Sim City lets you create, build and run the most realistic city you can imagine. Build your own farming towns, bedroom communities, commercial centers and industry -- and manage it all in a way that keeps your citizens happy. You'll also create railways, ferries, plan out streets, you also get to use that transportation in a series of great new driving & transportation missions.
Features:
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Three unique Build a New City, Save the City and Sister City
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Sculpt mountains and gouge out valleys, then attack the cities that form with natural disasters
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New Rush Hour missions - Turn up the police siren and catch the carjackers, or control the helicopter spotlight to track down the bank robbers
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Chat with other players and trade landmarks in Sister City mode
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Minigames and new advisor character help you design your city
Average Customer Review:
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53 of 55 found the following review helpful:
Loads of fun!Jun 28, 2007
By bixodoido For all of us who have always wanted the ability to build a sprawling metropolis on a handheld gaming system (yeah, I didn't realize I wanted to either!) comes SimCity DS. This game is more or less a port of SimCity 3000 for the PC, so fans of that game will feel right at home with the DS version. While the game experiences some limitations it is, overall, incredibly fun and engaging.
Audience: Obviously Sim fans will enjoy having this game available on the go. But Sim City DS offers something for even the casual or non-gamer--the game is not that difficult to learn to play and successful gameplay relies more on good management and sense than on mastering some complicated control scheme.
Graphics: The graphics aren't great, but they're much more clear than I thought they'd be on such a small screen. There are just natural limitations in trying to fit a whole city, or even parts of it, onto a puny screen. So while it's difficult sometimes to see exactly what you're looking at/for, the graphics are as good as can be reasonably expected.
Gameplay: Build a City mode is the main game mode here, but you can also unlock a "Save the City" mode where you complete some scenario involving rebuilding or otherwise rescuing a distressed city in a certain amount of time. There are also several excellent tutorials and an advisor who, although he or she might annoy you to no end, can aid you in your city building endeavors.
Control: Building is done with the stylus on the touch screen. Again, size constraints are the biggest issue here since you'll sometimes want to build a road or something in an area larger than the screen.
Challenge: Several levels of difficulty, from a city with little water where you start with $100,000 to an island where you get only $10k to start.
This game is insanely fun. I've always loved the SimCity games and being able to play one on my DS was like a dream come true. And despite the game's shortcomings I'd definitely recommend the game for the city building experience alone. The good and the bad:
PROS:
-incredibly fun and engaging
-lots of unlockables and secrets to find
-great tutorials
-great, intuitive controls with an 'undo' type feature for the inevitable misplaced structure
CONS:
-you can only save one city at a time (the biggest flaw in my opinion--would be a dealbreaker for me except this game is so darned fun regardless).
-your city advisor can get incredibly annoying and you may feel like firing her after she chides you for not building a 6th zoo in your city of 25,000 people to please the local promqueen.
-no terrain editor or even a way to mildly alter terrain
22 of 23 found the following review helpful:
As Much Fun As The OriginalJun 22, 2007
By Rebecca
"Gossy"
If you're a Sim City fanatic, or a simulation game junkie in general, you'll love building a city and watching it grow in Sim City DS.
Similar to the original you start off with funds enough to zone some land and watch citizens begin to move in. All the classic favorites are here. You have to put up a power plant, get electricity to the masses, build roads, put up police and fire stations, and keep track of the wants and needs of your Sim citizens to watch your city prosper. The controls for the game were easy to use thanks to the DS touch pad. Before playing I was concerned the building areas would be too small or hard to use but EA has managed to make them just the right size for the DS.
To help you along in the game, or for those new to Sim City, there are a plentiful amount of tutorials which go through the mechanics of building a city as well as the mechanics of the DS version itself. I found the tutorials to be incredibly informative, even as a long time Sim City player. They helped me learn the controls of the DS version as well as refresh my memory on the specifics of city building. The only downside to these were that it took quite a while to get through them all. Once complete though you feel ready to handle anything your city might throw your way. You can jump right into building your own empire and know exactly how to work the game to its fullest. The adviser you choose to help you in the tutorials continues on with you to help advise you during city building as well. Sim City DS includes a choice of advisers who have a variety of specialties (like environmental background, etc) which also adds a new twist to the game.
