SimCity 4 Review (Enterprofilenamehere)
(Scroll down my review to see technical tips to get the game running smoothly on Windows 10)
Gameplay Review
Just as I remember it! Not everything has aged well but it's still quite fun. It still feels more challenging and deep in many areas than Cities: Skylines. The fact that there are three density levels rather than two and that lower densities can develop on high density zones if demand doesn't exist yet makes for more variation, and the fact that zoning costs money means that you aren't incentivized to only zone high densities because higher density zones cost more money. In C:SL I always ended up with unrealistic cities full of nothing but skyscrapers because there was no reason to zone low density once higher density was unlocked.
The vehicle missions are a nice touch. There's something oddly fun about driving around the streets of your own city even if it's just from an overhead perspective.
I also love the graphics. The "pseudo 3D" style allows much more visible detail than in C:SL.
And the music. Easily one of the best video game soundtracks in existence.
Only annoyances I have are fiddly road, rail, etc. construction, and unrealistically steep and jagged roads unless you spend time leveling them by placing adjacent single road tiles.
Transport and traffic management is also less deep than C:SL.
Rating
8/10
Technical Tips
If you're having trouble with crashes: close the game, and copy this line (including the dash):
-CPUCount:1
Then right click on the game in your library, click "properties" and in the window that pops up paste it into the box under where it says "launch options". Since doing this I've yet to experience a single crash.
If you want to run it at 1920x1080 resolution then add this to that box as well:
-CustomResolution:enabled -r1920x1080x32
You can probably do this with any resolution you want, just replace 1920x1080 with the resolution you wish to run it at.
If you own a disc copy that won't work on Windows 10, It's very possible that the Steam version will still work for you (apparently Win10 can have trouble with older discs).
If you have problems with low FPS, try setting shadows to "low" in the in-game settings. Shadows seem to be a performance hog in this game even though they don't add much visually.
Edit: Also be sure to never press the button to save and quit (either to region or desktop) as this can cause the game to freeze and your save to be corrupted. Always save your city, then exit without saving.