Promotional Consideration is a weekly feature about the Nintendo DS advertisements you usually flip past, change the channel on, or just tune out.
We applaud any video game ad that eschews the common official-art-and-screenshots approach, a template that's been in place for as long as we can remember. This week's piece abandons those conventions, marketing EA's SimCity DS port and its city-management features in a much more creative fashion. Expand you commercial zoning, lower industrial taxes, and join us past the break!
Sim City aficionados will enjoy this update from Famitsu. They've gone ahead and set up a small promo site for the upcoming sequel to Sim City DS, Sim City 2. And, as we still lack our whipping boy for reading Japanese, we've no idea what any of the text says on the page. But, there's plenty of new screens to look at! That's always nice.
If you want to check out the new screens, which seem to show off multiple assistants, then hit up our gallery below.
Town-planning enthusiasts who are also adept at reading kanji rejoice! EA just declared that Sim City 2 DS will be layin' pipes and buildin' roads in Japan on March 19th.
Don't get too excited, though. One look at any screens of Maxis' build-me-do should let you know that this is not most people's idea of an import-friendly title. There are lashings of Japanese text, and if the user interface is anywhere near as confusing as the one found in the first Sim City DS (which we struggled to understand in English), we may as well just give up now and wait for news of a western release.
Go past the break for a sprinkling of new screens.
Best Buy is having a sale on all of their video games priced at $19.99, allowing those looking to stock up on titles to snag two games for the sum of $30. And, looking over the list of titles that qualify, there's quite a bit of fun to be had.
We tried building a city on rock 'n roll, but it turns out that the citizens prefer stuff like pipes and roads. So, though we're horrified to learn that Starship misled us, we're going to start Sim City 2 with a plan to build a city on actual good ideas about city planning. And thanks to the opening of the Sim City 2 DS site, we can start pre-planning now, as we look at the neat new options available. Will we build (and subsequently ruin) a Renaissance-era European city? A prehistoric settlement? A Sim Edo-era Japan? Or will we end up with two squares of grass and a lapsed budget, like always?
Luckily, we're much more successful at building galleries. Check out the screens to see all the new historical settings to be found in Sim City 2 DS!
If you loved the idea of a portable SimCity, then this news should make your day -- a sequel to the handheld simulation is in the works, and already set for a March release (in Japan). The DS sequel to the first entry in the popular franchise looks to be adding timelines -- with appropriate costumes for your advisors throughout each era, as well as buildings. Cue caveman garb! Otherwise, it seems like typical SimCity fare, which is actually good news.
And hey, if you haven't picked up the first one, it looks like that GameFly sale is still going.
Why can't publishers be more charitable with preorder gifts in the states? We're doing them a favor whenever we put down an advance for one of their games, giving retailers an idea of how many they should order to stock their shelves. Japan and Korea seem to get reservation rewards for almost every release!
The latest preorder prizes, a branded system pouch and a stylus set, come with EA's SimCity DS and MySims, both due later this month for Korea. Publisher Fujitsu was more creative with its Cooking Mama gift, offering a limited edition pair of cooking mitts to any gamer who reserves the kitchen-themed minigame collection. Hand over five bucks and head past the post break for more photos of the bonus items.
Joystiq recently got their hands on the upcoming U.S. localization of SimCityDS and they seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. They talk a lot about the transition from SimCity 3000 to the DS and what kind of changes, for the better and worse, the game has undergone. They even talk over a minigame involving Santa Claus, where he flies over the city and the player must tap the screen to make him drop presents. These presents allow for improvements to the city or turn into new buildings.
SimCity DS even features a landmark trading mode, not unlike the Nintendogs Bark Mode. Sadly, this doesn't work online, so you're going to need to find someone out in the real world (GASP!) in order to take advantage of the feature. The game is currently slated for a June release in the United States.
Our desire for SimCity DS has been something you've had to put up with for countless months now and, with the release of new screenshots on the web, we're sorry to say you will have to endure it that much longer. We can't help it! We want this game and we want it now. Next best thing besides playing the game, of course, is gawking over screenshots and licking our monitor. You don't have to follow that last step if you don't want to.
So, head past the post break and get an eye full of some fresh screens.
Seriously, what else would you want to do in Sim City DS anyway? Erecting buildings is about as good as it comes in the Sim City series, so it's appropriate that the Japanese commercial, embedded past the post the break, should focus on that. And, like all other Japanese commercials, it's shorter than it should be. We want more footage, dagnabbit!
Siliconera was lucky enough to get a copy of EA's SimCity DS recently and spoke about the game mode they've been sinking most of their time into the game's "save the city" mode. This mode takes the player and tosses them into a pre-built city that has just suffered a catastrophe (such as the pictured giant ape attack). The player is then charged with rebuilding the city back up. Other scenarios include UFO attacks and fixing traffic problems.
The more we see and read on this game, the more we must have it. We can't be alone, can we?
A lot of gaming goodness is about to be unleashed this week -- if we had to name this week for releases, we'd go with something clever, like Simbacube: Legend of the Unemployed-OMG Sim City DS in Japan!
How's that for a name? Bit of a mouthful, but it's accurate. While we're struggling to decide where to spend cash this week, we'll surely have new Sim City DS info to tide us over, and that always makes for a good time.
We know we aren't alone in absolutely needing this game, so upon scouring the intertron's many databases in looking for more information on the game, we stumbled upon these screenshots. Not the type of folk to keep them to ourselves, we'd like to share with you what we found. Machine translation tells us these images have to deal with the creation of a new town in the game.
It's no secret we're ten sorts of excited about the coming of Sim City DS, but despite the unabashed fun of city building, we know a whole lot of folks who aren't terribly excited about EA pledging to increase development for Nintendo. It's a tradeoff, it seems -- we want games like Spore and Sim City, but everyone loves to hate EA. Does it balance? Is it worth slogging through a bevy of less beloved EA games to get the gems that crop up? How do you feel about EA and Nintendo setting up as best good friends?
The fine folks over at Gamebrink have something special in their hands. It's the first video footage of Sim City DS, the Sim City 3000 port for the DS slated to hit Japan on February 22nd. As of now, there are no plans for this title outside of Japan, however after watching the footage, which has been embedded past the post break, we're ready to assassinate any foreign diplomat as long as it ensures the game will arrive on our shores.
Fighting off an army of invading giant apes with the stylus?! Hell yes we're down.
Town-planning enthusiasts who are also adept at reading kanji rejoice! EA just declared that Sim City 2 DS will be layin' pipes and buildin' roads in Japan on March 19th.
We tried building a city on rock 'n roll, but it turns out that the citizens prefer stuff like pipes and roads. So, though we're horrified to learn that Starship misled us, we're going to start 
If you loved the idea of a portable SimCity, then this news should make your day -- a sequel to the handheld simulation is in the works, and already set for a March release (in Japan). The DS sequel to the first entry in the popular franchise looks to be adding timelines -- with appropriate costumes for your advisors throughout each era, as well as buildings. Cue caveman garb! Otherwise, it seems like typical SimCity fare, which is actually good news.
Joystiq recently got their hands on the upcoming U.S. localization of 
Our desire for 
A lot of gaming goodness is about to be unleashed this week -- if we had to name this week for releases, we'd go with something clever, like 
It's no secret we're ten sorts of excited about the coming of 
