I've gone over how the increasing complexity of the SimCity games winds up being more off-putting than engaging, as it went from being an appealing simplification of city management which was easy to familiarize oneself with all the aspects of, to something that winds up trying to be an in-depth simulation of every aspect of real city management. SimCity 4 basically takes the latter to its farthest possible point to the point where I feel it completely misses the point of simulation games entirely.That point is that, basically, people don't necessarily want to be the mayor of a town, but rather want to feel like they are acting like the mayor. It doesn't sound like much of a difference, but consider which sounds more fun - having to manage the entirety of a city's infrastructure, down to negotiations for the importation or exportation of resources like energy, water, and trash while also managing a budget that has been itemized down to every detail while also planning public transformation from top to bottom - or building a city and watching it grow? The original SimCity managed to capture the latter perfectly - the focus was always on city building, with side-emphasis in managing infrastructure, and those were always abstracted enough so as to be pretty easily managed.
SimCity 4 is not easily managed, like, at all. It feels more like Microsoft's Flight Simulator than it feels like a real Sim game, despite the addition of things like Sims whom you can follow as they take their commutes. And, even if one can't embrace the depths of detail present the way needed to build cities to their maximum potential, there is still a lot of fun to be had just screwing around and making small villages and towns.
Now, I can certainly see a more detailed city management sim appealing greatly to some - the strength of SimCity 4's online community speaks to this - but for me, I prefer to keep things a good deal simpler than this. This is a real shame, especially because SimCity 4 is also far and away the most fun entry in the series to watch your city grow in - the level of graphical detail is quite stunning, and the cities produced are far more realistic (in terms of layout and the way they affix to the classic SimCity grid) than any of the predecessors. If only producing a city in this engine weren't so intimidating.
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