EA's SimCity for iPhone Now Available
posted by arn on December 17th, 2008 9:21 AM EST in $9.99, Simulation, Strategy, iPhone games, iPod touch games
EA's SimCity for iPhone is now available in the App Store [link] and is priced at $9.99.
Create and control your urban empire with more power than ever! It’s the SimCity™ you know and love, re-created for your iPhone™ to give you the most realistic SimCity experience. And, if you’re new to the Sims universe, prepare yourself for one of the most engaging, addicting games you’ve ever played.
Features include:
- Intuitive Touch Controls
- Tutorial to ease you into developing your first city
- Starter Cities start you in different types of cities.
- Manage all aspects of a thriving city, including the budget
- Destroy it all with 5 Disasters – UFO, Fire, Tornado, Earthquake, Toxic Cloud
- Place Parks, Landmarks, public works and various different special buildings
- Public and private transportation with roads and rail
- Public works management: Water, Power, Garbage and Recycling
- Place 6 Zone types
- Enact Ordinances to satisfy petitioners
- Never play the same game twice
- 3 Difficulty Settings
- Small, Medium and Large Cities
- Customizable Procedural Terrain Generation
- Complex simulations that adapt to your every move
EA has said this is a full version of SimCity and not a stripped down mobile version.
App Store Link: SimCity, $9.99
Looks great but can you play your own music? EA messed up on Tetris and I really want to have my own music while playing.
Doesn't seem to be available in the Dutch store (yet).
After the Katamari Damacy debacle, I'm not buying games I haven't seen a gameplay video or a few reviews of now
Looking forward to your review(s)!
Not in the Swedish Store either …
Has shown up in the UK store, I'm not sure I want to drop £5.99 on it until I read some reviews.
should be there guys…it's in the uk store and in the german one as well.
just search for sim city in itunes.
i guess i read a post some minutes ago where someone from sweden confirmed it online for the swedish store
TO ALL WHO NEVER SEEM TO HAVE THE RECENT APPS IN THEIR NATIONAL STORE
Sometimes there are different versions in the various App Stores. So you have to search for it manually, instead of just following the link. It\'s available in the German store, btw. But the link leads to the message that it\'s not available. So, do it manually. TouchArcade certainly loses conversion here, until all AppStore links will be internationalized.
that's what i said
signed effzehn
jepp found it, thanks
The game is a bit frustrating as the comlete city is not displayed anymore the time you start to scroll a little. what the hell where they thinking?
*displayed. you cannot get a good orientation of you only see grass when scrolling. Thumbs Down EA!
*of your city….sorry for the many typos. I blame my sim city frustration concerning the typos
@Sasan:
They still show major infrastructure items; I'm sure this was done to reduce the animation needed, thus keeping a reasonable runtime and battery life.
Available in Italian store.
Only played it a little bit… Buy hey, what an achievement, it really does look as if they have brought the entire SimCity experience to the iPhone.
Controls are a tad finicky, it certainly does seem at if you would need to devote some serious time to getting most out of the interface and features – probably not for those who are looking for a quick game 'fix'. Having said all that I can't imagine any other handheld gaming system running SimCity which such grace. Good job EA!
Just a thought, but wouldn't this be a great game to have running on your big Sony Bravia (Hi Phil!) via TV Out!
I think the general consensus is that we want a review and video!
ever since my experience with supermonkey ball and its atrocious controls, i'm firm that i won't spend $10 on an iphone game until the reviews are out. i'd like to buy this today, but i'm going to take a wait-and-see approach.
@da: I agree with you that this was done to achieve a good framerate etc…but I am not with you on the point that the main infrastructure items are shown. you are right that some coloured grounds are shown and they represent the streets and the buildings…but with all the colours on the ground it gets confusing. especially if you want to scroll for better orientation.
I'd like to wait for a review and a video… and for me to have more money… but I don't know how long I can wait. This game (SimCity 3000) probably took more of my life away than any other game, except Age of Empires II. Although, I spent a lot of time on a lot of Simulation and RTS games over the years, so I can't be sure.
Great, I can't wait to get this. I'm going to wait until the price lowers (if it does).
I'm waiting for The Sims!
I find i end up cheating on the PC versions when i lose money! is there point in me buying this? is it easier? or should i wait for the sims 3?
tough decisions for people seeing as there are 4 reviews, 2 people say its rated * and 2 say it's rated *****
Crashed on me – SimCity = FAIL
This full version game on a phone is a substantial achievement.
The demo version I saw on the developers phone had a population of 325,000 and it took about 30 seconds to load. He also explained the buildings go away when moving and only show zones to save load time for resolution. I am enjoying this game. I could bitch the iPhone screen isn't 7×7 for better views but this is a full game on a cell phone. Satisfied.
Hey peeps
I have an iPod touch first generation and realy wanted to buy this game and I've been waiting for the release for ages. So today I tapped on the apstore, searched for SimCity, I found the game, pressed "buy now" and I get the message this game is not compatible with you iPod. WTF do I do now?
