this game came completely out of left field for me. At the time I first played it i was lamenting that the latest Wii mario game was pretty lack-luster. same enemies, uninspired soundtrack, boring graphics. Rayman was a breath of fresh air. Solid platforming, fun and creative levels, wonderful soundtrack and all with an amazing art style. highly recommended if you like platformers also plays well multiplayer.
I never really took to SimCity 4. I had been playing SimCity games since the first one and enjoyed them a lot and remember being very excited about 4 but the game never really panned out. The good: They did improve many of the smaller mechanics and managing your city is challenging and fun, the graphics are way better. The bad: Regions. Regions Regions and why I hate this game. In the old SimCity you were given one big block of space and you built a city on it. you could connect to AI neighbors for power and garbage etc but your whole focus is your city. In 4 you get a region with lots of little plots (even the biggest ones are small) and you build 'kind of' cities on them. to really reach full potential you have to manage lots of tiny little pieces of cities not a whole city. This always left me feeling disconnected from my overall vision and the individual sections are too small to build traditional city (you will max out quickly) for example you might start one little city and jut put farms and some police stations. nothing else. you are mayor of farm and police. then you go next door to another section (as another mayor) and build a downtown, then you go to another section (again as another mayor) and build some suburbs and link them all up for jobs. This all works but time really only flows in the section you are in so you constantly hop around little segments to build the whole region. So while on one hand you could fill a whole region with a "City" that was bigger than ever I never really got the hang of the mechanic, all I wanted was one big square like SC 2000/3000
The game starts pretty interesting and is pretty fun to bop around exploring. Eventually the game just drags out and it's flaws become more apparent. Boss fights are more frustrating than fun due to poor controls. Inventory management is pretty terrible. The end is confusing and unsatisfying. Overall pretty unsatisfying.
This game doesn't run properly on modern systems. This version is a dos version in which the on planet animations run way to fast making everything look either comical or creepy. in space if you get close to a ship or near a planet the framerate will drop to a crawl. According to the forums there is a patched win 95 version of the game that works well, when GOG provides a playable version I will update my rating.
