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Platform: PC
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City
Life
As
far as city building games are concerned, it's Sim City that has
been dominating the field for well over a decade on PCs…and pretty
much any other platform such a game has appeared on for that matter. It’s a damn big series, and it has done a lot to engrain
itself in the hearts and minds of gamers as the one and only game of its
type on the market. This
doesn’t seem to have phased the folks at CDV, though, as they have an
entry of their own for those looking to create a little, virtual berg in
their on dark image with City Life for the PC.
Well, maybe not a dark image. It appears that the game’s developers, Monte Cristo, are on a bit of a social conscience kick in City Life. Here, players will need to keep in mind all of the strata that make up society: the poor, the blue collared Joes, the rich folk, the intellects, the bourgeoisie, and so forth. A real city has a diverse mix of people in it, and they aren’t always going to see eye to eye. Nonetheless, they need to find a way to work together so that the city can actually function. As such, players will need to balance their city so that |
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everyone is happy.
If players want their city to be a utopia they’ll need to have
everything from bus drivers to bankers to janitors to mechanics.
They’ll likely be fundamentally different people, each with
different values, and the best thing one can do is find the kindest way
to keep them in good spirits. Then
again, one can try being iron fisted and bring everyone in line through
some state-sponsored tough love, but this will likely lead to more
instability in the long run.
While City Life may in part give players a warm, fuzzy feeling deep inside as the game expunges the virtues of understanding and tolerance, Monte Cristo plans to make it as pretty as possible in the |
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process. Part
of this will be through tiny details that will help to make the
environments believable, and there will also be 22 different terrains to
ogle at, as the game presents everything from ghettos to plush luxury
condos for all of the virtual people to live in.
Obviously,
there’ll be a lot of the other red tape that comes with city
administration, like taxes, planning public transportation,
entertainment, and so forth, but what looks to be City Life’s trump
card is this balance of the classes.
Some games have tried basic approaches to this in the past, but
there seems to be a lot more layers to what Monte Cristo has planned for
this here.
Mr. Nash (March 27, 2006) |
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