Build your ideal city on the DS (SimCity Creator (DS))

Member Name: julwhite

Product:	SimCity Creator (DS)
Date:	01/05/09 (78 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Great game, working through different periods of time keeps your interest up

Disadvantages: Limited by the size of the screen, sometimes a bit difficult to use

SimCity Creator is a game for the Nintendo DS. The game is ideal for those who like the tycoon and sim series of games, in this case seeing a city which you develop changes throughout the generations.

I remember getting SimCity for the Amiga over twenty years ago, and it was my favourite game for many months. A version of SimCity has been released for the DS before, but this version is less financial based and more based on building through different periods.

You can choose between playing in two different ways, either playing the free play mode or the challenge mode. The free play mode lets you build your cities from any era, whilst the challenge mode gives you a storyline so that you can play cities working through the different periods of history. The challenge mode is the only to go for first, as this allows you to unlock buildings and features, which you can then play using the free play mode.

Using the challenge mode you start off in a stone age mode, and as your city gets bigger and grows in size, that's when you can move forward into playing in a new game era. There are a good selection of different areas to play, covering ancient Asia (and indeed modern Asia), the renaissance periods and the development of the United States. Watch out for the global warming maps towards the end of the game!

Game play wise, the game is easy to pick up and play. I did find, as I always did with my first efforts with SimCity on the Amiga, that the game area is too small, and I wanted to build much bigger cities. I enjoyed building my cities in this game, and watching the landmarks from each age of the game being constructed, and then lasting for many more ages whilst everything changes around them.

There are as usual lots of different measures of how well you're doing. You can see the average life expectancy of your population, as well as their education and health levels, and how safe the population feel from crime. There's always lots of options to be able to select to keep you busy whilst growing the city.

The graphics I found to be more than adequate, and I did enjoy seeing the buildings develop in their different formats through the different periods of time. Sometimes the controls were a bit difficult to use in terms of selecting the right items with the stylus to construct and so on, but this is really an unfortunate feature given the size of the Nintendo DS's screen. Given the limitations of what the programmers were working around, I think that they've done a very good job.

The music in the game isn't too bad, it does change as you progress through the game, but as with quite a few DS games, I did find it a bit repetitive after a while.

If you have multiple DS units, you can use Nintendo's wireless feature to be able to swap landscapes with friends, so you can see how others are building and developing their cities. I didn't use this option, but it seems a useful addition to the game which might add some life to it.

The game is available for just under 13 pounds from Amazon, a smaller reduction then they usually offer as the game only retails for 14.99 pounds.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game. If you enjoy the idea of building a city, this is likely to appeal. A well thought through game, limited only really for me by the size of the screen.

Summary: A great game, many hours of gameplay!