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Surprise, surprise! We have one more EA classic that was tucked away, but we decided not to wait with it till the next wave of EA greatness comes by. That's how cool we are ;)

We believe we could end this newspost at the title, as we're pretty sure everyone is familiar with the SimCity franchise. But if you lived the past 20+ years under a rock and somehow you don't know what the fuss is all about let us explain:

SimCity 2000 Special Edition is the second installment, and way superior than its predecessor, of the most popular city building sim series by Maxis. You play the role of the mayor of a new municipality, starting in 1900. Your task is to expand your small village into a bustling metropolis, and manage it so the citizens are happy and willing to live in it. You're responsible for building housing districts and commercial facilities as well as power plants, streets, bus depots, and more. You need to set and raise taxes and allocate the money cleverly so the city grows.

SimCity 2000 introduced many enhancements to the series. First the view has been changed from a top-down to isometric which allows you to fully customize the terrain before you start the new city. Plenty of new types of facilities now include schools, hospitals, zoos, museums, colleges, and even prisons. Thanks to underground layer you can now build subway and utilities like water pipes under the city. Also your city is not the only one on the map, and you have to build links with other municipalities to increase trade and population. Last but not least, prepare yourself and your city for earthquakes, floods, fire, and other disasters like monster invasion, as they do like to happen--and usually at the worst possible time.

If you want to take a break from expanding your city, you can play one of many pre-made scenarios that are included in the special edition of the game. Some of those scenarios are based on real life events, like the 1989 Hurricane Hugo hitting Charleston in South Carolina or the 1991 Oakland firestorm, and some are just made up by the developer as Hollywood being attacked by a giant robot or nuclear power station major meltdown in center of Manhattan!

But that's not all: SimCity 2000 Special Edition on GOG.com also includes the SimCity Urban Renewal Kit which lets you modify the images used in-game to represent various buildings. Now you can create your own basic bitmap representing your childhood house, your school, or your favorite monument. All that and much more is available now for only $5.99.
i dont think i could be less excited about this release even if I tried.

Dont get me wrong I know a lot of people loved it, im just not one of them and I found 2 cents in my pocket so I thought id put them here.
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spindown: My guess is that SimCity 2000 is probably an exception regarding the expansions since the Special Edition was available for licensing. It's a very welcome surprise, though.
Maybe, but I remember a guy from EA who was surprised Wing Commander is without expansion, and then he said he talked about it with GOG, so maybe this is the effect of that talk.
I've never played a SimCity game before. I think I'll try this one out.
My goodness, I wasn't expecting this one today. I'm quite happy. :)
I remember having the Playstation One port and losing days of my life to it. Of course it was just one of many PS1 games that did that. (*cough* Star Ocean: The Second Story *cough*)
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Tsugirai: I despise democracy on the whole. I would rather go with constitutional monarchy instead. Works pretty nice over at the Brits and the Japanese...
Yeahhhh, about that. Not so much.

We got traitors here signing wholesale the Competences to legislate to Brussels and the corrupt court of the EU. ¬¬
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cw8: Simcity 4 is awesome, incredibly awesome with BATs (fan custom made content):
I mean check this out for instance:
http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/journals/1508/entry-9533-sh-shuixi-city-pics-1/
At least 80% of the buildings in there are custom made.
Having played all of the SimCity games, I personally prefer SimCity 4 the most (although Rush Hour and the Network Addon Mod are musts). Love the scale, the look, and the balance between complexity and fun. Oh and of course, as you mentioned, the amount of custom content is just ridiculous. The game community is still pretty alive and kicking,so you can still find new stuff all the time.
What is the resolution or clarity of this game, last time I tried the DOS version (non-special edition) via dosbox it was so small at my 1680x1050 resolution it was unbearable, and to get it bigger it got way to pixelated? I hope someone could youtube a video of SC2kSE starting and playing it at a higher native LCD resolution.
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DukeNukemForever: SimTower is indeed a cool game, also good memories. Better name would be SimLifts ;-)
Oh, that's SO true after you pass the 20th Floor

Still got my hard copy of Sim Tower, just like I do for Sim City, SC 2000 SE & 3000. So this one is a Wishlisted one for the next Promo
Wishlisted for now, not because the game doesn't appeal to me, but because I expect that this one will suck a lot of time away that I don't have the luxury of spending gaming at the moment.
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cw8: Simcity 4 is awesome, incredibly awesome with BATs (fan custom made content):
I mean check this out for instance:
http://www.simtropolis.com/forum/journals/1508/entry-9533-sh-shuixi-city-pics-1/
At least 80% of the buildings in there are custom made.
Wow, that;'s one realistic rich Asian city. The low houses look like the Japanese suburb style.
I wouldn't want to live there though, much too crowded for me.

