Verkehr(te) Welt

I have already explained the features of the only expansion for SimCity 4 up above. What it has to offer musically, on the other hand, comes now. At this point I could refer to the review of the main game and use phrases like "Jerry Martin continues with consistency here what he has already started in SimCity 4 ", but that would be both an accurate and abbreviated description ... too abbreviated!

There is no doubt that this album remains true to its formulaic lack of formality. Nevertheless, the eleven-track score for Rush Hour expands the main game with the facet of classical music, without drifting off in the direction of genre relatives such as Cities: Skylines . Even though both sound the same tune, as with Dig Deep they are fundamentally different at their core.

Games from the SimCity-series

SimCity 2000 (1993)

SimCity 3000 (1999)

SimCity 64 (2000)

SimCity 4 (2003)

Jerry Martin and the other composers do not present us with classic video game music, but rather traditional ... classical music. The score seems to have been borrowed from 2001: A Space Odyssey or a historical drama rather than an urban planning simulation. Bach instead of building? A bit. Taken on its own, you could get the feeling that SimCity 4 is a much more 'ordinary' strategy game, whose musical accompaniment more clearly emulates that of the first Sims , rather than paving the way for the poppier Sims 2, which was to be released a year later.

Indeed, tracks such as Floating Population and Deserted are reminiscent of a mixture of big city meets Peter and the Wolf. Wheels of Progress on the other hand, has a certain movie-noire feel. And Bombay and Arctica have that unmistakably 'Indian' feel. On the other hand, my favorite from the score is ElectriCITY, again by The Humble Brothers, who don't care about stringency to the rest of the album and create a proper breakbeat mood.

As these songs from the add-on mix with those from the main game during gameplay, they are an interesting addition, but the overall work is not a classic video game soundtrack. For me personally, I would have liked a little more of the original SimCity 4 , but I'm not sad about the new course. The pieces are really nice to listen to and could well appear in any play or travel documentary. Just something like a good background music.