High: The new game play aspects this title brings to the table are an exciting new addition to the City Building.

Low: The limited design styles might cramp some players style.



So you love city builders and haven't found a Modern Life City Builder? Well in May City Life was released to the masses, and I was sadly not around to review it then but now it's different. I am home! No City Life is a City builder with "European" Roots, which is a nice change from the more Americanized SimCity series.

The overall game play of City Life is ripped right out of the heart of SimCity, but really how can you change the core of a City Builder with it still being a city builder? You can't so the borrowed system is fine. But the game plays completely differently once you build your city. The real difference comes in the form of "classes", and yes I mean different classes of people. Of course each class has its different places to work, the overall goal of the game is to get the classes get along, so no living to close, but not so far that the lower classes cant man some of the business the higher classes depend on.

Once you get the hang of managing the different classes, there is a deep economic system. This economic system revolves around big business, travel, and tourism. All of which are fairly easy to develop once you have your class structure settled. Now there are two basic modes to play this game, Campaign mode and free form. The campaign mode oddly enough in this game seems to be a little bit more fun. This has allot to do with the limited structures, and over all limits on city design. City Life is very goal oriented and freeform just doesn't give you the tasks that really make this game tick along. Saying this doesn't mean its not fun to play freeform, but unlike SimCity, you really have to set some set goals and work toward them. There is this river map, it's a "mystic" river, it is great fun to develop a large tourist city on.

The graphics are nothing to be amazed by, they are good, but they aren't breaking any new ground. They are on par with SimCity 4 and Rush Hour, there is no real set style and very few options design wise. This above anything hurts City Life, there isn't enough options when it comes to designing your city. Because of how the employment system, and class system works business are set in stone how they look, and the different classes of housing though varied each class is limited in design. Of course civil service building are also limited in design, but really should I be saying of course? Ok maybe that's a no, on two different levels, but in one sense should this game have limited itself to the SimCity style on the civil service buildings and even more so limited itself on commerce design. Here is where I am going to take the time to break from the review and offer some suggestions to this and future modern City Builders developers.

Ok you have a class system, the type of business are set in stone, that's fine, don't limit the design. I personally would like to see a deep level of choice in design. The first level would let me set an overall theme for my city, whether that be Art Deco, Modern, or insert design type here, and/or a mixed design mode. The Second level would be zoned design restrictions, say you want a part of your city to be "older" you could have it zoned to have older designs, that would fit an era. This same level could be used to customize your mixed design city letting you set certain types of design to certain areas and "unzoned" areas be a true mix.

Now to be City Life specific, each business, and house type should have 12-20 designs per style. One top of that all civic building should fit the given style, and have 5-10 designs per style. This type of design power would really make the game stand out. As it is now, it's a fun game but it doesn't have the shelf life of say SimCity.

Back to the review.

Sound is an important part of any game, and City Life is no exception. The sound effects are ok, they are a bit dull and over used, that in of its self is not a bad thing. The background music is non-intrusive, which is always nice, I didn't feel the need to mute the sound. Over all the sound works, and that's better then some games so I won't complain.

City Life is a well rounded City Builder that is good clean fun for all ages, and has a big reply value so it's a bang for your buck. But, yes a but, it could have been executed better to make it really stand out in the crowd. I would recommend this game to any simulation fan that's looking for a bit of change.

Please note I did not cover the editor and some other parts of the game, while they are nice parts to the game they are not "big" aspects so I decided to focus on the overall game play of the game.


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Reviewed By:EG Admin Reviewed On: Mon, 14 August 2006 18:02:09 Read:

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