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    • Sim City Deluxe Review

    Written By: Jose Ramos
    August 4, 2010

    Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a Civil Engineer? Sim City is just that, with a little bit more.

    The Sim franchise is a pretty big one. It has been around since forever. Imagine if it has been around for so long that the last time I played Sim City was like ten or so years ago. Now EA has delivered a deluxe edition of their latest Sim City game.

    The game is basically narrowed down into two gametypes: Scenario and Create-Your-Own-City. Let’s start with the former. In scenario you are given a specific mission tosimcitydeluxe accomplish. The city is already built and you have X time to complete X objective. Now, these scenarios are quite hard, at least for me they were and it was because of a constant frustration I ran into during most of the game: I couldn’t make any money. Now, I don’t know if it is because I am practically new to the game or I am simply a moron, but to me it was really hard, heck extremely hard, to make money. So even on the easiest scenarios I found myself not accomplishing them because I would always run out of money. Perhaps Sim City experts will laugh at me because of this, but it is definitely a flaw. I even did the tutorial and it never really states how to make money. So for a “new” guy into the game, it will be very frustrating.

    Then there is the Create-Your-Own-City aspect of it. As the name states, although I made that name up, you will start completely from scratch and create your own city. It’s pretty fun to build houses and industrial areas and create your own streets, and what not, but again, the frustration of not being able to know how to make money just killed it for me. Having to take loans in order to make my city grow was pretty annoying to say the least. Also, make sure to save the city before quitting because there is no auto-safe and if you just close the application you will lose all the previous progress, which is a pretty big pain.

    There are also the natural disasters, including aliens and stuff, and of course as you progress you will also get new buildings and all that kind of Sim City gloriousness.simcitydeluxe2 Although another flaw I found, which was of course irritating as well, was that sometimes they would announce that you could build a stadium or something spectacular and then I would run and look for it on the menus but guess what? It wasn’t there. I looked and looked and I couldn’t find the damn stadium. Maybe it is a bug or something, but it seemed to be a constant one because I read on some forums that other people were having the same problems.

    All in all the game will probably satisfy the all-time Sim City fans out there; but if you are a new comer, like me, I would suggest you start learning how to play it somewhere else, or you get a friend to explain it to you, because $6.99 might be a lot to waste on something you might never get the hang off.

    2pt5-stars

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    • Jareco

      This sounds like you rated the game low because it was too complex for you. Way to go. Get a second opinion, or at least try to think about people who are willing to get involved in a more complex game than doodle jump.

    • Jose Ramos

      Hey Jareco, thanks for commenting and for your opinion, I appreciate it. But the truth o the matter is that I do like complex games, I don’t mind them at all.

      When you have a complex game though, just like Sim City, you NEED a tutorial that is longer than just three minutes. You can’t let the player try to figure it out as he/she goes because it will get frustrating pretty quickly and you will lose some audience. If I am spending $7 bucks on a MOBILE game, that is the least I would expect. Especially coming from EA.

      And I did think about people who are willing to get involved with this game. Like I said, if you are a long time Sim City fan then go right ahead and buy it cause I am sure you won’t be disappointed. But if you have never played it before, which I am sure is more than half of the iPhone owners out there, you should have someone that has…or play it somewhere else first, because you won’t really get the hang of it unless you spend like 6-7 hours on it. And after 6-7 hours then you will start to have some fun….doesn’t seem like a good deal to me.

    • Carl

      I think the problem with Sim City Deluxe on iPhone is although it’s a complete, deep engaging game, it’s lost on the iPhone. If I want to spend hours on a game like this building a city, right down to the complexity that it offers, I would most likely do it in front of a PC. I would probably say part of the problem is the design and interaction not feeling as user friendly as it’s original inception on the PC, the need to pinch in and out all the time irritates the hell outta me so you can deal with the little details and the depth of the game.

      Games like, Theme Park or Transport Tycoon would be good on iPhone because it’s the same genre, but is simplified in areas to allow pick up and put down gameplay on a portable device. Another one would be the old PC game Constructor, same basic concept, but simplified. These are the type of tycoon-esque games I want to see on the iPhone/iPad. Those I would buy.

    • LBG

      Good review Jose. I have only played the first one and I remember that being overly complitated and annoying because there was a glitch that meant that some buildings couldn’t be supplied with water and even if you had super good transport systems, people living in your city still complained.

    • Jose Ramos

      I agree with you Carl, I think one of the annoying aspects was the whole zooming in and out. Although, I could have definitely let that one pass by if I knew how to make money. I think the key lay there, it was pretty frustrating not being able to make any money and just taking loan after loan. Didn’t seem realistic to me.

      And thank you LBG :) . I appreciate it.

      Thank you both for commenting and reading.

    • jimi

      in rergards to this being basically an updated version of the old sim city, i think its a good improvement.

      i was instantly disappointed with the old version when i panned over the city, only to have it disappear until you came to a stop, that sole reason was why i didnt bother playing it.

      ive never understood how to make money and the tutorial was not good for beginners at all, but i for one am now pleased with how it performs on the iphone, and will take the time to learn the basics in making money because all i want is a functioning city building game on my goddamn iphone!

      also there was a city building game that was supposed to come out several months ago, i cant think what its called at the moment but it seems it doesnt even exist anymore, even though there are several videos online showing gameplay..

      another thing, not relating to this review .. : ) how hard is it to bring the anno game that was released on the DS to iphone?? what was this shitty shipping yard version we got? i want to build a town goddamnit!

    • http://www.supertrainerhq.com Patrick Neiler

      I downloaded the game a few days ago. Used the tutorial to get the hang of it. Over-spent a few times, went bankrupt and restarted.

      I started getting the hang of it and I think the complexity is what makes it engaging for more than 1 hour. The more you play, the more you understand what actions are correlated to increase/decrease in population (the fundamental aspect of the game)

      I realized that patience is key. Grow steady and slow. If you spend too much, you won’t be able to keep up with your expenses and you will fail (like a real city)

      The game takes patience, common sense and some basic understanding of a city infastructure

    • http://www.supertrainerhq.com Patrick Neiler

      I downloaded the game a few days ago. I used the tutorial to get the hang of it. Over-spent my budget a few times, went bankrupt and restarted.

      I started getting the hang of it and I think the complexity is what makes it engaging for more than 1 hour. The more you play, the more you understand what actions are correlated to increase/decrease in population (the fundamental aspect of the game)

      I realized that patience is key. Grow steady and slow. If you spend too much, you won’t be able to keep up with your expenses and you will fail (like a real city)

      The game takes patience, common sense and some basic understanding of a city infrastructure. Once your city starts thriving it gets pretty cool. Once I got the hang of it, I generated $300,000 by just letting the city run by itself. I intend on demolishing the city and using the money to make the perfect city!! MUAAHHHAHAHAH!!!

    • P

      I agree with your review on the game.
      Sure it has some flaws but it’s a wicked game once you get the hang of it.
      Deffinately worth it to look ofr others like it, cuz they’ll probably be good if you like this sort of thing.
      The one thing i hate is at the bottom of the screen when the citizens demand a Stadium… Tisk Tisk I know what that’s like lol

    • Brandon

      HAHA! AFTER AL THIS TIME! I figured out how to get the stadium XD. All you have to do is go to Petitions and look for the one that says something about the stadium, after you click it you select Build then City and it will be under gifts. I went insane when i found it >.<

    • Aldrin

      Hey Brandon great thanks!

    • http://fartporn Justin

      my water tower burnt down and i had a fire station

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