Your goal with Maxis’ new SimTower is simple: to build,
develop, and manage a profitable skyscraper. At your dis-
posal you have Condominiums, office buildings, fast food
restaurants, retail shops, elevators, and more. Based up-
on Maxis’ SimCity, SimEarth and other Sim games, Sim-
Tower holds true to the Maxis tradition of providing great
entertainment, while also being ubiquitously educational.
Before you can achieve your goal, you must meet certain requirements. As in other Sim games your residents or Sim Citizens must be kept happy. In SimTower you must also acquire five star ratings; with each star comes new tools, or features you can use to help you in your quest. For example, when you receive one star (it is gained from reaching a population level of three hundred), you have the ability to add security offices and hotel rooms. Although you receive new tools with each star, you must always meet certain requirements before you receive them—and it is not always simple.
To keep you on your toes you must contend with terrorists who want to blow up your building, VIPs who visit and rate your building, and very impressionable and demanding citizens. One of the unique aspects of this game is that you can name and keep track of your citizens. Once you have named them you can track them down at any time, you can see where they are, where they are going, and what their stress level is. If they become unhappy or too stressed they will (as will any tenant) move out.
 
Keep your tenants happy—or they will leave.
In building your tower, you initially have the option to add condominiums, offices, and fast food restaurants. The game really gets interesting and challenging when you receive more stars and can add other things such as hotel rooms and suites, service and express elevators, medical centres, parking spaces, recycling centers, and much, much more. SimTower has a maximum height of one hundred stories; you are limited to twenty elevators shafts (normal shafts are limited to thirty floors), you can have a maximum of ten security levels and medical centers. You can build lobbies every fifteen floors, and it is very important that you provide reliable elevator service to and from lobbies. (Poor service is the number one cause of SimCitizen stress.)
SimTower plays relatively slow on a Power Macintosh 7100/66av running in emulation mode. Scrolling through your building can sometimes be laborious. Along with the complexity of this games comes a high learning curve. As in other Sim games, time is always a factor. SimTower operates on quarters. (i.e. ‘2nd WD/4Q/1st Year’—second weekday of the fourth quarter of the first year). I find that time moves much too slowly, but unlike other games (such as SimCity 2000), what you can build is not determined by what year you have surpassed. Each item that you build, whether it be an office or a condominium, costs you money. You are initially give two million dollars, and if you are not careful it can easily run out before you have built five stories.
SimTower is worthwhile investment for die-hard SimFans or for aspiring landlords. It is engaging and challenging, and most importantly, realistic.
