No game captured my imagination when I was growing up like SimCity. Certainly, a part of it was my God complex, but more it was the open-ended nature of a game with few rules that let you build a city. I spent countless hours on my computer playing it; I even spent countless hours on the Super Nintendo playing it when it was ported to that console. Now it’s coming to the iPhone–countless hours will be lost again.

I got a chance to play a near-complete version of it today; it looks great. Fans of the series will recognize the SimCity 3000 look and feel, but the addition of touchscreen controls makes sense for things like zoning (creating a certain type of building zone). Using the multi-touch capabilities of the iPhone to do things like zooming in and out of your city also makes the game a good fit for the device.

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