SimCity Creator (Wii) Review
Small in scale yet large in scope, SimCity Creator populates the Wii with fresh new faces in a familiar city. Sticking to the traditional style of city simulation that many have learned and loved over the years, this latest incarnation of Sim City incorporates the new MySims cartoon style characters and Wii remote controls that certainly struggle to complement the experience.
SimCity Creator has definitely followed in the footsteps of EA’s MySims series by adopting the entire look and feel of the kiddier, colourful counterpart. Unlike MySims however, which had no resemblance to The Sims in gameplay at all, SimCity Creator plays out very similarly to its PC origins and does little to change the core basics of building a city.
Playing a successful mayor involves much of the expanded formula, over a decade old today, that still manages to hold its addictive complexity. Residential, commercial and industrial plots are merely stepping stones to the managerial requirements of an expanding city. Apart from the regular services and utilities such as power supplies, hospitals or police stations, a successful city also needs the right balance of alternative structures for environmental or social demands. Tax and budget needs to be kept in line to maintain a wealthy city, while assistants require assistance of their own to mature properly. It’s a lot to manage and while it keeps things interesting and accessible for any audience, the implemented control system makes excessive city building a little strenuous.
Sim City should feel at home on the Wii and while a sensor driven pointer makes constructing roads and buildings a novel practice, the camera controls forced on by the same pointer cause a lot of awkward screen movement and difficult positioning. An extensive zoom helps when laying down a city but the focus required to accurately model an ideal utopia is ultimately frustrating when the controls could have been much more refined. The d-pad is used to navigate the menu when a point-and-click interface would have sufficed and mandatorily pausing the game every time the menu is opened is a real drag when the game already progresses rather slowly.
It’s still all capable construction work in the hands of the Wii remote and it doesn’t stop the Sim City action from being accessible, albeit progressively annoying. What do get in the way are useless features added in an attempt to cutesy it up. The advisors and ability to inspect on civilians thoughts is completely useless when almost always resulting in pointless repeated speech or questions on if I’m taking a walk. No time to take walks lady, there’s a city to build. The advisors are no better despite their positioning as an “advisor” as they level up and cost more yet still mostly serve as a waste of time. The assistants on the other hand when placed over open land will literally build your city for you depending on their field skill and assets available.
Adorning a corner of the screen at all times is the news ticker, another pointless addition… though not without some rare usefulness in the form of city advice. Just as useless, yet more rewarding, are the Hero Buildings that alter the surrounding environment depending on their type. European styled, Asian or other, these buildings will change your city to suit a theme that can look nice when done in excess but has no overall affect on the citys progress. Helicopter rides are a good way to check things out up close with the player controlled motion sensitive copter being able to zoom across the city. Its one of the more fun useless features.
Disasters were a big advertorial point in Sim City Creator, adorning the box and trailers with the variety of ways to blow up your city; but to this point I still cant figure out why that would be at all desirable. Sure the six included disasters can be amusing when unleashed and controlled by a player, assuming they love mindless destruction, but the overall damage is devastating without a quick save beforehand.
Interfacing and the menu are easy to handle with big clear options and bright colour schemes matching cheerful music adding to the playful charm of the overall presentation. As happy as it is, the elevator music style soundtrack gets quite repetitive, with not much variation between each piece. The overall graphics are sub-par, especially with some slow down in more densely populated cities, in-game jagged edges and some low quality textures tend to hurt the game’s charm. Weather conditions such as snow or night time can add a lot of mood to the game and help keep you in touch with your Sims – especially when the city reflects the conditions accordingly, with streets being snowed under or a fluorescent glow emitting from every household.
SimCity Creator can be dove straight into or approached in a slow and cautious manner, leaving it wide open for patronage by any age group; with enough tutorials to explain all the mechanics and in game tips to help you out along the way. The learning curve may be longer for younger players but it definitely adds a solid level of depth to a cutesy Wii title. The further inclusion of challenge based missions help add a lot of content to progress through when the core “free play” starts to get old and while the online challenges are fairly irrelevant due to their odd leader board nature and ambiguous goals, it still adds more ways to build cities over and over.
Despite SimCity Creators surprisingly faithful transition of the original Sim City to the Wii, its still hard to recommend. Especially when compared to the original PC version. If youve never played Sim City and must own it on Wii, its still Sim City… but with most rewards requiring a lot of planning and patience, the cumbersome controls really get in the way. The additions are sparingly cute and mostly pointless; certainly not adding anything to the PC versions that are far more suited to this style of wide space simulation. A few features, like the extensive array of missions or the excessive kids theme, will appeal to some – but will leave anyone whos played Sim City on PC before ultimately frustrated at the sudden handicap and overall diminished experience.
