There are more cons than pros in this little handheld city builder, but that doesn't make it a terrible game.
So, let’s review the pros and cons of this game. I’ll do the cons first, since they outweigh the pros dramatically.
Alright, well… the cons of SimCity DS. The game is very average from the get-go, first of all, though it’s still entertaining. The first con in this game would be your city advisor, or as I’d like to call him/her, the annoying little fly. The annoying little fly will pop up the first time you pop in the cartridge and turn on the game for the first time, reminding you that you will NEVER get rid of him/her. First, you see that blonde haired milf looking woman, she will give you a personality test, and from that she will decide for you a good advisor, I got one black haired girl who was spoiled, I didn’t like her so I was stuck with the milf, this was a huge mistake. I don’t know about the other advisors, but this one is absolutely annoying, there was nothing good about her personality. Just like any other advisor, I suppose, she will clue you in on every little thing going down in your city… and I mean EVERY LITTLE THING, this gets extremely frustrating. When there is a visitor in the mayor’s office, a little exclamation point will pop up over her head and she will clue you on who’s about to come visit you. There are a few different visitors, Lester the geek, Candy the schoolgirl, Granny Agnes, and some PTA old fart that I can’t really remember too well. Anyways, they’ll keep coming back to your office no matter how many times you accept their proposals. Candy will purpose that you build more train stations and lay more train tracks so she doesn’t have to walk an hour to school every morning, and being the nice mayor you are, you will sign her little agreement with some crude image drawn by your stylus. Phew, glad that’s over with; now back to planning your city. After a few seconds of laying some train tracks for Candy and her lazy little school friends, your advisor will once again have a little exclamation point over her head, and to your surprise, after you click on your advisor, Candy the schoolgirl will be back to tell you about how the city needs more train stations and train tracks so she doesn’t have to walk for an hour to school every morning. You can see how this process gets a little annoying, but fortunately for you, you can choose to ignore the little red exclamation points. Besides the advisors and the guests at the mayor’s office, this game has a few other cons as well. One being the fact that you can’t undo demolition. Undo is a very useful tool, say you lay a set of power lines in the wrong place, you can undo it and get your money back, but when you demolish something, you can’t do such a thing. So, when you’re demolishing a part of your city, you need to be very careful, because if your stylus slips… and say, you end up demolishing half your city, not only can you not get that part of your city back without restarting the game, but you’re also going to lose a good bit of money due to the demolition fee. Other than that, the game’s graphics aren’t very detailed, so every section of your city ends up looking the same. And there’s only one save slot, so… if you make a city, and you want to make another one… guess what’s happening to your pervious city? Yep, bye bye!
Alright! Onto the pros. Well, this game is still fun and has slightly addictive elements that make it enjoyable, even with so many flaws. The stylus works really well with the whole city planning element in this game, I just wish it was a little less sensitive, but it’s defiantly enjoyable. The music is also quite up to speed with the original feel of the SimCity games, that sense of impending doom the music portrays is wonderful and nerve racking at the same time, very much like SimCity 3000 and SimCity 4. Another thing I enjoyed about this game was the fact that they added a few new mini games: say if your city is attacked by king kong, you get to shoot tranquilizers at it with the stylus! Or if your city is under an alien attack, you get to save the people and cars being abducted by the UFO! Also, on special occasions, you get to set off fireworks with the stylus, and sometimes you even get to poke at Santa Claus and make him drop presents. Another nice touch to the game is the wide variety of land marks you can get, just look at the cheat page on gamespot and you’ll be able to get whichever one you want without going through the hassle of actually trying to get them in the game, which can only be done by sending mail to a friend’s city, which requires wifi and friends, which not everyone has. The main pro in this game though is just watching your city grow. Watching the population number go up is just a wonderful thing, and watching the cash flow in is a wonderful thing as well.
Yep, this game is filled with cons, yet somehow I am addicted to it. Despite the annoying little fly aka the advisor, and the annoying visitors, the game is very enjoyable. But if I want to do a legitimate review, this game gets nothing above 7.5, since the game itself is average. Very addictive and enjoyable, but only for a little while, it loses its thunder rather quickly. Also, the one save slot thing is really upsetting. It would have been much better if they made it so it was more like SimCity 4, where you could build a bunch of cities across a map, but I guess what’s done is done, and I can only hope for a sequel, since the stylus seems very fitting, and it makes city planning easy to do. I’m going to leave the decision to get this game up to you, I enjoyed it, but you might not. SimCity DS is defiantly not for everyone.