Snapturtle

Ever since I first played the “original SimCity”:http://simcity.ea.com/play/simcity_classic.php on a black and white Mac Plus I’ve been addicted to sim-style games. SimCity 2000 was released in 1993 with full 256 color. I played SC2000 to death and I’m actually still playing it now via the Game Boy Advance (although I don’t recommend the horrid GBA port).

Most recently I’ve been playing “Impressions Games”:http://games.sierra.com/games/impressions/ “city building series”:http://games.sierra.com/games/impressions/citybuilding.html which includes “Caesar III”:http://www.sierra.com/product.do?gamePlatformId=289, “Pharaoh”:http://www.sierra.com/product.do?gamePlatformId=121, and “Zeus”:http://games.sierra.com/games/zeus/. Unfortunately those games are only available on Windows (except for Ceasar although I don’t own the Mac version) so I’m been missing city building as I stopped using Windows last year when I got my iBook.

Enter “Zoo Tycoon”:http://www.microsoft.com/games/zootycoon/ and “SimCity 4″:http://www.simcity.com on Mac. I can’t seem to get enough of these two games. Zoo Tycoon reminds me a lot of the Impressions Games due to the pixel style graphics (which I love) and SimCity 4 is sim gaming on graphical steroids.

Zoo Tycoon also has an expansion pack available for the Mac entitled “Marine Mania” and includes some awesome new features such as animal shows and game interface improvements. Something I discovered while browsing the official “Windows versions web site”:http://www.microsoft.com/games/zootycoon/, there are some downloadable animals available. I fired off an email to Aspyr (publishers of the Mac version) and they told me that these where not compatible with the Mac version. Not believing them I tried some for myself. While all the .ztd (Zoo Tycoon Data files) are compatible with either version, the Mac version can not use the language files ending in the Windows only .dll format. So, you can download some of the animals like the “Yeti” without any problems, but other animals that have an included .dll file will work but you won’t get any of the text information related to the animal. Kind of a bummer I know but after peaking through some of the Mac source files, it looks like these .dll language files where converted into .lang files on the Mac. Oh and if you do “download the animals”:http://www.microsoft.com/games/zootycoon/downloads.asp#bonus that do work, make sure to put them into the “Updates” folder under the root Zoo Tycoon folder.

SimCity 4 actually has a very active user community. The main resource I’ve found for new content is “Simtropolis”:http://www.simtropolis.com/. This site is huge! There are downloadable lots (new buildings), mods, and regions. Some of the regions are very cool including scaled maps of various countries to start your own cities on. A lot of these downloads will work on the Mac but some won’t. It’s mainly very trial and error and I’ve found that the user community is very helpful to new users so don’t be afraid to ask for help in the forums.