I don’t now what made it pop into my head but a long time ago I had a PC game where you had 1950s Movie Monsters attacking a desert town. It was things like Giant Insects and Aliens and Robots. I can’t even remember if the player controlled the Monsters or the people fighting them. Does this ring any bells for anyone.
Command & Conquer Red Alert had a couple of 1950s movie monster levels with giant ants.
I believe the game you’re talking about is “I Was An Atomic Mutant” (2003)
In it the player chose from 1 of 4 controllable giant monsters to attack a desert town.
(From the GameSpot review: There’s the requisite giant lizard, Reptomicus [snip]; the She-Beast, an extremely angry woman who is at least 50 feet tall; the Invader from Dimension-X, an alien in a huge, bubble-domed robot suit [snip]; and The Brain From Beyond Infinity, an enormous flying brain with its three-story-tall eyeballs still intact.)
-Slaughter
Maybe 1981’s Crush, Crumble and Chomp?
Crush, Crumble and Chomp! - Wikipedia!
It had the giant alien, robot, and bug, but not the desert town. You terrorized places like D.C. and Tokyo.
One of the SimCity series? Your town has to cope with various crises, such as Godzillaand Alien attack.
This was it! Thank you! Thanks to others for their guesses as well. Googling was no help.