There's a Free Mode that immediately got my preference as you don't need to bare in mind all too many rules & restrictions. In the Challenge mode you get a town from a period long ago and you need to take the right decisions to let it evolve throughout time. As you start setting up the right huts and choosing certain areas to hunt in, you'll see renaissance pass by and be confronted with upcoming industry to end in the current age we live in, with ultra modern appartments on every street corner.

A nice touch is that each time you go through gives you more options so that you gradually learn to use all of them. Also it offers a lot of variation as you can choose your building style and can for instance opt between Asian condos or grey brick monsters from the beginning of last century in Europe. We were also pleased that even the DS manages to give all buildings enough detail to make them vivid and interesting. Unfortunate is that the music pleases less than the graphics despite some variation depending on which era you're playing in. Additional advantage is that throughout the Challenge Mode you unlock buildings that you can use in the Free mode or pass onto a friend.

That this type of games works on the DS is of course largely thanks to the stylus that succeeds very well in imitating the mouse on the pc. Creating zones is done by dragging your stylus on the touchscreen, just like with adding roads. Also the menus and the use of them are very well designed and help newbies to become addicted to SimCity. The latter is also for a big part thanks to the MySims who regularly come tell you what to do and of course the many stats that show what's going on in town and how your inhabitants feel about that.