If you are student then it might be possible that your school/college participated in University programme offered by almost all EDA tool vendors. You can check within your college/school lab. that student version is available or not.
I think vcs is good simulator.If you are a student and cannot spend much on simulation tools my best suggestion is lool for a simulator called cver.in most of the times i have found it to be usefull.There is free waveform viewer called dinotrace which also u can make use of .