By providing an impressive level of detail in a game where detail is essential, and by including intuitive enhancements to the player experience, this is one title that should easily land on the “must have” list for any gamer.

The graphics are nothing short of fantastic. Whether viewing the city from a bird’s eye perspective or up close and personal to homes, businesses, or traffic, the level of detail and finesse are obvious.

The game is such an architectural playground that you can build on it for hundreds of hours and never get bored. [17 Jan 2003, p.87]

Yes, you are able to import your sims, and yes you can observe their daily routine as they work their way up from the inner-city slums into a high-level corporate position, but then you have to ask yourself why you would want to do that to begin with.

It's crushingly addictive, especially with the fascinating new possibilities offered by having your cities trade with each other for resources. Fix the stability, add some scenarios and we might be looking at a five star game.

SimCity 4 isn't a perfect game. It has a difficult learning curve, so the poor documentation and limited tutorials might frustrate players. And the gameplay suffers from some pacing and balance flaws.

Because the game adheres so much to real-world city-building, it's harder and harder to build the city of your dreams. [Apr 2003, p.76]