SimCity 2000 and Streets of SimCity will allow you to do everything you want - Streets will load the same maps from SC2k and you can traverse them in cars. Also look at SimCity Societies, which doesn't let you "drive" but has much more detailed graphics and affords a street-level view.

Getting away from Maxis, you might consider some of the Tycoon games which allow "street level" view of whatever you're building, and Startopia which has detailed per-NPC views and is more micro-level/micro-managed.

Simcity 4 has a driving mode. Although it is rather terrible (top down view)

Still, it is quite nice visually overall.

I like Sim City 2000 best when it comes to city-building games 😀

The Tropico games are pretty good.
Not really city-building games but worth a mention.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tropico

obobskivich wrote:

SimCity 2000 and Streets of SimCity will allow you to do everything you want - Streets will load the same maps from SC2k and you can traverse them in cars. Also look at SimCity Societies, which doesn't let you "drive" but has much more detailed graphics and affords a street-level view.

I have tried Streets of Sim City a long time back - I had it years ago, and to me it's a real contender for the worst game ever. The theory is great, being able to drive around the cities that you build, but SOSS is so bland and badly done, for example, it only has one pedestrian model (and you never see two or more pedestrians together, and the one pedestrian you see seems to walk sideways), the buildings look unconvincing, and you get little feeling of movement in the game, from what I remember.

Worse are the bugs - you can drive straight over some rivers and parts of the sea, but others cause your car to explode. Sometimes the camera view is blocked by a building, so that all you can see is the side of a house instead of your car, and other times (when the camera view is not a problem!) you can see through buildings. I seem to recall other bugs, like the car suddenly somehow facing the opposite way to the way you were driving, and the car handling very badly. And the game gave no feeling of taking place in a living, breathing city.

Thanks for the suggestion, but unless Streets of Sim City was patched (or actually re-built from the ground up!) then I don't think I want to revisit it at all.

Getting away from Maxis, you might consider some of the Tycoon games which allow "street level" view of whatever you're building, and Startopia which has detailed per-NPC views and is more micro-level/micro-managed.[/quote]

I've not tried any Tycoon (except for Roller Coaster Tycoon, I think) or Startopia, so I'll look them up, thanks.

Skyscraper wrote:

I like Sim City 2000 best when it comes to city-building games 😀

That game was great, I liked it a lot.

smeezekitty wrote:

Simcity 4 has a driving mode. Although it is rather terrible (top down view)

Still, it is quite nice visually overall.

Hmmm, not really what I wanted (just looked on Youtube), I'd prefer a first person driving view. Thanks though.

SimCopter is still favorably regarded, isn't it?

Something else I thought of, since the "first person driving view" and "living breathing city" points seem to be fairly important - have you considered any of the action sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto, The Getaway, Driver, Saints Row, etc? That'll get you to the graphical/AI/etc quality you seem to want, and you can cruise around in a city (or collection of cities) and do whatever you like. As far as a game that lets you build the entire city and then also sandbox in it, apart from SC2k + SOSC I'm not remembering any other options.

You may also look at "God" games like SimCity Societies, Cultures, Diggles, Black & White, etc which give you more involvement with individual "citizens" of the village/city/etc you've built and are more detailed than something like SimCity 2000 or 3000 which have a somewhat abstracted nature. Finally, if I remember right one of the newer SimCity games has integration with The Sims, which may also be worth a look.

obobskivich wrote:

Something else I thought of, since the "first person driving view" and "living breathing city" points seem to be fairly important - have you considered any of the action sandbox games like Grand Theft Auto, The Getaway, Driver, Saints Row, etc? That'll get you to the graphical/AI/etc quality you seem to want, and you can cruise around in a city (or collection of cities) and do whatever you like.

You're right of course. I love some of the open world driving/action games, such as the GTA games (San Andreas is stil my favourite, though GTA V is close), The Saboteur, Saint's Row 3, etc. I didn't like the Getaway or it's sequel, sadly, as (to me) most of the changes were for the worst, such as the way you had no full screen map, only the car's indicators showed the way to the objective, so you never knew if a big shortcut would save time, and the way you couldn't rotate the camera. And didn't it have unskippable cutscenes too? I really wanted to like the Getaway and it's sequel (I'm English, and I wanted a GTA game set in England) but it's flaws really spoiled the game, IMHO.

As far as a game that lets you build the entire city and then also sandbox in it, apart from SC2k + SOSC I'm not remembering any other options.

You may also look at "God" games like SimCity Societies, Cultures, Diggles, Black & White, etc which give you more involvement with individual "citizens" of the village/city/etc you've built and are more detailed than something like SimCity 2000 or 3000 which have a somewhat abstracted nature. Finally, if I remember right one of the newer SimCity games has integration with The Sims, which may also be worth a look.

I'll look them up, thanks. Some already recommended SimCity Societies to me, and it sounds interesting. Cities: Skylines, released this coming March might be great too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities:_Skylines

I think SimCity 64 had some sort of first-person view, but I don't think it is emulated yet.

Kerr Avon wrote:

You're right of course. I love some of the open world driving/action games, such as the GTA games (San Andreas is stil my favourite, though GTA V is close), The Saboteur, Saint's Row 3, etc. I didn't like the Getaway or it's sequel, sadly, as (to me) most of the changes were for the worst, such as the way you had no full screen map, only the car's indicators showed the way to the objective, so you never knew if a big shortcut would save time, and the way you couldn't rotate the camera. And didn't it have unskippable cutscenes too? I really wanted to like the Getaway and it's sequel (I'm English, and I wanted a GTA game set in England) but it's flaws really spoiled the game, IMHO.

There's always GTA 1969 - it's not 3D though. 😊

I'll look them up, thanks. Some already recommended SimCity Societies to me, and it sounds interesting. Cities: Skylines, released this coming March might be great too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cities:_Skylines

I think I mentioned SCS above, but it might've gotten lost in the SOSS discussion. 😊

Another thing I thought of - I know there's a few "open world survival" games that encourage the player to build some sort of fortification. I know this kind of gameplay exists as a mod for Fallout 3, but there are full-length games built around this concept as well (unfortunately I'm drawing a blank on names though... 🤣).

Jorpho wrote:

I think SimCity 64 had some sort of first-person view, but I don't think it is emulated yet.

Yes, but as you say it's not yet emulated (nor can you play it on a real N64 using a flash cartridge, though hopefully this will change at some point), and it's all in Japanese.

To see the first person view, see

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kAo7yst-cug

and go to 8:25