|
HOME
SIMCITY 4 SIMCITY 3000 THE SIMS 2 THE SIMS SPORE CLASSIC SIMS FORUMS |
Screenshot Analysis There are many official and unofficial screenshots of SimCity 4 out there on the internet. We gathered a few shots and did an analysis of each part. Click on the red areas of the following screenshots to see a description of what that is or what that is believed to be. 
Better graphics, better city: Compare this screenshot of the Golden Gate Bridge to a screenshot of the Golden Gate Bridge in SimCity 3000 (if you have the Computer Gaming World May 2002 issue, you'll find that comparison on page 63). Notice how smoother the graphics are in SimCity 4? This is especially visible on the Golden Gate Bridge. In SimCity 3000, the bridge is too red, and the supports are too thick. In SimCity 4, the graphics look a lot better. The bridge is a darker shade of red, the supports look great. Also, look at the water in SimCity 4. It is a shade of green, and it looks like water. From SimCity Classic to SimCity 3000, the water was pure blue.Thisone looks a lot better. Back to Screenshot Avenue Bridge? Take a look at the bridge. Look carefully. There are two rows of cars on one side of the road. This means that what we have here is an avenue bridge. This confirms that avenues are now their own type of road, and not two normal roads placed next to each other. However, there is a small thing to worry about. See this. Back to Screenshot Row, row, row your boat: Nice boat. It even has that water trail right behind it. This is an improvment over the boats of SimCity 3000; those just went over the water without leaving a trail. In SimCity 4, boats could actually serve some purpose. Some reviews say Maxis is trying to implement farries. This could be interesting. Back to Screenshot The water... reflects! More graphical improvment with the water: there is a reflection of the bridge visible on the water! This is a far cry from SimCity 3000, where water was as reflective as dirt. This also supports the idea that SimCity 4 is fully 3D. With this realism, I'm sure nobody can wait to get the game. Back to Screenshot She sells sea shells by the sea shore: Once more, the water. Notice the white part of the water? On the beach? Waves. That's right, SimCity 4 even has waves. And if it has waves, who knows what else it could have! Perhaps we'll see floods again. And hurricanes. Wind could become a factor. The waves are very realistic. They hit the sand, then pull back, hit the sand... etc. And the beach looks great too. Only no one is actually on the beach. SimCity 4 is probably stuck with the old SimCity way of doing things: Sims only go between zones, and never bother camping in the wild or going to the beach. But who knows? Maybe we'll see sims on the beach before long. Back to Screenshot Mountain Road: Look carefully at that road. Then forget about it. Look even more carefully at the cliff that is below it. The cliff seems to be a little... well, the graphics for the cliff are very rough. It seems as though the grass sticks over the cliff a little, and the cliff looks way too straight to look natural. Perhaps this will be fixed by the time the game is released, but don't count on it. These things are hard to make in the game, and they did a good job of it even as it currently is. Back to Screenshot Where the road meets the bridge: Look at the bridge, then at the avenue, then at the bridge again. Notice the change in color of the line that seperates the lane. It goes from a solid white line to a solid yellow one. And look carefully as well. The avenue has the striped line between the lanes on one side of the road. It looks like the bridge doesn't. I think they haven't quite made diffrent bridges for the game, but rather, made the avenue bridge a larger version of the bridge of a normal road. This could possibly be changed by the time SimCity 4 is released. Perhaps not. One thing should be mentioned, though. The transition from the bridge to the road is smooth, and it doesn't look like they are two diffrent types of road. Back to Screenshot |
|
|
SimGlobal 5.0 © 2001-2007 Cameron Robertson and Matej Znidarcic. Contact Webmaster Best viewed in 1024 x 768 or above, IE6+ or Firefox 1.0+. |
||
