Before all those Sim games where you can build your own house and create scenarios with its inhabitants, there was the original Sim game, Sim City 2000 (I have never played Sim City so I can not compare). Choose to either build your own city and grow it as large as you can or chose among the many catastrophic scenarios where you must accomplish a specific goal within a certain time. Hours upon hours of fun guaranteed!

Graphics: 8/10

The graphics were very decent for the time; they were certainly better than games like Civilization II. Indeed there was more in-game animation than Sid Meier's game. When the city grows large enough you can see traffic - and it can get pretty heavy if you do not put mass transit - you can see boats coming to your seaport, planes taking off and landing to your airport (including the annoying traffic chopper), etc. 

The "city map" on which your city evolves is huge and customizable to infinity. You can choose not to have any rivers (which will make filling up your water supply a difficult task) or choose to have an archipelago if you are rich enough. But you can solve the customization problem and do it right before you start the game! This way you can build very high mountains where you put water falls in order to build dams, put rivers to secure your water supply or flatten the landscape so you will not spend a fortune on tunnels.

Your city proper is finely detailed for the time. Each zone - industrial, commercial and residential - has distinctive buildings that are easy to differentiate among themselves, but also according to their value. For residential for example, lower-class homes and apartments look kind of rundown, whereas luxury apartments are built with fine bricks or consist of very large houses taking up 9 squares. In doubt, you can use the magnifying glass and look up any building to know what it is. Abandoned buildings become gray, and the larger the building the larger the "ruins", where you can see the finer details of the drawing.

You can choose the year you are starting: 1900, 1950, 2000 or 2050. The main difference comes from the available technology; you will only get basic services in 1900 (coal and gas plants, dams for energy), whereas you will already have most of the techs in 2050 (including fusion plants and windmills). I thought that was a nice touch of realism. In addition, your citizens spontaneously let you build special buildings (City Hall, Statue, a huge monument) when you population reaches a certain level, which is a good way to keep track of your progress.

Finally your city council is very helpful (except for the road adviser, who either complains there are too many of shouts that things will go bad if you cut his budget) to tell you how your city is doing. This way you can plan how much you give them but also whether you need specific kinds of buildings or ordinances in order to satisfy your citizens. Building more schools or libraries (and having them rated A+) will attract higher tech companies since the IQ is higher, creating more wealth.

Music: 5/10

One does not play Sim City 2000 to listen to its outstanding soundtrack. Do not get me wrong; I enjoy listening to it from time to time. However its arrangements are rather primitive and repetitive that, more often than not, I simply cut it and put "real" music on. Sid Meier definitely did THAT part better in Civ II.

The sound effects, however, were very realistic. Your construction sounds are matching what you hear in real life: you hear a jackhammer when you build a road, a bell when you build education-related buildings, police cars when you build a station or fire truck when you get them a building, "water" when you put a river or a fall, electrocution sounds when you build a power plant or power lines, etc. Boats and planes also sounded realistic, along with the honking sound from heavy traffic. Finally the traffic guy sounded like a real voice. However the cheering sounds - when you build a building without a pre-determined sound - got annoying since they were too loud.

Addictiveness: 10/10

Once you get the hang of the game - it took me a while - you will not be able to put this game down! There are so many possibilities of what to build where - although your citizens might resent that you put a jail in their neighborhood - that no two city can ever be alike. And of course, since you want to have the largest city around, you need to make your city clean, attractive to young families and businesses and make sure your transportation system is adequate so your people can move around easily.

In addition, there are a few scenarios where, for example, you need to help Las Vegas get rid of crime, restore Portland, Oregon, from a volcanic eruption or make Dull City a more thriving city. Can you do it within the allotted time?

Story: 5/10

The main game as such has no real scenario. You just grow your city until you get bored, basically. I read rumors that building many archologies might create something special but I have never played up to that point to experiment.

The 5 comes from the various scenarios I talked about earlier. Like the 2 scenarios in Civ II they let you play the classical game with a specific goal already set. Let us see how your mastery of the game goes! Also, you can "create" your own scenarios by letting a catastrophe happen - plane crash, flood, alien attack, fire, etc.

Depth: 7/10

Although the scenarios never last for long - they are timed - the game itself goes it pretty deep. As I said there are billions of ways you can customize your landscape, greatly changing how your city grows. Also your neighbors never develop quite the same either, so you need to watch where you put those road connections so you actually attract more people in. Also as times passes by you get new (but sometimes quite expensive) technology that will make your city more efficient. Make sure you do not spend it all!

Difficulty: 7/10

Had I reviewed this game before getting it for free last Holidays (it was a limited time offer) I would have put 10 out 10. Before 2014 I had never been able to grow a city over 50,000, mostly because of high energy cost and the impossibility to get enough revenues to maintain my city.

But now, getting through that game is almost a breeze. Since you can customize your landscape you can build high mountains with waterfalls so you can build dams, which never require maintenance. True, the nominal cost is high but in the long run it is less expensive (you also get fresh water, so your pumps get even more water). Also, after reading a few walkthroughs I FINALLY found out about the ideal shape of the city that optimizes growth: put your industrial zones on the edge of the map (to keep pollution to a minimum) and have no zoning farther than 3 squares away from a road to maximize development. I was finally able to build arcos!

But generally speaking, management as such is fairly easy. Thanks to many options available, you can easily plan what to build where. For example, you should put police stations in areas where crime is the greatest or fire stations in sectors that are ill-served so people feel safer - they will constantly show their discontent until you build one. This is  why you need to spend very wisely since your people's changing mood may require "emergency" expenditures like a stadium or a marina.

You can also set the difficulty level by choosing how much money you have: $20,000; $10,000 or, if you are a hardcore financial guru,, $10,000 in BONDS! And with interest payments accumulating, you will have a hard time repaying them...

Finally, as I said above you can create your own catastrophes by setting them (or not explicitly checking the "no catastrophe" box). This is where having more firemen or policemen will come in handy.

In short, Sim City 2000 is a must-try for all avid gamers. Its graphics are still decent, its sounds effects are still quite realistic and there is plenty for you to do in order to become the greatest city in the neighborhood. And with several scenarios for you to test your planning skills, you will have sleepless nights ahead!