I have spent the last few weeks checking out four different city building simulators for the iPhone. The question remains: if a developer spends the time to developed a city sim that is not as complex or lacks the name recognition of Sim City, will customers still fork out $5.00 for something that may not have as many bells and whistles?

The first two that I checked out were We City (free) and Build-a-lot 2 (which is $0.99 but whose predecessor is now free in the app store. On a scale of one to ten, I would give both of these a rating comparable with their pricing.

We City is a much easier game to play then any on the others that I tried out and a great place to start out if you are a budding yet inexperienced city planner. One unique thing I like about We City is that it automatically adds a new citizen for each of the buildings that you build, so you end up managing them as well, much like a Virtual Villagers type of game. This social aspect is further enhanced by the use of Plus+ to interact with your friends as they build their cities as well.

Build-a-lot 2, at $0.99, is slightly more challenging than We City. It boasts 35 different projects in 8 unique neighborhoods. It’s sister app, Build-a-lot 2: City of the Year, (also priced at $0.99) adds such things as special buildings and the ability to flip real estate for profit. The best thing I liked about it was the “Sandbox” feature that you could use to do whatever you wanted with your neighborhoods once you completed 3 of the predefined levels in campaign mode. After wetting your hands with We City, I think both of these will be well worth your money as you move your way up the difficulty ladder.

I am going to skip my favorite for a moment and jump to Sim City.  While I am not normally a fan of such games, millions of fans can’t be wrong so I purchased the game at a much higher price  than the $2.99 purchase price of SimCity Deluxe. Apparently, the regular version was upgraded and replaced by the Deluxe version because the original Sim City is no longer in the App Store.  Regardless, I can only assume by the fact that this is a “Deluxe” version that it has even more to it than the the original that I played.

And therein lies my problem. While I haven’t played the Deluxe version I can only imagine that it is just as complex if not more complex then the original – one that was already so complex that I don’t think I even managed to complete the first level.

Now we come to what, in my mind, is the best of the four that we are discussing, Virtual City.  With a huge amount of levels (50) located in several different states (my favorite being my home state of Colorado) as well as 50 different buildings (including the ability to launch a space shuttle).  The game also offers dozens of upgrades as well as five different “Sandbox” areas where you can build what you want where you want. If all these features were not enough to entice you, there is a free Lite version that is just enough to get your feet wet.  Click here for a full review of this title.

Now I know that I have given many different opinions during this review, It appears that App Store reviewers agree with me. They have given We City 2 stars, Build-A-Lot was given 3 stars, Sim City Delux was given 3.5 stars and Virtual City was given the highest of the four by getting 4 stars.