SimCity™ 2000 Special Edition

I don't know why GOG doesn't offer the Windows 95 version, which is far superior to the clunky DOS version. With a simple registry import that they could implement into their own installer it could work, and I have verified this. So is it laziness or lack of interest that they don't offer it? Hmm...

This is the inferior DOS Version of the game. Graphics are lowres, many features are missing. Nope GOG, this is no good.

This is only the DOS version. Which is fine if this was the 1990s and we didn't have 16:9 or 21:9 monitors. The windows version of Simcity 2000 if installed using a modified setup file to run on 64 bit operating systems supports any resolution you can throw at it. This means you can run Simcity 2000 at even 21:9 ultrawide, and trust me.... it looks amazing seeing pretty much your entire city on 1 screen. They should be bundling the windows version here, I can't see how playing the inferior DOS version is something anyone should be doing here unless they want to be cutting themselves short of what this game can look like. The game is in abandonware status also, you can get it free elsewhere including windows version without a problem. GOG has dropped the ball here and should have been less greedy and offered the windows version.

It's the SimCity 2000 Special Edition with all extras included, so this part is great. This version first shows the SimCity 2000 Game Launcher to select if the user wants to play the game, the Urban Renewal Kit, WillTV or DOS Settings. The game runs in 4:3. So far, so good. This is the DOS version running in DOSBox, so the graphics are not 640x480 like in the Windows 95 or Mac (68k & PPC) versions. This is the only real downside that it's very pixelated 320x240 graphics. GOG however is advertising the game with the higher resolution graphics. The screenshots you see on the product page are not the graphics you get in the DOS version. The screenshots look like from the Mac version. The Windows 95 version has different toolbars. I also checked the SimCity 2000 SE version directly from EA that is advertised with Windows 95 screenshots. Shockingly, even this version from EA is based on DOSBox. There is no advantage in graphic resolution. Worse than that, the screen is not 4:3 but stretched to widescreen. There is also no Game Launcher, so I don't know how to access the Urban Renewal Kit and other options. You are forced to use the EA app with a user account, so all your user and usage data goes to EA. Therefore, the GOG version is the much better deal. How to get the higher resolution graphics to work? Not the official ways unfortunately.

Now everyone who's played this knows SimCity 2000 to be one of the finest games of all time. But compared to other GOG releases, it seems a little short on bonus content. Right? Wrong. This manual. This is the finest manual ever compiled for a game. It's 147 pages long. I can vaguely remember this manual from my childhood. It was like a bible to me. It is amazing. Full detailed breakdowns of every aspect of the game, tutorials, strategies, poetry, yes, POETRY. Art, tributes to cities. This is the sort of manual all games should come with, all sim, strategy and RPG games at least. It is just so amazing and it's a shame it was never released in colour in the first place. So yeah I just wanted to talk about the manual. If you read it you can see the game truely was a labour of love for the people behind it.