City Life 2008 Edition Review (PC)

SimCity. Brilliant game I think we’ll all agree. Personally I prefer SimCity 4 to the latest version in Societies, but that’s another matter. Back to the task in hand. A couple of years ago Monte Cristo created a game called City Life. It didn’t really make an impact on the popularity that SimCity enjoys, so, you’d think that Monte Cristo would look to learn from where they went right and wrong last time and improve on the original. After playing this game for quite a long time now, I have to say I can’t really see it.

There are aspects of City Life that are easier to do and play than there are in SimCity. For example, you still need at least one power plant. But you won’t need to lay down electric pylons, water pipes and water pumps, or even fiddle around with the budget.

Efficiency = more money

Each unit that is placed in your City will have a maximum expense and income related to it, so if your power plant is running at 100%, it will cost you more than it would if it was running at 50%. It’s the same with businesses and tax. The more efficient a business is, or the more people living in a home, will mean more money for your City’s coffers. In all the time I’ve been playing it, I haven’t been in the red once.

However, I have to say it is a lot harder to actually get things running in City Life than it is in SimCity. It does take a lot of patience and a hell of a lot of planning, which granted is the same as SimCity, but unlike SimCity there is no real “outside help”.

All on your own

SimCity has a huge following and community. There must be hundreds of sites that contain some form of helpful advice regarding different things. Then there is the little matter of a very helpful tutorial (more so in the case of Societies) that will guide you through the basics using the game to do so.

But you don’t get this sort of help with City Life. There isn’t the online community and the help you can find with most other games. Now that’s not the fault of Monte Cristo, but there isn’t even an official site. There is a City Life website, but this is for the original game and hasn’t had an update since 2006.

There is of course a tutorial that comes with City Life 2008 Edition, but it’s not what you would expect. There is no in game tutorial to guide you through slowly and for you to get “hands on” with running a City. What Monte Cristo have basically done is given you a slight introduction in the form of a readable tutorial, that has some fancy pictures and animations to try and get the point across. So basically it’s a case of learning the game as you go along and trust me, you’ll be restarting cities a lot as you learn from your mistakes. This of course becomes really frustrating really quickly!

Social classes and behaviour

One thing I will say is to do things slowly. I’m not going to make this into a hints and tips article, but something I noticed is how things can quickly go from good to bad. I suppose just like the real world does. You could quickly find that nice large monthly profit being made is quickly closer to 0.

If your residential areas aren’t up to standards you’ll attract “Have not’s”, basically bacteria on your city that have the ability to bring it to its knees. You need to make sure your people have what they need and you can tell this by the alert icons that appear over their homes.

Next door has one so why can’t I?

So this could be not enough jobs, a desire for some form of education in the area, police or shopping facilities as examples. Just like SimCity these services for your citizens have a range. Anything out of this range won’t be satisfied by them – even if their next door neighbours have been.

Businesses are similar in behaviour. If there are no workers at the business then you will get the icon above telling you so. You have to be careful with how far away you build the businesses as well. Too close and the pollution won’t make your houses a desirable place. Too far or too difficult to get to, then the jobs just won’t be taken.

Shiny new buildings

From what I can tell from playing as well, it appears that City Life 2008 Edition is basically the same as the original City Life, but with new buildings and a bunch of different maps. You also get the original City Life game and maps to play as well as the 2008 Edition, so really it’s an expansion pack rather than a new game.

An editor is also included with City Life 2008 Edition, however like the rest of the game, there is no real explanation on how to actually use it. I haven’t managed to figure it out and I can’t really see anyone other than the hardcore users actually trying it. It’s just too complicated really. There is even a message while it is loading that states Monte Cristo doesn’t support the editor. So far it doesn’t appear they support 2008 Edition full stop.

Get a business degree before playing!

This has been fairly difficult for me to review since it is possible to enjoy the game once you get into it. It’s a different type of City game to SimCity; this is more City management on a business side and what you have to learn. It’s not about making things look pretty. It’s about strategy and being one step ahead of your citizens to make sure you have what they need. There are less things to worry about, but what you do need to think about has a bigger impact than it would in SimCity.

The game is good, the editor not so good, but there doesn’t seem to have been any real development from the original. The game hasn’t taken a step forward; it’s where it was when it was first released. I see it this as an expansion pack, not a new game, with the original bundled on and I can’t quite see there being enough new content to justify telling someone to go out and buy it. This is the same game with a few extras, and if this was a console game the developer would have been absolutely caned for it. Frankly, Monte Cristo probably should be!