Review: SimCity DS.

Before we go any further I’m just going to come right out and say it; SimCity DS is a highly addictive game. If a game keeps you up to the wee small hours playing it (in this case, around 6am) then you’d be hard pressed to argue that the game has no redeeming qualities. Redeeming? You ask? Well, as addictive as this game may be it, like many other games, suffers from a number of problems that annoyingly snatch a ‘must own’ title out of its cowering hands.

For those of you who have never played a SimCity game before - which, if this is the case, you deserve to be shot – the game is all about building a city. Of course, you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to figure that one out but it’s not as simple as it may sound. Your city planning will be split into three different zones; commercial, industrial, and residential – and it’s up to you to come up with a plan that will hopefully present you with a working city and a nice amount of profit coming back in return. Still sound easy? Well, on top of that you have to supply the basic necessities of water and power, figure out a good transit route consisting of roads and railways in order for your Sims to get to work without being stuck in traffic all day, and keep Sims happy with police stations, hospitals, parks and schools to name but a few. If you haven’t played a SimCity game before and are trying to figure out how this can possibly be fun then let the detailed tutorial guide you through the basic aspects of the game or you’ll find that being in constant debt doesn’t make for the most entertaining gaming session.

So, now we’ve got the basics out of the way I’ll lead you on to the first frustration of the game. It doesn’t say so on the box but you’ll probably want a spade handy if you’re going to play this game. No, you won’t be digging any holes with it; you’ll be whacking your advisor repeatedly over the head. After the random personality test has matched you with an advisor you’ll be, at first, happy with the company. You see, the advisor can be pretty helpful at times. You’ll be notified about what your city needs through the advisor and the various ‘important’ guests she calls you back to the office for. At first you’ll be happy that some Grandma came and informed you that the city needs more hospitals but, after the hundredth time and having just placed ten hospitals down, it can get annoying – especially since your advisor tends to agree and makes you feel bad like shooting them when you decline. Unfortunately you can’t fire the advisor but I suppose the game would be a lot harder without some kind of guidance.

When the advisor isn’t bothering you with some Fireman who thinks the city needs yet another stadium they’re screaming that there’s a fire or similar disaster somewhere in town. Blowing into the mic can put out fires but, in my experience, there’s little point because the fire tends not to spread if you’ve got a few fire stations. This leads me on to the various mini-games that will constantly interrupt your labours. Whether it’s tapping fireworks to make them explode or poking Santa in order to make him drop presents it makes you wonder just why these are in the game. Sure, the developer is probably just making more use of the touch screen ability but when the whole game is built around touching the screen there’s little point in them being there. I say this because SimCity DS is simply too hard for kids. The game retains the basic aspects of expenditure, income and taxes that will seem very much alien to children. For anyone else the mini-games are fun at first but quickly become pointless. I realise the DS is all about innovation but the game would have been fine without them.

A game like SimCity may sound perfect for the DS but touch screen control does have it problems. For some unknown reason the developers put in an undo action for building things by accident but opted not to let you undo demolition. Anyone who’s played on a DS knows that it can be easy to slip from time to time, especially if you’re travelling in a car or on a bus. Due to this it’s quite easy to destroy half your city just because a sudden movement made you slip. This means you have to be extremely careful when you want to demolish something or, as the games advisor unhelpfully points out, plan your city well enough that you don’t have to demolish something in the first place.

Your first few attempts at building a thriving city may end in disaster but you can be safe in the knowledge that you can come back to an older city later on to improve it with your new found skills, that is until you realise that you can only save one city. It’s probably down to memory constraints but the ability to only save one city is pretty ludicrous. One part of SimCity I always enjoyed was the ability to go back to an earlier city and be proud of my creation. Now any previous cities will become ghost towns lost in your memory, which severely depletes the games lifespan.

Stylistically the game isn’t the best-looking DS game out there but, as you can see by the screenshots, it isn’t terrible. The zoom function isn’t that great so don’t expect to see immense detail on the buildings yet some of them stand out well enough to give your city an air of originality. Don’t expect skyscrapers either. Although the game has as number of tall buildings these tend to be around the size of an apartment block or a small office, I suppose anything bigger would have filled the screen and blocked off anything behind it.

Once you’ve tired of the build-a-city mode there’s save-the-city. In this mode you have to accomplish tasks like rebuilding a city after a major earthquake or, on the more mundane side, solving a cities traffic problem. Save-the-city games can’t be saved and, as a result, are relatively short so perfect for a ride in the car. There’s also a mail mode that allows you to swap landmarks with other people who have the game. Unless your friend owns the game it’s a pretty safe bet that you won’t be using this mode as the likelihood of coming across anyone else who has the game (since you have to be near them) is pretty slim and the benefits are probably only fun for about five minutes.

At first glance putting SimCity on handheld sounds like an idea worth slaughtering a pig or two in sacrifice for and, for the most part, it is. However, SimCity DS is more likely to have a chicken slaughtered for it. While the ability to play SimCity on the move is amazingly cool you’ll often get frustrated through simple things such as trying to demolish a building. That said the game does offer a decent amount of playtime, even if you’re only allowed to save one city. SimCity DS is one of those games you’ll take with you on a long journey. For SimCity veterans – like myself – the games incredible amount of mothering will probably not appeal to you but it’s addicting enough to hold your interest for a few days and a welcome distraction from the PC versions. Is it worth a look? If you can get past its faults then it’s probably the best management sim fix you can get on the DS. If a game can keep me entertained enough to play for hours at a time then I'm willing to forgive some of its faults.

Seven-out-of-ten.

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