SimCity can be SimNightmare

As mayor, I just built a school, bulldozed a residential area to put in a toxic waste dump and authorized the construction of a missile testing site right next to the University campus. Fortunately, I'm not mayor of Bloomington. In fact, I'm not really the mayor of any real-world cities, but I am playing Maxis' latest addition to its "Sim" series, "SimCity 4."\nThe premise for "SimCity" is quite simple. As in any Sim game, there is no true way to win or lose. Instead, the games are like a child's sandbox. That is, the game is what gamers make it, and there aren't many limits. It's a gorgeous sandbox, assuming gamers have the system to run it at the highest detail. A zoom feature allows a look at individual sims and allows gamers to learn a great deal about the city condition just by looking at it.\nIn previous versions of SimCity, building the city was a fairly simple enterprise: slap down a few commercial, industrial and residential zones and have a bustling metropolis in less than 20 minutes. In "SimCity 4" there is no such thing as a "quick game." The process of getting a city is a needlessly arduous task. "SimCity 4" requires constant micromanagement of city buildings in order to keep a positive cash flow, adjusting the funding of individual fire departments, prisons, schools and more. It's almost work to play the game, instead of fun.\n"SimCity 4" is an impressive game, without a doubt, but the micromanagement and crushing system requirements are a serious chore. In addition, several bugs have cropped up that need patching right away, including a serious bug with the MySim feature, that lets gamers import a character from "The Sims" to live in the city. The game has promise, but desperately needs to be modified before it could be considered complete.