Product Reviews

Question: 'What's brown and sounds like a bell?' Answer: 'Dung!' The old ones are always the best, and when it comes to the latest edition of SimCity this has never been truer. The daddy of God sims is back and has the honour of being one of only a few games that can be the same as its predecessor and not get slated.

The premise of SimCity is unchanged from its inception in 1989: turn a barren square of land into a thriving metropolis and keep the people happy. While the graphics may have altered substantially, the gameplay, 14 years on, is the same. Well, almost...

While the principles are the same, the execution is very different. EA has gone to some lengths to refit the game with cutting-edge graphics

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(even if the grid layout of cities looks alien to European eyes) and you can now 'interact' with the population, not unlike EA's The Sims spin-off.

But effects seem to have been thrown in for the sake of it. While the volcano, lightning strike and bushfire are 'realistic' disasters, the developers have also added Transformer-like robots that storm your town, wreaking havoc on the way. This may appeal to twee Americans, but we doubt it will have mass appeal this side of the pond.

The game remains addictive nonetheless, but if you've played any of the preceding three games you may find that some of the 'magic' is missing. Also, it would have been nice if there had been a more global slant. Not everyone wants to improve their life by living in a high-rise condo and working in a building that looks down on eagles. Hopefully, some enterprising soul will create a mod that will have joyriders wrecking cars, refugees flooding the ports and prime ministers investing in private housing, although the game does feature a fireman's strike.

We're not sure why the game wasn't released in time for Christmas, but if you've never played any of the SimCity games before you should pick up a copy. For the rest of us, there's not much to do in January and this is a good way to pass the time.