Sim Earth

Title           Sim Earth
Game Type       Management Sim
Publisher       Maxis (1992)
Players         1
HD Installable  Yes
Compatibility   Not 040, Needs 1 MB
Submission      Emmanuel Henne


Review
MAXIS, oh great creator of a great classic called "Sim City", how could
You DARE !?

"Sim Earth", another classic from the "Sim something"-series, puts you
into the role of "God". A whole planet lies beneath you, on which you can
simply control everything: The nature, the species, cosmic catastrophes,
everything you like.

Like any Sim-game, this one relies heavily on independent players, since
there is no story or concrete goal. All you have to and can do is try to
play as long as possible, and boy, are you lucky that 1000 years in the
game are only 10 seconds in realtime !

The big drawback of this game is not the fact that the graphics are WAY
sub-average (although the resolution is high res!) and that sound is
almost non-existent. No, the biggest drawback, compared to "Sim City" or
"Sim Ants" is that this game has no real appeal to anyone but science
students, geologists and pseudo-intellectuals. I am not saying that is has
not a lot to offer: You can create every aspect of a planet, including
geological elements, animals, plants, water, clouds, volcanos...You can
change the climate, prevent atmospheric pollution or provoke global
warming, everything has an effect on the animals and plants, some survive,
some die, some evolve due to your changes. You can even use a "black
monolith" if You have enough energy, to raise the level of intelligence of
a certain specimen.

Sounds like "Populous" ? Yeah, but the idea couldn`t be more far off. "Sim
City" offers You flowcharts, diagrams, statistics, but at the end, even
after hours of playing, you`re not quite sure WHAT you really achieved or
if you have achieved ANYTHING in the first place.

The manual is TOP CLASS, it has all the info you`ll find in scientific
literature or your school books, and you can really LEARN a lot about our
planet and the atmosphere and how it all works together.

This game is for those who find "Railroad Tycoon" or "Civilization" way
too amusing, for those who think that good graphics are something unwanted
and distracting from the real core of a game, or for those who think that
dropping "I played through Sim Earth" will let them get all the chicks.

Alphabetical list.