As I said before, the point of all the SimCity games is that you are in charge of a city. You decide where the buildings go, where the roads go, which areas are industrial and commercial as opposed to residential and continue to expand as the years go by. You have to dispose of the waste produced by your citizens, provide the buildings with power and water. Quite similar to the Caesar series -Caesar III in particular is very similar to SimCity 3000 in several respects; for instance, the advisors. 
 

Unlike Caesar III, which is based on the Roman Empire, SimCity 3000 is based on the present, (Well, the near-past through the present into the future, which is basically the same thing) giving you all the mind-boggling complexity of a modern metropolis. The buildings are 3D-rendered, allowing you to rotate the map and look at the other sides of the building, which is sort of handy when you’re building skyscrapers that block your view of what’s on the other side. Buildings are distinct and easily recognizable, everything from ballparks and playgrounds to college campuses and zoos.

The sheer amount of activity in your city is breathtaking. Plant a hospital somewhere and you’ll see doctors and nurses in the vicinity, not to mention patients in wheelchairs. In the more residential areas, you’ll see kids skateboarding, while placing a school somewhere will cause little schoolbuses to move to & fro.
 

You’ll hear the sound of factory machinery, the roar of trains and cars honking horns, and see cops chasing crooks in high-crime areas and UFOs making crop circles. No more bland and uninteresting cities. Well, compared to about 80 building types in SimCity 2000, the new game boasts over 400 different building types, plus maps that are up to four times larger than in the previous version, so you have absolutely no excuse if your city looks monotonous.

Speaking of building types, you also the option of adding some real-life landmarks to your cities. Well, the Sphinx is a bit incongruous and the White House is a matter of personal taste, but there’s always the Eiffel Tower, Big Ben or the Empire State Building for that perfect skyline, not to mention an agreeable mix of styles. More such buildings, such as the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, are downloadable at www.simcity3000.com, while Maxis has also made available a building editor tool for download, so that you can design your own buildings. If you don’t want to add real-life landmarks but still want that perfect skyline, you can make your own by marking a building as a historic landmark. Such buildings will not change as the game progresses.