Genre:  Simulation
Platform:  PC

Sim City has been around for so long that I played this in 7th grade.  My school actually used this game to teach us about local government and city planning.  I was hooked immediately and spent a ton of time playing Sim City original, often referred to now as Sim City classic.  There have been many city builders since this one, but it was the original.

The graphics were basic, but the depth of the game was impressive.  We were introduced to the three most common zones – industrial, commercial and residential.  It was just those three, but the foundations were there.  Residential folks didn’t like living next to industrial, you didn’t want to overdo the commercial, etc.  Traffic was an issue, as it has been in every Sim City game to date, you needed to be careful with your fire station placement as it was critical and you NEVER removed funds from transportation or your advisor would get pretty angry.

The disasters actually made this one fun, too, as you didn’t have to have YEARS of recovery efforts to re-build.  I always enjoyed making a UFO attack or have a violent earthquake ravage my city.  It was so easy just to plop a new square down and watch it upgrade fairly quickly.

I still adore this game and play it from time to time.  Its relative simplicity compared to the games that followed is refreshing, but it’s still a satisfying game.  You can find this game online through free download or web-based pages.  If you’ve not played this one before or for a long time, go back and do so!