Greet
@Michiel:
Make sure your on 2.2 firmware.
Connect your iPod to your computer and check for updates.
well it crashed on me when I was going through the power plane selectio. screen.
it isn't a great interface when it involves constantly zooming in and out as I want to place single tile things such as roads etc.
the problem is that you cannot pick an item to build and thenzoom out… you must get to the zoom level you want and then build… fine if u are builing zones or large items, bad if you want to build long items such as roads etc.
I also cannot see that I can rotate my map. if there is an option for this it isn't readilly apparent.
Been waiting for this, bought it immediately. One of my favorite games on the desktop, worth $10 to get it mobile. So far, works great on my first-gen touch. Booted right up, works quickly enough. You can't say "fail", as it is obviously something that affects only some people.
I think the interface is excellent — what do you expect for a tiny screen? I like that when placing areas, you get arrows you can tap to expand your area 1 row in that direction, plus a 4-headed arrow to reposition the whole area. Also you can accept or cancel at any time. I can do most of my work at the default zoom.
My only question: is there a funds cheat, as there always was on SC desktop versions? I could care less about "winning" — all I like about SimCity is making cities. when my money runs out, I start over. Managing budgets, while I realize is the point of the game, is too much like real life
I would say considering how closed the iPhone environment it and how big a developer ea us that any crashes should be considered fail…
afaik maxis puts chests in as Easter eggs to find so just wait and they should appear.
Hey Everyone! Just gave SimCity about 25 mins. Now to be honest; it's great. From the vantage point of appreciating the platform and the game for what they are. Playabilty is great as you can get lost building and maintaining a city for hrs. It's a lil slow but not laggy. The pinch and zoom are effective with just an extra 1% of patience. Graphic wise it's amazing, it's really SimCity on the iphone. If someone is really looking for this game to stand out in the crowd, it does. However its not the game that people hoped would dominate amongst others. Its a great addition to the many games and apps that we have to choose from. 9.99 I think is a good price because it affords so much replayability. Ok well I Give it 4 out of 5. It's worth getting.
I've been playing for about 2 hours now. I'm liking it. I love that they included the music. It's very immersive.
Installed, Restarted, Switched to Airplane mode, Played without a hitch!
I'll say that the controls take a bit to get used to but that's to be expected on a completely different interface. There are certainly some innovative approaches to plotting zones, roads, etc. which could be good in the real game (ability to plot then adjust rather than plot + bulldoze to edit)
Look forward to seeing some cities!!!
They turn off your music and play their own. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Especially since their music is pretty lame, inoffensive, ambient crap.
Otherwise I'm having a great time. Nice graphics, good controls, it's definitely SimCity.
Original iPod Touch with latest firmware. Downloaded from Mobile App Store. Running great without a restart.
The Sims are still cool, after all these years. Go figure.
Now there is SimCity for iPhone. Is there a SimCity for the HTC Dream yet?
I love it no crashes. A little laggy but not that much at all. Defiently worth it and i am playing it a ton. I would recommend this. Keep up the good work EA and i hope to see need for speed soon
Man, do I ever want to play this on my Mac + 28" monitor. I miss this game, as it turns out. I wonder if i can find an old copy.
The App store is great but unfortunately for us review-lovers, it seems the days of video game makers offering up early "copies" of games for review sites is gone. Wouldn't it be great if TouchArcade got its hands on a copy of SimCity a few weeks ago. I'd already have purchased, given positive reviews. Further, game developers (i.e. EA) could avoid having that week-to-ten-day lag before reviews come out, word circulates and sales pick up.
This is VERY well done… If you've played SimCity 2000 or 3000 and liked it, get this!
I only played 2000, and there is far more in this version, must be based on 3000.
When entering parks, I noticed three options written in Spanish:
Parque Aire Fresco
Parque Hermosas Flores
Parque Verde del Caballo
Spanish listings must be an oops because I don't recall them in the PC version I had played.
Too funny.
Only one suggestion to make this game far easier to control and move around the map -
Use accelerometer input to move around the map. (However, give it a slight deadzone, so as slight tilts don't actually move the map, but average to heavy tilts do.) This would make it much easier to place zones and what not around the map, and also greatly ease up on moving around the map in general.
Well i am testing it and still not much of a show stopper
Very nice port. This seems kind of like a SC 2000/3000 hybrid; almost everything from 3000 is there; but i noticed there is no way to terraform, so maps are the same elevation. Very polished for a mobile game though.
Looks like a decent game, but I'm going to wait and maybe one day when it's on sale or something I will buy it. Hopefully after a few upgrades.
Downloaded this just before I went out last night, runs perfectly on my iPod Touch G1, and my brothers iPhone 3G.
Great game just how I remember Simcity 3000. It's worth buying, the controls are good and it's got everything the original game had.
I've been playing it pretty heavily for the last day or so, already I've run out of space and want to burn most of it down and start again.
