Growing up as a young boy I never did much have the patience necessary for the Sim City series. After intricately planning an environmentally-friendly power grid and mapping a water network that would ensure no citizen would go thirsty, I’d fast grow frustrated that my city had stopped progressing and unleash my holy fury and level it right to the ground. After all, isn’t that what god games are for?

Older and wiser, understanding that even digital citizens don’t appreciate 400% tax hikes, I soon grew to appreciate the inner workings of society. My many citizens may have long been forgotten, to die in the archives of a long-lost save file, but that classic gameplay will forever stand the test of time. It’s been five long years since the last true Sim City title, so when Sim City Creator turned up on my desk, I was eager to see whether it could be the next evolution for the series or if we were just in store for another quick cash-in within the land of Sim.

The latest instalment from the long running city-building pedigree, Sim City Creator brings Will Wright’s classic brainchild to the Wii with a fresh lick of paint and range of new features. It might be sporting a bright and cheery exterior, but beneath the rich colour palette, not a lot has changed in the past two decades. In typical Sim City fashion you have the option to try your luck at mission mode, to solve the existing problems of a town in crisis, or jump straight in and start from scratch, to build the ultimate city in your honour. Creator takes influence from many of the aspects of later Sim City games, but overlooks many of their complexities, providing a title that sits roughly around Sim City 2000’s level of depth and just right for the home console. Introducing its own unique flavour, you earn hero buildings that are able to influence the construction and appearance of your city, from the majesty of the middle ages right up to the crystalline appearance of the distant future. With Creator, you are also able to take your imagination online over WiiConnect24 to compete in contests and see who can create the best city whilst conforming the contest rules, by way of online rankings. It’s an interesting concept, although it is a little light on statistics, only revealing how well other players have done when the contest is finally over.


Cities are fully three dimensionally rendered, but with the lack of a freely controlled camera (instead relying on a ‘rotate camera’ button), this aspect is only realised when you view your metropolis from the cockpit of the newly included a plane or helicopter (Simcopter anyone?). Without the ability to interact with the world though, it feels like little more than a fancy zoom function. As far as mandatory novelty functions go, Creator isn’t one to break the Wii stereotype, and your aircraft can be controlled by tilting the Wii remote. Novelty controls are plentiful and you will be using the remote to create of disasters around your city. Rotate the remote for a tornado, shake it for an earthquake, swing it down for a meteor; you get the picture. It’s an inclusion made for fun, not functionality, but it sure makes it all the more satisfying when you grow tired and demolish your creation beneath a herd of giant llama.

Sure the Wii remote has seen its fair share of gimmicky uses in its lifespan, but Sim City Creator attempts to put the controller’s other functionality to proper use. In making the jump from PC to home console, strategy ports have long been hindered by the lack of freeform mouse control. Now that the Wii is here, it’s seemingly able to offer the next best solution, providing a motion-controlled pointer on screen. In theory it sounds great, but in practice, control makes this title nigh on unplayable.

Moving the Wii remote around controls not only the on screen pointer, but is also used to control the camera. Move the pointer to the top of the screen and the camera follows with it. Attempting to navigate and build structures leaves you constantly overshooting your mark. Without the ability to lock the camera in place, precision is thrown out the window and I found myself left with a bad case of motion sickness. With nearly half the buttons mapped to bring up the toolbar, they sure weren’t limited for options. If it’s not the camera causing issues, trying to maintain a steady hand to lock the building in position becomes more difficult than it sounds when you’re trying to manipulate the cursor over a grid set apart by sheer millimetres.


In a first for the long running series, roads can be curved to make use of the Wii’s freeform control. Sure a nice squiggley road through the countryside might look aesthetically pleasing, but when buildings still conform to a square grid layout, it seems functionally pointless, not to mention the fact that my proposed perfect curved highways ended up looking more like a toddler had stolen the remote out of my hand’s. From my experiences with the game, all I can say is thank god time is frozen as you build or else you’d be screwed in a race against the clock.

After playing through Sim City Creator, I can’t help but think Will Wright’s latest creation, Spore, will turn out a better choice for the Wii’s capabilities. Sim City Creator fails simply by coupling precise gameplay together with sloppy controls. It introduces its own flair and new features, but control really is an issue you will need to overcome to get the most out of the title. Unless you sold your computer to buy a Wii, I’d recommend sticking with the far superior, not to mention much cheaper, Sim City 4. Creator still delivers classic Sim City gameplay, but give me a mouse and keyboard any day!