[mgl]

I wrote to Maxis/EA today and asked if there were plans to release SimCity 4 for MacOS (since their site no longer lists any Mac information, not even for SC3000). This is the answer I received:

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Currently, we do not offer any games on the Macintosh platform. However, we can suggest you visit the following website to place an order for many of Electronic Art's more popular titles: http://www.aspyr.com.
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I had written to Aspyr earlier this year and was told that Maxis/EA handled all SimCity ports itself. I fired off another query to Aspyr just now asking if they would port it in light of Maxis' decision not to port it. I haven't heard back yet, but if you want to see SimCity 4 for MacOS, now is the time to write to Aspyr.

sales@aspyr.com

[oximoron]

I just emailed them. Let's hope for the best now.

[juanvaldes]

After SC3 I'll pass...they lost my money. Hope the game comes through for you guys though...

[mgl]

Originally posted by juanvaldes:
After SC3 I'll pass...they lost my money. Hope the game comes through for you guys though...

SC3 for Mac may have been bad, but it was great for Windows. SC4 looks even better, so if the port is done right, I'd love to see it for Mac.

[Guy Incognito]

Does the game actually get more exciting every revision? They bring the graphics up a notch, yeah...but is the game really more fun to play?

SimCity 2000 forevah!!!!

[mgl]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Does the game actually get more exciting every revision? They bring the graphics up a notch, yeah...but is the game really more fun to play?

SimCity 2000 forevah!!!!

Yes. But it's not for everybody. It's like Lego for adults. It's a toy that has no end, no way to win or finish. To some people, it's boring, to others, it's fascinating. I can play for hours without noticing time going by.

The game has changed dramatically in each revision. SimCity Classic was a top-down view with limited zoning and building options. SC2000 has a huge improvement, but your cities were limited and the game logic was pretty basic. SC3000 introduced far superior logic, with more realistic simulations. With each revision, they add more things you can control and more things you can build. Adding this complexity without making it too hard for novices is difficult, but they've done a good job so far. SC3000 for Windows was an awesome game. It may have sucked on the Mac, but that was not the fault of the game's designers. Hopefully, if Aspyr can port it to MacOS, they would do a better job.

[calamar1]

SimCity 3000 is great on the Mac--now. It runs fantastically on my G4/867. Of course, when it came out, the G4 did not yet exist. The performance was just wretched when your city got to any interesting size. SimCity is the best game there is, really, in terms of total hours of my life deleted. if there is not a Mac version coming out promptly, i may be forced to get a PC solely to play it. It's that bad, er, good (well, at least the screen shots make it look like it is).

[Guy Incognito]

Originally posted by mgl:


Yes. But it's not for everybody. It's like Lego for adults. It's a toy that has no end, no way to win or finish. To some people, it's boring, to others, it's fascinating. I can play for hours without noticing time going by.

The game has changed dramatically in each revision. SimCity Classic was a top-down view with limited zoning and building options. SC2000 has a huge improvement, but your cities were limited and the game logic was pretty basic. SC3000 introduced far superior logic, with more realistic simulations.

That makes a game more exciting? Maybe I've been wrong staying with SimCity 2000 all this time.

[brown monk]

Originally posted by Guy Incognito:
Does the game actually get more exciting every revision? They bring the graphics up a notch, yeah...but is the game really more fun to play?

SimCity 2000 forevah!!!!

What are you running SC2000 on? It crashes starting up on my Gigabit G4 with Mac OS 9.1. I can only play it on my iMac thats 400 miles away.

I've played SC3000 and it seemed okay. Way more complex than 2000. Whatever tickles your pickle I guess.

[voodoo]

Sim City was a brilliant game. SimCity 2000 was so average. So, so, windows 3.1. SimCity 3000 is so windows 2000, while being slightly more interesting than SimCity 2000 is still didn't bring anything new or exciting in the genre. I am afraid Maxis is out of ideas regarding SimCity. It's like a flat American Budweiser.

[mgl]

Originally posted by voodoo:
Sim City was a brilliant game. SimCity 2000 was so average. So, so, windows 3.1. SimCity 3000 is so windows 2000, while being slightly more interesting than SimCity 2000 is still didn't bring anything new or exciting in the genre. I am afraid Maxis is out of ideas regarding SimCity. It's like a flat American Budweiser.

I agree that SC2000 was a bigger change than SC3000, but SC3000 was more fun. It gave you more control over the city with less stupid restrictions. I play SimCity because I want to design "perfect" cities that I'd want to live in. I want finer zoning controls, more building types, etc. Each upgrade gives me more controls.

Take for example, the old church algorithm. In the old game (SC2000?), churches popped up all over the place. They'd appear on your expensive lakefront property and you'd bulldoze and bulldoze them until they appeared somewhere else. You don't get that in SC3000. And in SC3000, you could prevent a building from being torn down and something else from appearing there. They made the option awkward, but at least it was present. These are important touches because during a depression, your nice buildings could all disappear and be replaced by low rent buildings. That's not realistic, buildings don't get knocked down a few years after being built in reality, so the game is better, but not perfect.

I don't expect revolutionary changes in SC4. But I expect further refinements, more control, more options, and more fun. But unless Aspyr gets off their butts, I doubt we'll see it in 2003 for MacOS.