SimCity Creator (Wii)

SimCity comes into my living room, falls apart, and makes me angry.
10/6/2008 7:32 PM | 2 Comments | Page 3 of 3

But as you're playing these scenarios and challenges, as you're enjoying the game as it was meant to be enjoyed -- as a complex system in which you cultivate some sort of order out of chaos and entropy -- you'll quickly hit that brick wall of bad documentation. You want to build a city with a high health rating? Have fun trying to figure it out, because the game isn't going to help you, just like it didn't help me when I was trying to get apartment buildings and condos into my residential neighborhoods.

I know it's so '90s to complain about bad documentation. But this is something from before the '90s, an in-depth system that requires understanding to manipulate. Part of what makes this game work so well is that it's a throwback to an earlier time, and represents a whole different model of gameplay. I guess anyone can jump in and have fun for an hour or two, and maybe that's all SimCity Creator is good for. Maybe there's simply no audience for deep city-builder gaming on the Wii, and all the depth here is a mistake -- a byproduct of the original design, dangling from the edges like an unsightly artifact they didn't bother to trim. Maybe I'm just not playing right when I try to explore that depth in the scenarios and the online challenges. Maybe this is just a toy for kids and casual players -- in which case, they can have it. I'm going to go play something on the PC, where the developers take me seriously.

This review is based on a retail copy of the game provided by the publisher.