on a real geographic location. As you balance transit, commercial, and industrial needs (to name a few), place famous landmarks (like the Eiffel Tower), make deals with neighbouring cities and limit pollution, you'll be tempted to lose yourself in the incredibly fine detail. Zooming in shows the population strolling and traffic jamming and the ambient soundscape completes the immersion.

If you feel like you've seen it all, Maxis's Web site offers new maps and buildings as free downloads. Fair warning to prospective tenants: to experience SimCity 3000 in all its uptown splendour, you'll need to take the system requirements seriously. --Jack Gardiner

The original version of this game was for Windows 95/97 only and when you buy it you need to make sure it will work on XP. when i upgraded my PC to XP the game would not install at all, i spoke to EA Games help liners who told me to alter the configuration on my pc to run it as a 95/97 game. I tried this and it would not work. i tried all of the solutions they offered me and then they finally said if it was the first version it would not run on XP and therefore i should return it to the shop for a refund so long as the seal was still intact on the box...bit hard to do as you have to take the cd out in order to prove in does not work!

Friends of mine have had the same problem with the game bought and used before XP and then not being able to run it on XP. therefore it is likely to be an incompatability with XP, so be warned when buying this,

if you don't have XP this is an amazing game and worth every penny...lots of fun from what i can remember!


Not bad little game   October 1, 2002
Kevin Taylor (Dundee, Scotland)
5 out of 7 found this review helpful

Quite a good game with a challenge to it ...
This game requires a rational mind and is very entertaining for those who like strategy games ...
If you were a Command & Conquer fan or Champ Man fan you will like this ... I DO

But like all games once you expert the game it gets boring but it offers all kinds of distractions ... natural hazards & other cities which does make it interesting

Overall a game as good as any on the PC for strategy fans


Hours of fun...   March 23, 2002
S. J. Robinson (Monkeyland)
2 out of 5 found this review helpful

Simple to play, challenging to master. You'll need a powerful machine to keep things running at a decent speed, otherwise a must buy.


Why are New &Improved releases often anything but improved?   January 25, 2002
3 out of 9 found this review helpful

I Started playing Sim City when Sim City didn't require a year number! Ok, the graphics were rather clumsy back then, but the business requirements made the game a challenge. In the main, 2000 was an improvement, and I would still rate it as 5, way ahead of 3000. Sure, 3000 has some really spactacular buildings, so long as you avert your eyes from the industrial areas, but, where is the business challenge which made the earlier versions so absorbing?


Fun but Slow   September 7, 2001
Erick van Rijk (Amsterdam)
3 out of 23 found this review helpful

I've played this game before on the PC and it was a decent followup on the simcity games. but the mac game is too slow even on high-end hardware. Spend your money on a other game that is more optimised for gameplay.