Interview: EA Mobile talks SimCity Metropolis

Electronic Arts has often faced criticism on console in the past for being too predictable - rolling out the same franchises year after year with only minor improvements. But that's certainly not true of EA Mobile.

Having already debuted connected features in Boom Blox and Spore Origins this year, not to mention creating an entirely new Tetris game just for phones (Tetris Pop), the publisher is now at it again with SimCity.

Specifically, EA Mobile has released the first mobile-exclusive version of the famous city-planning franchise: SimCity Metropolis. It takes a lot of the good stuff from its predecessor SimCity Societies, and adds more depth, as producer Olivier Proulx tells us.

"SimCity Societies was really a casual game when you think about it," he says. "It was less about building a big city, and more about your management style and decisions, and the moral behind those decisions. With the new game, we wanted to get back to building a big city while keeping the casual gameplay that we think worked pretty well in Societies."

The game sees your city evolve from a small town to a bustling metropolis (hence the name), and involves working through 18 scenarios, linked by an overarching storyline. You also get to play in three different districts of the city: Downtown, Industrial and Residential.

"You really feel like your city is growing," he says. "And we've managed to cram in close to 120 buildings, with about 40 in each district. At the end of some scenarios you get to unlock hero buildings which have a big impact on your city. So there's a lot of depth to it."

The game keeps the easy-to-understand tabbed interface of SimCity Societies, and the viewpoint on your city is much the same, albeit with a few graphical tweaks.

"We've added cars moving round, little construction animations and other things so the game feels a bit more alive," says Proulx.

"The three districts look pretty different too. The industrial area looks a bit dirty and polluted, at least initially, while the commercial district has more banks and huge condo centres. The residential district has more cafes, shops and little houses. Societies felt more like a suburb, but this game feels like a real city."

SimCity Metropolis also keeps the sly humour of its predecessor, with an array of cartoon characters, including an aggressive news anchor, a friendly alien, and a not-that-bright superhero who'll try to help you (and often make things worse).

Oh, and a mad scientist who randomly blows buildings up with his experiments. "It's not a big effect, since you have such a large city, so it's funny to see it happen," says Proulx.

EA Mobile is hoping that SimCity Metropolis will have as wide an appeal as possible, taking in both newbies and SimCity veterans.

"We wanted to come back to the roots of the franchise a little bit," says Proulx. "Hardcore SimCity players might prefer this game to Societies, because it's much more about building this big city. But we hope that the easy game mechanics, the storyline and the quirky events will appeal to casual gamers too."