'Sim City' For Wii Introduces Curved Roads... And More

Curved roads. In "Sim City." Do you need to know more?

I sat down for a demonstration of "Sim City Creator" for the Wii last week at a Electronic Art's Los Angeles studios. The game is being developed in Japan by a Hudson team that is letting us -- finally -- draw roads freehand. Yes, that means you can draw roads that spell bad words. (Hey, that's the first thing I thought of!)

And there was more...

"Sim City Creator" won't just let you draw roads freehand but offers tools to create roads that are shaped in perfect circles or perfect ovals. When you drag a zoning grid over a patch of land marked with curved roads, the zones fill out every small square possible within the arc of the pavement. The game automatically drops in some straight connector roads.

Other key features include "hero buildings." These buildings influence the architecture of the buildings near them, spreading influences as wide-ranging as Las Vegas glitz to stone-age… stony-ness. The game includes motion-triggered disasters (strike the Wii remote down for a meteor strike; twirl it for a tornado). And it's got a "free flight" mode that lets a player glide a small plane over their city with tilts of the Wii remote.

I only had time for a 10-minute demo, so I didn't learn too much more. "Sim City Creator" comes out in September.

Oh, and you also don't have to lay down power lines. Each power plant has a range, and the game figures that out for you.