Besides regular city building this DS version also includes some mission modes, where you run around the Sim City streets chasing bad guys or saving Sim citizens from danger. So if you're looking for a little action along with your city building, Sim City DS has it.
My one disappointment with this game is lack of WiFi. It would be nice to be able to connect to others and share content. Sim City DS does include a mode to connect with other DS users but it's the kind where they must be near you, and in order to do this you have to unlock the mode first. Still, the original Sim City had no online sharing aspects and it doesn't really make Sim City DS feel lacking, it would have just been a nice addition but doesn't really detract from the game.
The graphics are beautiful, the game play is the same (which for Sim City fans is a good thing!), the addition of missions gives you some action to switch to if you want some variety. This game is a definite must have for all the simulation game lovers out there!
13 of 13 found the following review helpful:
Good, but can not compare to the PC versionAug 06, 2007
By Stephen J. Carlson I am a huge SimCity fan, so I didn't hesitate in my decision to purchase this game the day it came out. While SimCity DS is a fun game, there are a few small parts about the game that frustrated me.
This game is nearly identical to SimCity 3000 for the PC, with only a few minor changes. The graphics look good - nearly identical to the PC version. The music is nice and catchy, and the controls do an excellent job taking advantage of the Nintendo DS's two-screen display and touch screen interface.
Unfortunately, there are a few things about this game that drive me crazy. The biggest problem is that the game requires you to pause your city while making changes (at least as far as I can tell). This setup is very frustrating to me, especially because the time does not change very quickly (there are two speed settings: slow and super slow). Also, in the PC version, you could easily open a box listing all the citizens that want to talk to you, but in this game this same process is much more limited and time consuming.
In this game you don't have to connect your city grid with pipes to implement the water system, which makes things less frustrating. Also, it is simple to create land or water, although all the land in the game is flat (no mountains!).
If you are a fan of SimCity and just have to have your city-planning quick fix on the go, then go ahead and get this game. However, if you are new to the series, or want to spend serious time with a SimCity game, I would recommend passing on this product and getting one of the PC versions such as SimCity 3000 or SimCity 4.
10 of 11 found the following review helpful:
J MON$YJun 23, 2007
By B. Sawyer I just bought this game and it is excellent. Takes me back to my childhood of playing simcity on my old pc. The touch screen controls are great and the advisors add a new element to the game. This game is extremely addictive and made my fiance wonder if she was ever going to get her ds back.Simcity ds is also more challenging than the previous installments, which is good for those of us who are experienced players. If you are a beginner you can just change the settings to easy and work your way up. If you are a fan of any type of simulator style games, this is a must have for you.
6 of 6 found the following review helpful:
SimCity hits the DSJun 27, 2007
By N. Durham
"Big Evil"
SimCity is as old a game as one can remember, gracing the PC and some consoles over the years and providing some gameplay that ranged from challenging to tedious. Now SimCity has hit the DS, and the end result isn't bad one bit either. As you plan and build your city, you'll find that the same kind of aforementioned challenging gameplay can be found here, and found rather quickly to boot. This is made all the more challenging thanks to your incredibly annoying advisor, who you can't fire or turn off. While this is possibly SimCity DS' greatest flaw, and the core gameplay of SimCity remains the same, this DS version has some flaws. For starters, the graphics look nice but lack the overall detail you would expect from playing the previous versions of the game, and are pretty bland to say the least, while demolishing areas is a chore thanks to a buggy interface that takes out more than you'll desire. Despite all this, SimCity DS still manages to deliver in rendering a replicant of the original game; and it's main attraction, building cities, is still done wonderfully. Managing the city is easier as well thanks to the new data screens, and the uplifting and catchy soundtrack is a nice bonus as well. All in all, SimCity DS is a worthy replication of the classic PC and Mac game from years past that works on Nintendo's smash hit handheld, and for longtime SimCity players that would like a dependable version of the game on the go, look no further.
based on 28 reviews
( 28 customer reviews )