I've also found at least one bug, and the game has crashed out a few times, and both of those have caused me to lose my progress. I also find that the screen size – as you'd expect – is a little bit tight, and the battery use isn't exactly stellar, but isn't exactly that bad either.
All in all, a good game.
Funds Cheat -http://forums.toucharcade.com/showthread.php?threadid=2532
If you shake the phone whil ein gameplay and bar comes up to enter sim city cheat codes, but my question is, what are the codes? same as pc versions????
if you shake the phone in gameplay a cheat code bar pops up? what are the codes, i love sim city but like to take the budget part out and just build cool cities? anyone?
these are the two cheats I got to work so far.
i am weak = Construction costs set to $0
pay tribute to your king = All extra rewards
Three cheers for them for keeping the price at $10. If we want top level developers making iPhone games for years to come, there has to be a market established.
(Fully agree with those who say they want to wait for the full reviews, though. Makes sense).
Hey people. I succesfully instaled Simcity on my Ipod touch. Wel the first few days (until now) the game worked very well. So this morning I wanted to start the game. Wel the EA thing showed up as usual, then the screen tuned white. After waiting like 20 seconds a loading screen showed up, as if the game was loading. This message showed up: "Generating Terrain Please Wait…" Well I decided to wait for a few minutes, but after like five minutes nothing happened yet. Well I had to do som stuff so I left my ipod loading. After 3 hours I came back and my ipod touch was still generating the terrain. I rebooted my ipod (with the home and sleep button) but after that the same happened. Does anybody know what im doing wrong or what the solution for this problem is?
Greetz michiel
I have refused to spend over 5 bucks on any apps. And only have taken that plunge once (Touchgrind). I am a penny-pinching scrooge. However, I bought SimCity on the day it was released, and I think compared to all other
games I've bought this is worth 20 bucks! Seriously the replay value will keep this on my phone for the duration of me owning it. As a side note I have never played any other versions of this, so my opinions are not based on nostalgia. Thanks EA for setting a higher standard for your releases to this budding platform. WARNING: this is not a crapp app!!!
I have the same problem – Generating Terrain – and nothing happens. It has worked, but no longer – I have no idea where to go for help?! Nothing at Apple, nothing at EA. Where's the update?
@peter
EA told me to email to eamobile wich I did. No answer yet
i have the 2nd gen ipod touch
i thought it would be nice to have sims for my ipod, i haven't played it in years.
i bought it fine. but it will not sync onto my ipod, it says it's not compatible for the ipod i have…
You need firmware 2.2 you probably have 2.1.1 or somthing
Does anybody else have huge issues getting the water system to work? I've played SimCity before so I know the water pumps and towers need to be powered, in zones, etc. I have done everything as usual but water just won't work.
It works when I do the starter cities, but never when I start from scratch. Really frustrating, as people never move in.
I assume it's a bug/glitch, but I haven't seen anybody else with these problems.
@Claire: I'd say that one is a bug my copy works well in every aspect except train station/railways have no functionality. Hope these issues are addressed soon by EA. This is still a wonderful game, and a welcome addition to everyones iPhone/itouch.
@Rich: Really? I tried deleting the whole program and reloading and it still didn't work. So weird that the problem just keeps happening. I hope it's addressed soon as water is pretty vital to the game. Do you see the same bugs when you use starter cities?
well i buy it but hav few problems like when i advance in time 3x in a big city it froze in the same play and the tranportation dont work this really s… i hope they fix it soon
I'm also having trouble with getting water to my buildings. Anyone know how to do this?
The railway and transportation work fine for me. What I think the game is lacking is a little info.
Example:
¿What do pump stations do?
¿How is the oil power plant different from the coal power plant?¿What is its lifespan, pollution emissions?
Thanks for comments especcially about how u havbe to upgrade to 2.2 helpful SIMCITY THUMBS UP
to TSP:
Yes you can play your own music on any app by double double-tapping the home button and push play. It'll automatically turn off all sound in most apps.
to TSP:
yes you can by double tapping the home button and hit play. It turns off all sounds in most apps.
Does anyone know what the max scores or max buildings for this game is. I cant figure out if I maxed it out?
well, I finally seemed to get my water working. I deleted, reinstalled several times and saving and exiting, etc, but nothing worked. FInally I paused the game and fastforwarded a bit and all of a sudden there was development in my city and water to everything. Not sure why that worked, but hope that works for everyone else.
omg it works you just have to power the tower and then you just wait or fast fowerd
What is going on? The game works great but I am making more money every month then the budget says I am! This is AWFUL. I was to only make $130/month Surplus. Every Month I made a couple Thousand Dollars! This really takes the challenge and the reality out of the game. Very Odd Glitch, I Can Not Play the Game any more because of this. No FUN.
Is there any way to stop the increase in money outside that of the budget? Please HELP!
when will the people come?
When you first start the game it is paused. Once you push play- the people will come.