Sim City DS Review
When the DS was first announced all sorts of mouse based games were thought up as possible DS games, Starcraft, Warcraft, Age of Empires and Sim City were some of the more popular requests and while Blizzard has so far shunned us for a portable Star/WarCraft and Empires albeit in turn based form, however Sim City DS has made the portable hop mostly intact with only a few silly and pointless additions letting it down. However if youre after a portable version of Sim City you could do a lot worse. Sim City DS at its core is great, just let down by some needless additions.
Never played Sim City? How could you have not… Any way, in Sim City youre the mayor of a city that has not been built yet, unless you choose the tutorial stage with the basics. Helping you through the game is your advisor which is chosen after you answer a few simple questions at the start of the game. The game is fully controlled by the touch screen but its not just that which has been customized for the DS, disasters now are not just a simple means to mix it up but allow you to play a sort of mini game depending on the disaster ranging from use of the touch screen to save your Sims to blowing into the DS microphone to put out fires. Another nice touch is at the end of every year you get to play Santa, delivering presents to the games inhabitants. I guess being the mayor in this game is a lot broader than just managing funds now.
The advisor sometimes is more trouble than its worth or at some points offers you completely hopeless advice. Your animated avatar (mine was the default girl but there are robots and a Will Wright look alike) introduces you to more gaudy looking characters like an Albert Einstein stereotype who informs you of new technology to a younger looking girl who like, TOTALLY wants a new university to increase your sim inhabitants education.
Micromanaging of your city is similiar to the PC version which unfortunately makes the game seem “cramped.” Everything on the screen is rather small and selecting, building and demolishing areas is hard as because of the DS’s low resolution. The undo function can be helpful but for some reason it was decided that you cant undo the demolish function and you can only select 4 squares at once for demolition which leads to a messy looking city. Its also best to play the game on the steady surface as a simple bump can put your planning out of whack or you might delete everything at once by accident.
The “Cramped” feeling also translates onto the presentation of the game and the graphics. The DS screen resolution is too small to put all the tools on the display but thankfully the DS has its second screen. When you want to edit something the game pauses and you can then edit the city on the bottom screen. The game uses building assets from Sim City 3000 however the small resolution makes it harder to see the cool buildings such as the hospitals, zoos and special buildings and theyre all pretty hard to pick out from the crowd. The game only features two levels of zoom, one really close and one further out, the close one which allows you to see buildings and your city up close and clear but too close to be of any use.
The other main complaint with the game is a single save slot for the game across all modes. Say youve started your city but then want to try out one of the scenarios? Its not possible unless you wipe your city. So while Sim City never really had a finish you cant continue on to do something else unless you are finished with what you want to do in your town. Save the City mode is another new part of Sim City DS These are short mini missions based on set of factors, mission objectives if you will. The game puts you in control of a city that has just gone through a disaster, King Kong for example.
You have to fix up the city in a set amount of time. Its good for a quick burst and the missions are rather short but due to the single save file this might be for the better. Also worth mentioning is the Post Office available from the main screen. This feature allows you to send mail and presents to other Sim City DS owners over Wifi and with this mode you can also unlock some special buildings not available by any other method. The music in Sim City DS is similar and standard Sim City fair, nothing too offensively bad but nothing standing out. If you have played Sim City 3000 you will have heard it all before. Sound effects are littered throughout the game and work well.
So in the end Sim City DS is in no way a bad game and at its core is the Sim City concept and you cant go wrong with that, however the added on DS features dont add anything to the game and the consoles screens hinder the look of the game and sometimes how it plays. The single save file is also cause for concern, however the most worrying thing is that the group within EA that made the game, EA Japan, no longer exist so its doubtful we will get another Sim City on the DS any time soon. With a few tweaks, Sim City DS could have been grand but well just have to settle for what we have. One thing is for sure, PC games can work on the DS, they just have to done right.
