Apocalypse Then: SimCity 3000

Earlier on in the month, I talked about the fact that it was Will Wright’s 50th birthday (the 20th of January). On this day in gaming, the 31st of January, 1999, one of the titles in one of his most successful franchises was released: SimCity 3000.

The game, a city-building simulation, and the sequel to SimCity and SimCity 2000, was developed by Maxis and published by EA, and released for the  PC, Mac, and Linux. Later on a special edition of the game was released under different names in various countries.

The designer was credited as being the legendary Will Wright.

I got the game and played it myself for a while back in 1999 when it was nearly brand new. I remember once I left the game running on my dad’s PC in the study for the whole night because I hadn’t figured out how to save a game or something and so I didn’t want all my effort going to waste by exiting the game.

Although I’d even played the original SimCity years before, this was likely the best one I’ve played, and I haven’t even touched it in years. To be honest, I prefer The Sims, a series which started a little over a year later.

It was eventually succeeded by SimCity 4, which made a cameo appearance of sorts in The Sims 2, or rather the expansion, SimCity 4: Rush Hour, did.

You can pick the game up here if you want to play a classic.

Apocalypse Then: SimCity 3000