Although we didn't get any hands-on time with SimCity DS at EA's recent event in San Francisco's Mezzanine, it's not hard to see what is really gelling for the title and what's not quite so solid. The game seems to capture the core of SimCity, providing a sandbox "Build a City" mode and a more goal-orientated "Save the City" mode, as well as a post office to let you send and receive unlocked items and a museum to display your unlocked items. But the game's edge has been quietly dulled to insure that it's "carefully simpler" than previous titles. In theory, that's to match the DS' younger and more casual market, but we can't honestly say that a dumbed-down SimCity is what we were hoping for.

Your city, unwinding along the Tigris

Sims vets will be able to pick out the skeleton of the excellent SimCity 3000 here, although they'll also notice the missing improvements from SimCity 4. The game uses the top screen to display an overview of the city in color, while the bottom screen is where you'll find the various menus that let you build and manage a city. Divided into categories including Civics, Transport, Power, Water and Waste, Rewards (such as the unlockable post office and various landmarks), and Demolition, the core building menus give you the tools to make your city into whatever you like (and then wipe the slate clean and start again, if you like).

You'll also have access to five different advisors, each of whom will offer a slightly different viewpoint when they dispense their wisdom. During our demo, the advisor looked like a big-head version of Sarah Jessica Parker; sadly, Will Wright has been removed from the Japanese version to insure no one gets confused and thinks he developed the title.


In Save the City mode, you'll pick one of the various afflicted cities and be given a disaster, some limits on what you can do, and turn and dollar limit to turn the city's luck around. Disasters will include alien attacks, seditious citizens, a huge earthquake, and a massive storm.