SimCity Creator games review (From Croydon Guardian)

SimCity Creator - DS

3:52pm Wednesday 29th October 2008

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SimCity Creator (DS) Published by EA Games. £35 First released in 1989, SimCity quickly became a classic.

Created by Will Wright, the original concept – of slowly building a community from ready available parts - has undergone various, gradual transitions before arriving at its slick presentation of today.

Although much has remained the same, the latest incarnation provides both a challenge to the hardened SimCity fan, as well as a welcome break for your average gamer.

With its colourful graphics and jaunty music, the game initially feels like it is being aimed for the young. Indeed its age rating is 7+.

But once you delve into the intricacies of the game, you soon realise its actually quite complicated.

There are two ways of playing SimCity. The first is the “free play” mode, which lets you build at your own pace to your own specifications.

The second (and more rewarding) is the challenge mode. In this format you begin from scratch at the dawn of civilization.

Your city consists of a few shacks, and your overall aim at this stage is to feed your people whilst making sure their hunting paths are open.

It actually makes you think about how early communities must have fared.

Once you have achieved a certain population, you begin to progress through the ages.

Through Renaissance Europe to Industrial America and then finishing in a futuristic Asian landscape - your challenge is different depending on the age.

In Renaissance Europe, your job is to appease the people and stop riots.

This means providing the basics whilst keeping taxes at a low. In Industrial America, industry and commerce are required to boost your cities population, and you can only progress to the last age when you have acquired 100 per cent positive feedback from your city and its citizens.

The last age is the most similar to the present and the over-riding requirement of your population is the reduction in emissions.

Your last job is to make you city economically sound, and this is down by building greener areas as well as researching more effective technologies.

The game doesn’t just stop at building. As Mayor, you control taxes as well as your overall expenditure in the hope of increasing the happiness of your people, and therefore gain a better rating. You are helped in this by the inclusion of a sim button.

This allows you to access the judgments of your inhabitants, who might comment on anything from the state of the water supply to the lack of zoos!

This is satisfying entertainment. Seeing your city evolve from the stone-age is greatly rewarding and curiously addictive.

Anyone who owns a DS should acquire SimCity, as its shift to the hand held platform is a great success.

Score: 6 out of 10