As a longtime fan of the SimCity video game series, I was eagerly waiting for the game to be released for Android. I have spent countless hours playing the PC versions of the game and I’ve looking for a fix for on the go.
If you have never played any of the SimCity game, it is a city-building simulation game. You start with a city are with nothing but trees, hills, rivers and coastlines. From there, you lay down roads and start zoning areas for residential, commercial and industrial use. Just like a real city, you will also need to build power stations, water supplies, fire stations and other civic buildings like schools, hospitals, police stations and parks.
The city is inhabited by Sims, or virtual citizens, who have behave just like their real world counterparts. SimCity doesn’t have any ‘levels’ like other video games and you can’t really win/beat the game, you just keep playing, building up your city and making sure your Sims needs and wants are taken care of.
On the PC, SimCity is controlled by the keyboard and mouse, which works perfectly. Making the transition to the small screen and touchscreen controls, I was a bit weary how it would control. Thankfully, the developers have come up with a simple interface which works just as good as you can hope for a mobile game.
The graphics look excellent and the style continues on from the SimCity (5) version on the PC. This is my favourite style of all the different versions, and it looks great on the small screen. I’ve been playing the game on my Nexus 5 and it runs smoothly for the most part. You do have the odd bit of slowdown, but not enough to put you off playing it altogether.
When I first played SimCity Build It, I thought it was going to play similar to Farmville or that type of game (of which, I am not a fan) but it plays really well. You build factories to make materials like steel, wood, plastic, seeds, etc, and then use those materials in your businesses and stores to build other building materials for your residential blocks. More residential means more Sims living in your city, which means more taxes which you use to pay for buildings and services.
I’ve been playing this game a couple of times a day since I got it, usually in short sessions of less than 5 minutes. Get your factories producing raw materials and upgrade a couple of houses. Queue up some more factories and businesses and then go about your day. Check back in later and you will have plenty raw materials to build more buildings. Collect some taxes and watch your city grow.
You can buy and sell resources from neighbouring (computer-controlled) cities and even visit your friends’ cities who also play the game. There are in-app purchases in the game, which speed up the gameplay and allow you get more materials quicker, but I’m yet to spend a cent in the game and I don’t plan on spending any more during my whole playthrough.
I would highly recommend SimCity Build It to fans of the series and also to newcomers. It’s great if you are looking for a game to burn 5 minutes here and there but also if you would like to have ‘something to show for it’ after a couple weeks of play that’s more than just a high score. SimCity Build It is available on Android and iOS.
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