I Miss Sim City 2000

I could have been a gamer. There was a window of time there between I'd say the 4th Grade and the 11th Grade when it could have happened. But I never owned a video game console of any kind (shocking, I know) and my promised Sega Genesis just wasn't worth the effort of paying attention enough to get those straight A's in 8th Grade (I think it was 8th Grade anyway) which is probably why my parents made that promise. They knew a safe bet when they saw one.

No, games passed me by. And then, damn it technology got too advanced and all the cool games became too much of a hassle to play. I mean, who wants to play Sim City when it's exactly like real life with sewer management and all the annoyances and headaches of a real city? You played those games to escape. You played those games to create something cool and futz with the budget to make yourself get unlimited money to do it. Sure, you tried to play it straight a few times but as soon as you found that unlimited cash trick with the budget in Sim City 2000, it was game on.

I had a Special Edition of Sim City 2000 at one point- with bonus disaster scenarios and a collection of cities from a design contest that you could play with including the coolest of them all, Egypt Falls. (At least that's what I remember this being called... not sure what the 2BILL business is.) I had sooooooooooooo much fun with that city. You could make more land by raising terrain, play with adding more water to the waterfalls- I kicked ass with this city.

But then it got all weird and crazy with The Sims and Sim City 3000 and Streets of Sim City. Really and truly, Sim City 2000 was that perfect balance between awesomeness and too much work. I've only found a few games like that since. Civilization was another kick ass one- the original one- maybe CivII as well. I tried the stupid Facebook Civ Game they have now and it just annoyed me. I also spent hours wandering through Escape Velocity and EV: Override (both AWESOME games...)

I dallied with the first-person shooter genre with Bungie's Marathon Trilogy but never really got into any subsequent follow-ups. I also managed to dodge Warcraft- though I did play it a little bit too.

Console games? I think the lack of a console hurt me there. I was OK at Street Fighter, never really got into Mortal Kombat and was crap at NCAA Football. Grand Theft Auto I rocked at it in college (oh those storied days and nights with the PS2). I tended to rock harder at the racing games than anything else- and while Goldeneye for N64 was a classic, one could only hide in the bathroom and waste people for so many rounds before everyone caught on and started throwing grenades in before they went to take a leak.

Now it just seems like the gaming world has passed me by. I don't know what Skyrim is. The one time I played Halo I was very very bad at it. So occasionally, I sit and think and get a little nostalgic for those by gone days of Sim City 2000.

(BONUS: Myst, Warlords, Lemmings, Worms, Command HQ... and so many more I can't even think of right now. All awesome and all sadly missed.)