Tech Review: Be someone else, with these sim apps

Tired of your daily life? Simulators allow you to be whatever you want to be. With these four Sims, you can be a surgeon, city planner, bus driver or goat. Yes, a goat.

Surgeon Simulator

(iOS, Android; $4.99)

Make sure your malpractice insurance is paid up before you play this sim. You are a surgeon named Nigel Burke, and your patient is Bob. Your altruistic goal is to save Bob's life and do no harm. The reality is you're expected to do as much harm as possible, perhaps because your surgical tools include a hammer and a hacksaw. Warning: This game is not for the squeamish or anyone thinking about ever going to a hospital.

SimCity BuildIt

(iOS, Android; free)

A direct descendant of the popular SimCity franchise that began in 1989, this app is beautifully designed and addictive. Your goal is to build a city and keep its inhabitants happy. As with real cities, you need to generate tax revenue from your citizens to continue your city-building dreams. In-app purchases as high as $99 give you an infusion of SimCash if your treasury runs low because your taxpayers are tapped out or move away.

Bus Simulator 2015

(iOS, Android; free)

No, despite the name, you don't become a bus with this sim, you become a bus driver. There are several types of buses to choose from, including city buses, a double-decker and even a school bus. Your goal is to complete routes along nicely rendered maps from various world cities such as Los Angeles, Paris and Rome. The free app offers a lot of fun gameplay, and in-app purchases allow you to unlock additional buses or remove the ads.

Goat Simulator

(iOS, Android; $4.99)

This amazingly popular app, which broke into the Top 5 of all iOS and Android games when it was released last year, is aptly summed up by its developer: "You no longer have to fantasize about being a goat, your dreams have finally come true!" In this simulation your goal as a goat is to cause as much havoc as possible. The more things you wreck, the more points you score.

Tech bytes

Do your bidding

Sotheby's is teaming with eBay to allow Internet users to bid on items at the same time they are being offered at the tony Upper East Side auction house. The first live auction is April 1 (nwsdy.li/sothebys), featuring New York-centric pieces, including the Yankee Stadium letters that adorned the old ballpark in the 1970s. Starting bid is $150,000. -- PETER KING

Compete with complete

Anyone who has ever used Google's "autocomplete" knows the feature can make searches faster or weirder. A new website, not affiliated with the search giant, has turned Google autocomplete into a Family Feud-type game. At googlefeud.com, you guess how the actual autocomplete would fill out preselected phrases. The website says that "certain results may be offensive and/or incomprehensible" -- just like the real autocomplete.-- PETER KING

Everything must go

The remnants of RadioShack's retail empire went on the bankruptcy auction block last week, and included for sale along with the company's trademarks, patents and leases are 13 million email addresses and 65 million names and street addresses of RadioShack customers. But there have been two legal filings in attempts to block the sale of the customer data, and the bankruptcy court might not approve the deals.-- BLOOMBERG NEWS