Remember plugging away at the old SimCity games? Struggling to keep your metropolis booming while balancing your budget? Did you ever get irritated at that game and just give up? The latest SimCity for the DS attempts to make city building more fun and less of a struggle. Don’t get me wrong there are still challenges to be had but no where near as many as previous versions.
In SimCity Creator you are the mayor/chief/ruler (depending on the time period you are in) of a growing civilization. You get to decide where to build everything from roads to castles to farms. Each time you reach your goal population you move forward to a more modern age. But each age becomes increasingly more complex and complicated adding to the challenge as you continue through the ages. The graphics are decent for the Nintendo DS and the ability to zoom in slightly helps you place your buildings more specifically and is a welcome addition for people with shaky paws.
The currency through the ages will even change. In the prehistoric age the only currency is the wood used to make buildings. Then as you move up you will be able to tax your civilization and industrialize your city. But you can also stick to lots of farms and stay away from industrialization. Overall it is good that there are multiple buildings to choose from in each category allowing a diverse number of ways to form your city. As my huge city grew larger and larger a big flaw started to show in the gameplay. There was a huge amount of slow downs and latency issues when trying to place buildings in an already congested area of town. So much so that it took away significantly from the gameplay.
The sound was usual for a DS game and usually sunk into the background as I put down hundreds of houses in one fell swoop of the stylus. Putting down buildings is extremely easy in this game using the stylus and it is very well developed for the DS. You can either place a building one by one by selecting it and pressing the stylus on each location or you can press your stylus on a location and drag across to create a square of buildings which will not attempt to build over any obstructions. Just remember to build your roads before doing this otherwise you will find yourself bulldozing most of your civilization’s homes.
There seems to be a lack of gameplay modes to choose from in SimCity Creator. The modes include challenge which is a mode where in single player you try to survive till the last age, and in multiplayer you try to get to the last age first. Then there is the last mode which is freeform. You have all the freedom to do whatever you want to your city and it really is just for messing around without any objectives or goals to worry about.
Final Verdict
Overall SimCity Creator is a fun time, and even though the latency can be frustrating at times it doesn’t completely destroy the experience and is more of a hindrance. If you enjoy civilization building games this should be a good game to give a chance.
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