SimCity 2000
Hacker ApprovedShares rank 2 of 21 city builder games by recommenders
Recommended as a fun, nostalgic city builder with engaging problems to solve. Critics say the simulation feels simplistic and the pipes frustrate.
Recommended as a fun, nostalgic city builder with engaging problems to solve. Critics say the simulation feels simplistic and the pipes frustrate.
27 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 20
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 74%
Recommended in 11 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 20 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 2.9 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 11 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Formative nostalgic favorite for many
“One game that changed my life was SimCity 2000. It shaped how I think about building products”
Comment from 21 Dec 2025 in “From SimCity 2000 to Ruby on Rails: How Games Sparked My Love of Orchestration” “SimCity 2000 and especially SimCity 4 had a huge impact on me growing up”
Comment from 6 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: Swarm – Program a colony of 200 ants using a custom assembly language” “after already having had a blast with Sim City 2000”
Comment from 17 Sep 2026 in “Lucasart's Afterlife” - Comment from 1 Oct 2026 in “Hacking SimCity 2000 saved games”
Complex simulation with interesting problems
“It's so much more enjoyable because it's simply about playing a game where complex simulations put together interesting problems to solve.”
Comment from 1 Nov 2025 on Hacker News “it's probably considered one of the greatest games of the 90s”
Comment from 30 Sep 2026 in “Hacking SimCity 2000 saved games” Runs well on old Macs
“I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “SimCity 3k in 4k” “Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac”
Comment from 27 May 2026 in “SimCity 3k in 4k”
Other city builder games people recommend
The four most recommended other city builder games, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SimCity 3000 | 23 | 2 | 92% | 5 | — | Approved |
| SimCity 2000This page | 20 | 7 | 74% | 11 | — | Approved |
| SimCity | 20 | 12 | 63% | 9 | — | — |
| Cities: Skylines | 20 | 18 | 53% | 9 | — | — |
| Microlandia | 20 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
What people said
23 of the 28 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“there's even a version of SimCity 2000 for GBA that is much better than my game”
“But it was virtually unplayable.”
“I loved SimCity 2000. But the game became nonsense (for me at least) when it came down to the pipes under the city.”
“Good times, makes me nostalgic.”
“the core loop in this game basically boiled down to the proportion of zones to each other”
“it's probably considered one of the greatest games of the 90s”
“What I like about sim city 2K is that it is like an arcade sim game. It is super easy to get up and running without too much prior knowledge.”
“after already having had a blast with Sim City 2000”
“I just wish the Maxis games retained that awesome simulator feel and Win32 GDI integration that SimCity 2000 had”
“Start > Programs > Maxis > SimCity 2000 is psuedocode for what I just did.”
“Worst might be SC2K for N64.”
“can't fix anything when you can't build anything”
“actually called them to rave about it”
“Best balance of complexity IMO and ran pretty well on my old Mac”
“I actually keep a Basilisk II System 7.5 Mac environment just so that I can play SC2k from time to time”
“the new version was significantly better than the original”
“SimCity 2000 and especially SimCity 4 had a huge impact on me growing up”
“It's fuzzier sketching, more aimless fun as I've gotten older.”
“SimCity games may be really fun to play but they seem to reinforce this problem”
“the simulation seems rather simplistic”
“or SimCity 2000, or even newer things like or GoldenEye 007 or System Shock”
“One game that changed my life was SimCity 2000. It shaped how I think about building products”
“It's so much more enjoyable because it's simply about playing a game where complex simulations put together interesting problems to solve.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.