Simcity Deluxe

Is there a greater feeling than building up a thriving community from nothing?

One with happy citizens praising your name, safe in the knowledge their children will grow up in a better and brighter future, free from inequality and oppression.

EA Mobile hopes not as the objective in SimCity Deluxe remains unchanged from previous entries – build up a town from nothing except a wad of cash and some big ideas.

This is done by zoning areas of land for housing, commercial buildings and industry, as well as building public amenities like roads and hospitals for your resident sims.

As the city grows larger so the demands for jobs and housing increase, and the building of public services - not to mention your budget - requires clever management skills to keep everything ticking over.

It sounds overwhelming but it’s a fairly smooth ride due to the large amount of advice dolled out by your friendly advisor lady who pops up on screen at regular intervals.

It doesn’t take very long to get into the swing of things, helped by controls that are logically laid out, with everything easily accessed through the various menus.

I did occasionally wish there was a way of assigning particular buildings to shortcuts, especially when it came to extended road building, but as the game pauses for placing new structures it didn’t end up affecting gameplay to a serious degree.

Along with the controls, EA Mobile has also done a good job of keeping the screen relatively clutter-free, with very little extraneous information obscuring the view of your city.

This gives you a good appreciation of the improved graphics, which posses a decent variety between the various different zones and a high level of incidental detail like smog clouds and traffic build-ups.

Both Freeplay and Scenario modes are back for this latest edition, although those hoping for the drip-feed of objectives found in SimCity Metropolis will be disappointed.

Instead the Scenarios place three set objectives such as population or a high standard of healthcare and set a limited number of months in which achieve to them.

Most of these missions are quick and ideally suited to play on the go. While they may start off insultingly easy, the difficulty ramps up quickly, with the latter missions requiring some very clever planning to complete.

So, despite our familiarity with the series, going back to the very first mobile SimCity, SimCity Deluxe still manages to create that smug feeling that comes with creating something out of nothing.

It builds upon the solid foundations laid down by the original with improved graphics and an improved help system.

Still, those who enjoyed the more radical SimCity revisions may find it a little too familiar.