Quickie VIdeo Game Reviews: Sim City DS

If you've never played a Sim City game, I can only assume you're either living in a cave or you just don't like video games. It's been around forever. For those of you living under a rock, Sim City is simply a game where you build your own city and manage it. Sounds simple enough, right? Well, sometimes it can get pretty complicated. You'll occasionally get whiny residents badgering you to lower taxes or you have to take out a loan because a giant gorilla just destroyed half of your town.

When I heard there was a DS version of Sim City, I knew I had to have it. It's a classic that's worth hours of game time and I figured the touch screen would give it an easier interface. Unfortunately, I think the developers dropped the ball on this one.

The Good

Let's start with the good aspects of this particular game. The best part is, of course, getting to use the stylus to control things. It makes it easier when you're zoning off land, building roads, and placing buildings. You simply scroll through some simple menus, find what you want, and click on a grid-map to decide where you want things to go.

They also made various additions to get more use of the stylus out of this one. Whenever you promise a citizen you'll enact a new policy, a piece of paper comes up where you sign your name. The fun part about this is that you can write anything you want there and it doesn't matter. Draw an elaborate picture of a squirrel for all they care! As long as you scribble something, it'll be satisfied. Every year the citizens will throw a celebration for you like a fireworks display. You have to use the stylus to set off the fireworks. It's a simple little mini-game, but it's pretty fun!

The Bad

There are MANY popular features missing from this version of Sim City. You can't build monuments, you can't set off disasters on your own (they're always random), and to be perfectly honest, you can't do much of anything. You also are constantly pestered by citizens and the characters they use for the citizens are about as annoying as they get. You can choose to ignore them, but when your assistant is bugging you every ten seconds to let you know there's someone who wants to talk to you, it's quite obnoxious.

What irked me the most was the fact that after about fifteen hours I was pretty much stuck. My city could hardly grow any bigger because it was taking up most of the map and I still only had 50,000 residents. All I was doing was filling in areas with heavy residential zoning and waiting for the tax dollars to roll in so I could do it again.

Okay, so... Do you recommend it?

If you're a little kid who has never played a Sim City game, it might be a good introduction because it's not too difficult and kids will find it easier to control than the PC versions.

Otherwise, forget it.

Overall Recommendation: Save your money and buy a cheap copy of Sim City 2000 from a used game shop or eBay.