SimCity 4: Deluxe Edition

The Good
Driving through the city owns. It's almost like a semi-bug-free Streets of SimCity! Except in 3rd-person.

The advanced city-management functions, like data that actually makes sense (seems to be in a measurable unit), and less-buggy streets help make SimCity 4 better.

Now, lots must actually front a street, instead of just randomly being situated around. Sure, the AI isn't always uber-smart when it comes to layout, but it does a decent job of it.

The game is still as addictive as before, especially when you're trying to build a utopia on hard mode.

The Bad
The soundtrack wasn't as good as before, and the MP3 files didn't have tags, so I had to slog through all of them and fill in the names by hand, alt-tabbing from game to Winamp to tag-tool. But the SimCity 3000 soundtrack was better IMO.

The game engine still has its flaws. You still can't customize intersections, freeways, etc.

Even worse, the AI in the driving is quite dumb. Trucks (and all vehicles in general) pretend they are the size of a Honda Civic (and bunch up like they are, see some screenshots), don't yield to you when you have right-of-way, etc. Traffic lights are slightly stupid. And there is still no 'racing sim' mode with clutch, gears, and first-person.

The mission triggers in U-Drive-It are also notoriously unreliable, and sometimes the Ice Cream Truck siren magically stops working when you get to a school. Don't ask me why.

When I first got this game, I had a big problem getting it to work smoothly. Although the box says 500MHz P-III and 128MB RAM, I recommend a 733MHz P-III and at least 512MB of RAM. Less RAM = more lag. However, the videocard doesn't seem to affect much, since 10 fps is adequate for a city-simulation game.

Street names don't seem to work well, and the WASD/arrow keys isn't as useful to me as ESDF/arrow keys.

The Bottom Line
The basics of the game are the same as in previous versions. You build a city, construct schools, hospitals, and infrastructure, and manage your budget. It's quite addicting, especially when you're trying to build a utopia on hard mode.