CityLife

[FrostyBoy]

I just got this game and read the 10 step tutorial, the game seems to be deeper than SimCity 4, which I find surprising given Maxis experience on making city games. Well I guess Monte Cristo (makers of CityLife) have learned from all the SimCity's.

Anyway, it looks like a great game, and I am about to head into my first attempt, will post again on my thoughts.

[:) Smiley]

One thing I wonder is if the actual gameplay looks as good as the screenshots, or if you need a supercomputer to run it at that resolution at a reasonable speed.

[FrostyBoy]

You don't need a supercomputer to run this game, trust me.

The best thing about the game is the music

Second best thing is zooming down to eye level and watching the crapholes your people have to live in because you suck at playing this game.

overall, the game is quite good, but I found it difficult, but only my first try.

I give it a 7/10

[DaShi]

Linx?

[Adagio]

Are the buildings 'poping up' "randomly" like in SimCity, or do you have to build all the buildings manually (like in Tycoon City New York) ?

[Adagio]

According to this site the demo installs Starforce

What about the full game? The above site only says demo

[FrostyBoy]

You're kidding me right? It uses Starforce?!? Oh crap! I got fooled

[snoopy369]

the DEMO uses starforce? why the heck would THAT?

[Silver14]

That way Starforce can steal information from a larger audience.

[Lemmy]

Demo's often use starforce if the full game will use it too. Because the evil crackmakers could use the clean files from the demo as an example on how to fix the starforced files of the full game.

But damn the first few posts for getting me excited...starforce
Sn00py should put a warning in his first post

[Lemmy]

Originally posted by Sn00py
The best thing about the game is the music

Frag land review

PRO
# Buildings look marvellous
# Different types of people
# Large quantity of possibilities
# First-person view allows you to watch your city growth from closeby

CON
# Background music

Other reviews (haven't read them yet)

http://www.eurogamer.net/article.php?article_id=64152

http://www.acegamez.co.uk/reviews_pc/City_Life_PC.htm

http://www.loadedinc.com/review.php?temp_view=review.php&id=687&action=part1

[Joseph]

Re: CityLife

Originally posted by Sn00py
I just got this game and read the 10 step tutorial, the game seems to be deeper than SimCity 4, which I find surprising given Maxis experience on making city games. Well I guess Monte Cristo (makers of CityLife) have learned from all the SimCity's.

Anyway, it looks like a great game, and I am about to head into my first attempt, will post again on my thoughts.

Were did you get the game? Software ETC told me today, they will have it until the end of the month.

[FrostyBoy]

I'm in Singapore, have alternative routes to get games.

[Urban Ranger]

Just say no to Starforce.

[Adagio]

I have now played the full game. I played for 5-7 hours, was kinda bored to death while playing... a few days later I uninstalled it (Starforce is gone too)... it's not worth the bandwidth usage, nor the space it takes on the HD
When playing this game, it's hard not to compare it to SimCity 4, so here it goes:

The only features that are better, than in SimCity 4 are:
- Buildings can be built on angled roads (though this has it's downside too, as if you don't plan ahead, this is going to look very ugly)
- Roads can be built in different angles (any angle you wish)
- The 3D view can give you a nice view of the city... unfortunatly the camera is not that free, you can't see the city from any view you wish
- You don't have to worry about the layout of sewers and power-grid (all buildings gets power automaticly, and you don't have to worry about water)
- The game runs better than SimCity 4

Unfortunatly there's a lots of downsides to this game:
- The graphics are 'bad'... Buildings in SimCity 4 looks much better (of course this being 2D'ish, they can have much more detailed buildings, than if it was 3D)
- No editor... you've only got premade maps to play, and none of those maps interested me at all
- The culture clash is no fun. At the beginning you have to make two towns close to each other (one for blue collars and one for the fringes), but not too close as then they will complain (and start fighting in the streets)
- There's not many different building graphics. When 'planting' resident or work-buildings, you'll only see 1-2 different kinds of buildings per 'culture'. Most buildings only has one "graphics set" though... This gets really annoying to look at, as everything is the same
- You can't zone land, you just plop down some buildings
- How you make money is a joke. The quickest way to money is making lots of windmills (excess power will automaticly be sold, giving you lots of cash). And each work-building has a set expense (which the city has to pay for? Why?) and a set income per worker and a limited number of workers (usually the expense is $500 and each worker 'makes' $100, so having 6 workers gives you $100, but 4 workers will cost you $100)
- The maps are smaller than in SimCity 4
- Each culture has it's own color (buildings and street color), this really makes it feel artificial. When playing a city-builder game, I prefer to get the feeling that it's a real city
- I miss all the graphs from SimCity games
- And then probably a lot of downsides I've forgotten about

And the worst fault this game has is Starforce... even if this game was awsome, I wouldn't buy it (AFAIK all releases of this game has Starforce)


If they wanted this game to be better than SimCity 4, they should at least have taken one major feature from SimCity 4 and implemented it better, but it seems like everything they took from SimCity is still better in SimCity 4