User Reviews (1 - 11 of 38)

Show these reviews first:

Highest Rated
Lowest Rated Newest
Oldest Most Helpful
Least Helpful

Graphics not a problem...if you fix them!

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 11
Date: March 18, 2005
Author: Amazon User

Lots of these reviews complain about the graphics on this Mac version. I had the same problems too - unexpected crashes and VERY slow game performance, on a pretty new G5 tower.

Doing two things will fix these issues. In the game's video/display options panel, switch off the page scrolling, and reduce the graphic detail. That's all it took to have this game running great. The manual should cover these quirks but it doesn't.

One final tip - learn the keyboard commands (found on the back of the manual) as it will speed up gameplay hugely, and totally compensates for no scrolling.

System Requirements

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 8 / 16
Date: November 15, 2005
Author: Amazon User

The system requirements for this Mac game are available at:
[...]

System Requirements:

Operating System: Mac OS X 10.2.8 or later
CPU Processor: PowerPC G4 or later
CPU Speed: 700 MHz or faster
Memory: 256 MB or higher
Hard Disk Space: 2.0 GB free disk space
Video Card (ATI): Radeon 7500 or better
Video Card (NVidia): GeForce2 MX or better
Video Memory (VRam): 32 MB or higher
Media Required: DVD Drive

Sim City 4 - Best sim so far.

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 7 / 18
Date: June 25, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Probably the best designed Sim City game yet. Extremely enjoyable and easy to learn. Make sure you have a fast computer though!

One Great Game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 2 / 3
Date: February 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

This game is simply a must have. Yes, at times it does have a slow gameplay, but, for the most part is is smooth running. When you do have bigger cities, in order to keep it running smoothly, you must lower some graphic quality, ex. not have high building variety, low amount of cars, etc. I've played SC4 on my friends' PCs, and yes, it can run slowly too. If you want a fast running Sim City, you are just going to have to live with out the high intensity graphics.

Much Fun

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 3 / 5
Date: September 22, 2003
Author: Amazon User

It runs a but slow on my Dual G4 800 with 1.2 GB ram and 64 MG GeForce2 video card. Aside from speed issues, the game is great with excellent graphics and gameplay. I recommend. SC3 sucked, and I nevered played it. However, I have been playing SC4 quite a bit.

SimCity 4 - the best SimCity game ever

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 4 / 9
Date: June 29, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I own this game since from August 2004 and when I played it, I totally loved it. I mean, this game has much more opportunities and control for me to take the power with, comparing with the SimCity 2000. In SimCity 2000, you can only manage the region-wide controls as the fire department, police stations, and hospital's budgets and so on. Also, you get few rewards in that game. But now, it's SimCity 4, you get the ability to control more than ONE cities, and you can finally make neighboring cities to exhange some deals and so on. You can even design your own map of the cities, like the quote from SimCity 4's game trailer, "Build the city of your dreams." This is the best game and if you're looking for the total power and control of the cities and building them from your own mind, SimCity 4 is the best game to own!

Truly fun and creative game

5 Rating: 5, Useful: 0 / 0
Date: September 01, 2008
Author: Amazon User

I have always enjoyed the series since its beginnings as a 256 color game. Simcity has come a long way since the original release and with Simcity 4 you can expect one of the most challenging game play and one of a kind gaming experience.

This simulator gives you complete freedom in terraforming and urban planning. Aside from managing the physicality of your city you are also giving the power and responsibility of governance; from funding a skate park, local clinic, or the entire transit system (broken down into many sub categories) to managing ordinance, taxation and inter-city or regional economy.

This is the only game that will allow you to test you wits at a multitude of issues. The greatest joy comes from observing a successful city developing, renewing and breathing itself.

Another cool new feature is that you can actually import or create "Sims." People who you can follow from their life to death, understand their struggle and concerns thus creating a better city.

Last but not least is music; Simcity 4's background score is quite amazing, inspirational at times and will leave you in-the-zone for hours at a time.

Overall, I'd highly recommend someone who's got the time, interest and computing power to purchase this simulator/game. If you are or someone you know is constructive and love to investigate and empower then this is a must!

SimCity 3000 gets a facelift

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 44 / 47
Date: August 31, 2003
Author: Amazon User

I've been a fan of the Sim games since the days of playing SimCity (and later, SimCity 2000) on my old 386 PC running DOS. Times have changed a lot since then, but oddly SimCity has largely stood still. SimCity 2000 was the first and only major revision to the series, and arguably was the best out of all of them. So how does SimCity 4 stack up?

SimCity 4, like SC3K before it, is largely a visual upgrade. The graphics are indeed very well done, and the game has a rich lifelike feel to it. The sound effects are top knotch as well. Cars driving around, children playing at a playground, the soft whoosh of wind power generators. Sadly the music does not match up to the quality of the sound, varying wildly between very annoying and passable. Unlike previous Sim games, there are no catchy tunes to be found here. And don't expect to play this game on a slow Mac - even my Power Mac with dual 1GHz G4s tends to chug when I change zoom levels and such.

The mechanics of the game are largely unchanged from the days of SimCity 2000: build a city, manage taxes and infrastructure, keep the Sims happy. SimCity 4 is more complicated in some ways (budgeting is more detailed, the model for residential/commercial/industrial demand is more complex, etc.) and this can make things very difficult. It took me a number of tries to build a city that wasn't burning thousands of simoleons every month. The game is still just as fun as ever, though.

Unfortunately, a number of the changes are actually omissions. Gone are the scenarios (like Dullsville), the real world cities, and the ability to generate random terrain by adjusting a few sliders. You have to custom carve each area you build a city in, unless you load up a pre-built region. These features are sorely missed, and they take away quite a bit of what made SimCity so enjoyable in the past.

What it all comes down to is this: SimCity 4 is a lot of fun to play, and Aspyr did a great job porting it. If you can forgive the missing features from previous SimCity games, and if your machine is powerful enough, I definitely recommend this game. Now if you'll excuse me, I must attend to some unhappy Sims protesting outside my mansion...

SimCity 4 (Mac Version)

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 18 / 19
Date: July 16, 2003
Author: Amazon User

Even with SuperSaver I got this game in 1 day, which was great because I have been thirsting for the OSX version of this upgrade. I was surprised to note that it requires 2 discs, and takes about a Gig of space. There were problems loading the intro movies, but even first-run, the game worked buglessly, and my 800Mhz iBook handles the complex graphic with ease. And the graphics are complex! Even in the regional view the graphics take ones breath away. Cities are agglomerated in this region view, and interdependence is the key. It is much slower than Sc3K to develop a city, and requires a lot more input and attention, though it is equally more accurate in portraying real-mayoral duty. The transport generator is amazing, and the details are astonishing. Where I used to take a day off work to play, now I will need a week.

Fun but Challenging

4 Rating: 4, Useful: 9 / 10
Date: May 17, 2004
Author: Amazon User

I was a SimCity fan since age 5, when SimCity 2000 was released. The game was challenging then, and it still is now. This game is a huge step up from SC3K, with tons of Graphics improvements. However, I oftentimes find it challenging to create a city where you aren't in debt after 30 minutes! Very fun to play, though, and it runs quickly on my eMac 1GHz running Mac OS X 10.3 (Panther). I recommend it to anyone who loves the Sims and like to be in charge.

Review Page: 1 2 3 4 Next 

Actions