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MercilessMing: What is the resolution or clarity of this game, last time I tried the DOS version (non-special edition) via dosbox it was so small at my 1680x1050 resolution it was unbearable, and to get it bigger it got way to pixelated? I hope someone could youtube a video of SC2kSE starting and playing it at a higher native LCD resolution.
That's a good point.
I try to play most Windows games through Wine, but mostly it just fails miserably.
We have gotten to such high resolutions nowadays, that some of the earlier Windows games have the size of a postal stamp. What we need is a general scaler for old Windows games, comparable to the great Sai2x scalers used by DosBox. CRT monitors always scaled perfectly, provided that the aspect ratio was the same. Still, nothing will bring me to reintroduce CRT's after the blissfull tranquility for the eyes which is offered by TFT screens.
nVidia has a setting in their Windows drivers that keeps the aspect ratio intact by showing black bars for excess horizontal space, just like on a TV set.
I have never found this option in the Linux ctrl-panel for nVidia, mostly the driver just presents the game with the full resolution of both my monitors combined.
Post edited October 04, 2011 by jorlin
Came home from my first day of work at my new job, saw this, squealed in delight.
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MercilessMing: What is the resolution or clarity of this game, last time I tried the DOS version (non-special edition) via dosbox it was so small at my 1680x1050 resolution it was unbearable, and to get it bigger it got way to pixelated? I hope someone could youtube a video of SC2kSE starting and playing it at a higher native LCD resolution.
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jorlin: That's a good point.
I try to play most Windows games through Wine, but mostly it just fails miserably.
We have gotten to such high resolutions nowadays, that some of the earlier Windows games have the size of a postal stamp. What we need is a general scaler for old Windows games, comparable to the great Sai2x scalers used by DosBox. CRT monitors always scaled perfectly, provided that the aspect ratio was the same. Still, nothing will bring me to reintroduce CRT's after the blissfull tranquility for the eyes which is offered by TFT screens.
nVidia has a setting in their Windows drivers that keeps the aspect ratio intact by showing black bars for excess horizontal space, just like on a TV set.
I have never found this option in the Linux ctrl-panel for nVidia, mostly the driver just presents the game with the full resolution of both my monitors combined.
It runs full screen at 1680x1050, there is a graphic mode for that, the problem I have when running it like that is that the mouse doesn't work at all. It goes to the left side of the screen and stays there stuck.
I actually have a legal CD copy of this... that doesn't belong to me. XD

It simply appeared inside a multiple CD case of mine back at my parents home one day (I don't visit often).

My guess is that it belonged to my sister's ex boyfriend and both of them forgot about it.

But I still shall get it from GOG. Eventually...
The music sounds rather different to what I remember. Is this version configured for Roland or something? I may have to tinker it back to the old SB16 sounding tunes that I STILL to this day get stuck in my head!
Not only is this an awesome release on its own, but hopefully it paves the way for more Maxis-releases. I really miss the Maxis of old, and their approach to games, and it saddens me that we don't have any developers today that are capable of or interesting in continuing what they started. Games can be so much more than simple entertainment, and very few developers (and even fewer publishers) seems to realize that today.

Anyhoo, bought. Of course. And I'll probably buy every single Maxis release you put out. Yes, including The Sims, should we get that. It may have represented the start of Maxis' downfall as a developer (I'm still waiting for Sim Mars, dammit!) but on its own it was a hugely innovative, intelligent and addictive game that deserved every ounce of the success it got. And it took a developer as smart as Maxis to make it.
Holy shit, SimCity on GOG!!

Are we going to get SimAnt? Please say yes.