SimEarth: The Living Planet
| a game by | Tomcat System |
| Genre: | Simulation |
| Platform: |
 SNES
|
| Editor Rating: | 6.1/10, based on 4 reviews, 5 reviews are shown |
| User Rating: | 4.7/10 - 3 votes |
| Rate this game: | |
| See also: | SimCity Games |
DownloadsLast year Nintendo released SimCity for the SNES and video gamers were turned on to a totally new category of exciting gaming called "Software Toys". Sure, all video games are toys. By definition though, a Software Toy has no winner or loser and the rules are less defined than in regular video games. These games encourage players to use their imaginations to create, instead of their thumbs to destroy.
It's Alive
FCI is bringing another top-selling computer Software Toy, SimEarth, to the SNES. SimEarth is a complex, but impressive, planet simulator. With a little help from this toy, and a lot of help from your own brain cells, you can create and manage your own world by manipulating its environment.
SimEarth is based upon the Gaia Theory. Proponents of the theory believe that the various components of the Earth's environment interact like those of a living breathing organism. You don't need to understand Gaia, however, to successfully play this game. All you need to understand is that the growth of life forms change a planet's environment. A planet's life forms, atmosphere, geosphere, and biosphere are interrelated. Naturally, the life forms on your planet are called SimEarthlings.
A Whole World in Your Hands
SimEarth is sort of a sequel to SimCity, but this game is much more complex and less intuitive than that city-building game. In fact, you'll need to spend a considerable amount of time learning how this "toy" operates before you can truly explore the wonders of developing your own living, breathing planet.
If you're looking for mindless fun, look elsewhere. SimEarth requires serious thought of the scientific bent. You control every imaginable aspect of the environment, and a few you'd never imagine. For example, you set atmosphere, determine rainfall, create land masses, control erosion, regulate the internal temperature of the planet, and even set the carbon dioxide absorption rate of plants. A surprisingly easy to read manual succinctly explains all the terminology you'll need to know.
Creating life is what this game's all about. There are 15 classes of life in the game, each with 16 species. Life forms range from Bacteria to Mammals. You can even have Dinosaurs walk your planet. In general, your goal is to create a favorable environment that over time enables your chosen life form to advance up the evolutionary scale, develop a civilization, and survive without polluting the planet to death or destroying it with a nuclear war.
ProTips:
- If water-based life forms stop evolving, you need to create more shallow water areas. Land-based life forms need enough carbon dioxide, and the right balance of oxygen and air pressure.
- To reduce the number of randomly occurring wars, allocate energy to Philosophy. To prevent Plagues, invest energy in Medicine.
- Once your planet enters the Information Age, raise Science and Medicine on the Energy Allocation menu to their maximum levels. There are several different world- building options in SimEarth. The First Scenario features eight planets for you to experiment on! Random Planet enables you to work on Earth in four of its different developmental time periods. Daisy World enables you to test the Gaia Theory.
Worlds Without End
Like any detailed RPG, each simulation within SimEarth is designed to take many hours to complete. If you're looking for an extremely in-depth, scientific, environmentally-conscious game that'll capture your imagination, check out SimEarth. You might just become an almighty force in the video game galaxy.
Download SimEarth: The Living Planet
System requirements:
- PC compatible
- Operating systems: Windows 10/Windows 8/Windows 7/2000/Vista/WinXP
- Pentium II (or equivalent) 266MHz (500MHz recommended), RAM: 64MB (128MB recommended), DirectX v8.0a or later must be installed
Game Reviews
- FCI / Super NES
The "Sim" series of involving simulations makes another appearance on the Super NES with Sim Earth! This is not just any simulation, though. You must choose a barren planet and nurse it to life with plants, trees and, of course, humans!
The game is operated on a slide bar format where you make minute adjustments to conditions and help life to spawn with special icons. As the population increases, so will the problems that occur.
Play SimEarth and create new worlds and civilizations...then watch over them for a few Billion years! There's never been another world like the one you build.. and there's never been another game like SimEarth. Move mountains, destroy continents. Watch the results of volcanos, earthquakes and tidal waves. Each and every second you'll be making decisions that will have incredible repercussions billions of years into the future!
Let your creative juices flow with SimEarth, the sequel to FCI's popular simulatorSim City! This time around, you must create a planet, keeping in mind that you are responsible for making it an environmentally safe place to live. Humans will eventually make their appearance, and bring with them a multitude of modern-day problems. Try to preserve your utopia while learning a lot about the environment!
People say:
!l like the idea of being able to grow a city (Sim City) or in this case, an entire planet. The amount of effort this game demands, however, don't balance out the rewards that successful playing generates. This is not a bad game by any means, it's simply not going to appeal to those searching for snappy feedback.
Sim City was a great game to pass the time with. The ability to try many different 'what if situations was great...to a point. After a while it stopped being fun and I lost interest in the game. After all, this isn't a game you can beat. Sim Earth is the same. The 'what ifs' are larger in scale but again, you can only go so far.
This game covers a lot of details and people who mastered SimCity may even be challenged. The game is filled with interesting problems and gives you a chance to see how hard it really is for a planet to support life. I am not usually drawn to this type of game, and unless you have hours to devote to it don't bother with this cart.
Ever wanted to create your own world and run with it? I have, and SimEarth is just what I've been waiting for! I love being able to go in and make my planet thrive or see how fast I can tumble it to oblivion! The options are endless, and besides being slow, it really is a great strategy game for SimCity fans.
SimEarth, a long time favorite of computer games, is now making its way to Super Famicom players. SimEarth is similar to another popular title SimCity. However, SimEarth lets build an entire PLANET! Once you name your planet, you must create the basic landscape for the lifeforms to exist. After a million or so years, you can start the evolution process to enhance the life on your planet. You can also create floods, famines, droughts, and fires to wipe out certain life forms if need be! All of the particular functions are contained within simple icons to use. When the humans eventually evolve, expect your planet to radically change. The humans will start wars, tear down forests, and pollute the environment. SimEarth is the ultimate simulation game for players of the PC version, and fans of the other Sim series.
Snapshots and Media
SNES/Super Nintendo/Super Famicom Screenshots
