This was one of my favourite games. City simulators took up an enormous amount of my childhood and I still dream about arcologies. When I see a modern development like Brentwood in Canada's BC or some older ones like along the river in Chicago it reminds me of the wonders we can build.
As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures' irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.
Sim City 3k is my least played Sim City game, but this is inspiring me to take another look. I really like the sweaty micromanagement and bigger scope of 4, but maybe I will prefer 3k's simplicity in my old age.
The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting, but it's at least proof that this isn't AI generated content...
I run Arch. I purchased it on Steam last week after the dos.zone site was shared here and dropped the GOG executable in the steamapps directory, and it worked flawlessly with proton.
I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D, but I guess I missed some versions. So many games, like Railroad Tycoon post RRT2 and Worms went full 3D and gameplay was never the same.
I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time ...
A small frustration I have with playing old games is that the GOG/Steam version is always the PC original and the Mac versions almost always had far better sound and music and sometimes graphics.
And when you say “PC original”, you really mean “DOS version wrapped in DOXBox”, because it's easier to ship that on both Windows and Mac than patching the Windows version for Windows, and shipping a Wine wrapper for Mac. (Have they ever shipped a Wine wrapper for anything? I don't think so.) What a shame.
I do really wish an application-level classic Mac OS emulator existed. There are lots of great full-system emulators for classic Macs (Basilisk II, SheepShaver, DingusPPC), but no Rosetta-style “make the old application run in the context of a new machine” execution environments. I'll grouse to whoever will listen that all of the best edutainment software of the '90s and early '00s is trapped on PPC Mac OS.
You can run the Windows 95 version of the game (similar to the Mac version) on modern computers with this patch: https://sc2kfix.net/ . It's definitely disappointing that GOG doesn't distribute that version. Stuff like this is why I have to keep a CD drive around.
Sweeet well done, especially with the audio. I like this patch method much more than the HD Patch I've been using the last few years.
We played SimCity in my shop class at school on olds macs and i like picking it back up every now and then. It still holds up better than most new games.
Obnoxious author. Refusing to 'pay twice' for a game they care enough about to go through all this trouble + deeply obnoxious bit about Windows 11 at the end of of the post.
What a strange person, from the same author: https://www.thran.uk/writ/yarn/2025/03/road-rage-maxxing-or-... I don't understand how you can feel morally superior by blocking the overtaking lane and letting people through if they're respectful enough.
This was one of my favourite games. City simulators took up an enormous amount of my childhood and I still dream about arcologies. When I see a modern development like Brentwood in Canada's BC or some older ones like along the river in Chicago it reminds me of the wonders we can build.
As an aside since it's in the article, what are other cultures' irreverent targets? e.g. Anglo-cultures seem to casually joke about disasters like he does here about 9/11. Somewhat diminished by the fact that he's British, not American, but Americans do it too, and the American-British interaction involves this and Irish Car Bombs taken rather lightly. I find that curious. Do the Quebecois joke about Opération Satanique and the French have likewise a thing they make fun of the Quebecois for? Or is this an Anglo-culture thing? Obviously, I principally read in English so this might be specific to my language.
SC3K had a masterfully executed advisor system that felt both classy and warm. Ditto its music and art.
Unfortunately for SC4, they proceeded to make all the advisors 3D-rendered Sims. For SC2K, well:
https://www.somethingawful.com/news/simcity-advisors/4/
(that was the least offensive page to link; for the canonical experience start at page 1)
Sim City 3k is my least played Sim City game, but this is inspiring me to take another look. I really like the sweaty micromanagement and bigger scope of 4, but maybe I will prefer 3k's simplicity in my old age.
The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting, but it's at least proof that this isn't AI generated content...
> The picture caption with a 9/11 joke is a little off-putting
9/11 seems to be an important milestone in his life. In the about section of his web page it says this:
Q:/> How old are you?
A:/> I can't remember the collapse of the Soviet Union, but I can remember 9/11.
I must also admit to preferring Sim City 3000 over 4. I don't know if I can handle a 4K user interface without a magnifier, however.
Have you played SC4 with NAM?
Same.. I'd rather have it 2x scaling at half-resolution. Vision issues.
> SimCity 3000 is the best SimCity
I disagree! SimCity 2K FTW. :)
Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac. I'd love a retro-futuristic reboot.
what would be really cool is a first person world generated from simcity maps and you can walk around and go inside buildings etc
Great, and how does that translate if we want to run it 4k in Linux?
I run Arch. I purchased it on Steam last week after the dos.zone site was shared here and dropped the GOG executable in the steamapps directory, and it worked flawlessly with proton.
Nice! I'm going to have to try that now.
I was surprised to see SC3k described as isometric like 2k. I recall versions after 2k being "look anywhere" 3D, but I guess I missed some versions. So many games, like Railroad Tycoon post RRT2 and Worms went full 3D and gameplay was never the same.
I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time ...
A small frustration I have with playing old games is that the GOG/Steam version is always the PC original and the Mac versions almost always had far better sound and music and sometimes graphics.
Maybe you can play using an emulator. I use VMware to emulate Windows XP to play The Sims and it works great.
And when you say “PC original”, you really mean “DOS version wrapped in DOXBox”, because it's easier to ship that on both Windows and Mac than patching the Windows version for Windows, and shipping a Wine wrapper for Mac. (Have they ever shipped a Wine wrapper for anything? I don't think so.) What a shame.
I do really wish an application-level classic Mac OS emulator existed. There are lots of great full-system emulators for classic Macs (Basilisk II, SheepShaver, DingusPPC), but no Rosetta-style “make the old application run in the context of a new machine” execution environments. I'll grouse to whoever will listen that all of the best edutainment software of the '90s and early '00s is trapped on PPC Mac OS.
Probably the closest thing I remember existing to this was (in its "modern"-ish form) https://github.com/autc04/executor
Not quite what you're looking for I think but it was a Wine-style reimplementation of MacOS.
You can run the Windows 95 version of the game (similar to the Mac version) on modern computers with this patch: https://sc2kfix.net/ . It's definitely disappointing that GOG doesn't distribute that version. Stuff like this is why I have to keep a CD drive around.
You're thinking of simcopter maybe, which follwed 2K and was full 3D.
Sweeet well done, especially with the audio. I like this patch method much more than the HD Patch I've been using the last few years.
We played SimCity in my shop class at school on olds macs and i like picking it back up every now and then. It still holds up better than most new games.
Diablo 1 in 4k - https://i.imgur.com/4ResbPc.jpeg
I'd love to see to see this game remade and released. I'd buy it in a second.
Signs that you are old: I saw "in 4k" and thought that it was in 4 kilobytes, not 4k resolution
I hope GOG makes this all an easy to install mod/patch.
Replace the executable, even on a Steam copy.
Man, I played the fuck out of this game in my teens, it's in my top 5 best games ever made.
What A View! Sims Thrilled As Local Landscaping Artist Hosts DIY Expo
Obnoxious author. Refusing to 'pay twice' for a game they care enough about to go through all this trouble + deeply obnoxious bit about Windows 11 at the end of of the post.