SimCity DS
© 2007 Electronic Arts, Inc.
Now you can carry your own living city with with you, in your pocket with the Nintendo DS edition of SimCity. Designed a lot like the original Mac/PC version of the game, you can start either with one of eight fictional cities or create your own. Once the ground is broken, the clock starts in the year 1900, and your population begins to have needs. In order to increase your tax base and population, you must strategically plan to deal with future problems from pollution to natural disasters. Unique features of the game include using the DS stylus to sign mayoral proclamations, or putting out fires by blowing into the DS microphone. The wireless communication can be used to exchange letters with fellow mayors. Unfortunately, you can't see individual people in your city, which our testers—all of whom were well-versed in the Sims 2—did not like. All in all, this is a nice portable version of a concept that could be cleverly integrated into a social studies unit. Note that just one city can be saved per card. Developed by Maxis for Electronic Arts. See also My Sims.
$30, Nintendo DS
Teaches: math, science, logic, reading graphs
CTR Rating: 86%