Product Description

With the SimCity 4 Rush Hour Expansion Pack your city is on the move. Get your Sims on the road to happiness as you take total control of your city's transportation. Take charge of vehicles en route to destinations or disasters and take to the streets to control your city at a new level. Put Sims on the move in zeppelins, helicopters, ferries and new cars. Unlock more vehicle choices as you gain traction with your city's transportation problems.

Choose from all-new road types including wide avenues, suspension bridges and one way streets. Map out a seamless regional network that whisks Sims from one city to another. Add popular structures such as historic rail stations or classic Americana road marks. Go global and create your city based on a modern European building set. Make your final mark as mayor and personalise your cities by choosing street names, mountains, neighbourhoods and points of interest. In SimCity 4 Rush Hour, put your foot on the gas and get your Sims on the go! Requires SimCity 4 to play

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #3727 in Computer & Video Games
• Brand: Electronic Arts
• Released on: 2003-09-26
• Platforms: Windows NT, Windows 98, Windows 2000, Windows Me, Windows XP

Amazon.co.uk Review
Requiring a copy of the original Sim City 4 to play, Rush Hour does something a little different for an expansion pack, with some quality ideas on top of the expected enhancements. Firstly, there's the traditional stuff. You get lots of new buildings, structures and such like to play with. There are more natural disasters you need to deal with, from police chases right down to alien invasions. And then there are more transportation tools as well, based on real-life systems across several American cities. All of these add significantly to your building palette, and justify the price of the expansion pack alone.

But there are yet more surprising additions: the U-Drive in particular is great fun, allowing you to take full control over a vehicle such as a helicopter or ambulance and make your way through the city you built. It adds a genuinely fresh perspective to the game, whether you choose to go on a journey for leisure or strategic purposes. So too do little details such as personalising the signposting of your city, be it to name the odd street or to mark future development. The devil in Sim City has always been in the detail, and Rush Hour is packed with cool little extras like these.

There are aren't many gripes: a powerful PC is recommended to get the most out of the pack, and you're not going to find every addition here useful. Nonetheless, full credit is due for an expansion pack that genuinely enhances the game it complements. --Simon Brew

Customer Reviews

My Favourite Game
Sim City 4 my favourite game, which got even better with the Rush Hour Expansion Pack. The ability to drive vehicles not only adds to the fun, it allows you to assess your transportation network and do missions, which result in money, major rating boost, or a new building. It is possible to get all the rewards from these so called "U-Drive-it" missions, so you don't have to wait until your in debt to get the army base for example.

There is now a useful tool called the Route Query. It is found just below the Query button, and allows you to see where all the inhabitants of a building are going to work, or where all the workers of a business are coming from. This is useful to find out what are your busiest roads i.e. ones that need upgrading.

The new roads are welcome as well. Avenues are basically double roads, which can be connected to roads and streets. They also offer high speeds, relaxing congestion. One way roads are the same size as roads but only allow traffic to flow in one direction. By replacing all your roads with one way ones, you may make U-Drive-it missions a little more complex, but they really serve transport problems. You can place two facing opposite directions next to each other, creating an effective Avenue (which costs 10 times less than an avenue to maintain and only twice the price of a normal road)

The My Sim mode also has an upgrade. Now you can drive the sims car if you want, and change it to any car equal to or below their wealth rating.

In the original Sim City 4, Agriculture did not pay taxes and you couldn't adjust taxes based on wealth of businesses. Now you can. By increasing taxes, you reduce demand, so you can get rid of Dirty Industry if you want and if you can afford it, while still having Manufacturing and High Tech Industry.

All in all, I believe this is the best game I have played. Building many cities may seem to be repetitive, but there are millions of possible city layouts and ideas for God Mode. No two cities are the same. It is the longest lasting game i have played. Maxis makes open-ended games, and this is no exception. But beware, this is very addictive. You will go into the game saying "I'll start an new city, and i'll leave it once i've got all my zoned areas filled." Before you know it, you will be the maker of a thriving metropolis. Where did the time go?

Sim City Amazing Somethimes
this is an excelent game if your computer is very fast, the graphics are truly amazing, you can not beat them, but if your computer is windows 98 i would give you some simple adice dont buy it, however if your computer it windows XP with 256mb memory, and your into builing games, this would be truly amazing, thanks to the creators of the game, jonathon kitching.

Drive Round Your Own City
I bought this on the spur of the moment, didn't really fancy driving around my city but then I thought why not. I am glad I did because it is not just driving/flying/sailing around the city you get rewards for completing a mission eg more cash, free building or a building you have to pay for.

The other thing is that you can set the level you want to play - easy, medium or hard. You get more money in the easy mode and more advice from your helpers.

I think it is definitely worth up grading your Sim City 4 to this version. Remember you do need Sim City 4 first because this is an expansion pack.

I certainly recommend it though I have to agree with one of the other reviewers here you find lots of dead end roads you have made when you are driving around the city. However, this does make you think a bit more about your roads because you might find yourself racing against the clock in the city and dead ends just cost you time.