Developer: Monte Cristo
ESRB Rating: E for Everyone
Genre: City Building Simulation
Release Date: May 30, 2006
Pros:
- Range of camera views - from first person to satellite
- Easy to learn
- Map Editor
- Beautiful Graphics
Cons:
- Lacks detailed budget management
- No hands-on tutorial
"City Life" Features
- Manage the wants and needs of 6 social classes, while creating a peaceful city.
- Build amenities unique to each social class.
- 3D game engine brings the people to life.
- Play Free Mode or the scenarios to unlock the key to each city.
- Plan your neighborhoods carefully as each social class has their preference as to who they live near.
"City Life" Review
Every citizen in your city is part of one of the six social classes, which are: Elite, Suits, Radical Chic, Blue Collars, Fringe, and Have Nots. Each social class has their own style of buildings, cars, and clothing. They also have needs and wants that need to be addressed. Each group has leisure wants for example. That want has to be taken care of differently for each class. Elites are not going to want to be seen at a small diner with the Blue Collars, they will want a black-tie restaurant.
They may need each other and sometimes work together, but that doesn't mean they have to like each other. The classes need to live close enough together to commute to work and live far away enough not to get on each other's nerves. To deal with the issue and to keep the peace, neighborhoods have to be developed targeted for certain classes. Between keeping the neighborhoods a good distance from each other and having plenty of peace keeping buildings (SWAT teams, police) it's quite easy to keep everyone happy. The social classes are not the most difficult part of the game. It does add to the challenge of getting a good city layout going and keeps it interesting.
Besides keeping the peace between the social classes, the rest of your time will be devoted to buying buildings to meet demands of shopping, entertainment, medical, employment, energy, and fire protection. The micromanagement of buildings is limited to see who is working there and whether it's profitable or not.
This is where the shortcomings of "City Life" start to show. The individual buildings cannot be tweaked and cover only specific area of the city. The most you need to do with buildings is to make sure they are in a good location and everyone gets all the services.
What "City Life" lacks in micromanagement, it makes up for in beautiful graphics and easy camera controls. The smallest details have been added to buildings and people, which you can see from a reasonable distance away and in the first person view that has you walking around the city.
"City Life" is not going to replace that special space you have on the shelf for "SimCity." It is a great game on its rights with the additional of thinking about social classes. "City Life" will keep you playing for hours adding buildings and shuffling them around to ensure the citizens are happy. Because of this and the originality it brings to city building games, it's recommended for all city building sim fans.
