SimCity Creator

SimCity Creator brought the series' core idea to the Nintendo Wii and adapted it to the Wii Remote controller – the player points the cursor at the screen and, with a simple point-and-press, builds zones, roads, power plants, and public buildings, without needing to navigate complex menus full of dozens of graphs that players of the PC installments were used to. Progress is divided into stages from a small village up to a sprawling metropolis, and the game guides the player with simple tasks and goals, making it considerably more accessible to newcomers and younger audiences than the series' classic PC titles.

Compared to the computer SimCity games, this is a noticeably simplified simulation of economy, traffic, and residents' demands – the emphasis is on shaping the city's appearance, quick feedback, and the satisfaction of watching a metropolis grow, rather than on elaborate numbers and fine-tuned budgeting. The Wii version benefited specifically from motion controls, which allowed intuitive building placement simply by pointing at the TV screen – in 2008, this was an unusual approach to a city-building strategy game, markedly different from the established mouse-and-keyboard control the series had long been tied to.

The game also catered to couch play in shorter sessions – typical for the Wii audience – and offered simpler tools for viewing one's own growing city than the complex editors and statistical overviews found in the computer installments.

For a series long associated with mouse and keyboard, this was a significant step toward a family audience sitting in living rooms with a Wii under the TV – the goal was not to replace the depth of the computer installments, but to offer a simple and pleasant entry point into city building even for people who would never buy a classic SimCity.

Why play it: A good choice for family play and for players who want to build cities simply and intuitively via motion controls from the couch, without needing to learn the complex systems from the series' computer installments.