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> Results: SimCity DS
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The ESRB Says
Mild Cartoon Violence: GamerDad noted that not all goes as planned when you don't meet the needs of your inhabitants. Critical Portion: Updating a classic PC game for a new platform is fraught with both opportunities and pitfalls, and Sim City DS is loaded with both. The game is a perfect port of the classic PC game updated to take advantage of the DS hardware. It has an excellent tutorial and a clean and simple interface that is informative and easy to learn. Once you get into actually building the game you will be amazed at how much depth is there beyond what you learned in the tutorial. I restarted more than a couple of times after making bad choices and coming up with terribly performing cities. The problems are things you might expect - packing a massive and complex city builder onto a small handheld game meant to be played on the go is just bound to have interface issues. Given that most control centers around the stylus, the blocks tend to be too small and the control too imprecise to be able to perform the tasks needed. Other complaints are an inconsistent undo function that can get you into serious city trouble and an adviser that is great in the tutorial but behaves the same way throughout the game and has no optionsof even an 'off button'. Overall Sim City DS is one for the fans - it is a solid and faithful recreation of a classic that updates nicely to the DS but has enough issues to make it tough to recommend to those not specifically looking to relive the experience on a handheld. If you know what you are in for you might just have a good time with this one.  
In terms of content there is only 'upside' to be found in this game. This is a pure city-building sim - not like many of the Tycoon games where it is about competition and money and score. Here you really need to work hard to plan your city and think about *everything*. The game is not very forgiving, and it is great to watch kids trying to manage it all since they are really just starting to get a handle on the systems required to run a city. That is the reason I recommend it for Ages 10+ - younger kids really aren't going to be able to juggle all of the requirements and the interface.
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