City Life: World Edition
Score: 88% ESRB: Everyone Publisher: CDV Developer: Monte Cristo Media: DVD/1 Players: 1 Genre: Simulation/ God Games
Graphics & Sound: Running a city is a tough thing to do, and in City Life: World Edition, they aren't making it any easier for you. This is the follow-up to their original City Life property. The goal is to balance massive cities among their population, their social diversification, infrastructure, budget and much, much more. I am really happy with the scale of the game. You can zoom out to enormous heights and see your bustling city below you, or you can zoom into an individual citizen walking the street. The better your card, (duh) the better this will look. Point is, it is worth it to look at it with the settings all of the way up. I would have to place the music somewhere between bad 70's electric music and a cheesy sit-com. There is plenty of diversification in the sounds to let you know when they are trying to get your attention in order to point out a situation you need to address. But, the music may best be turned off later.
Gameplay: There are only two main gameplay modes in City Life: World Edition: Scenario mode and Free mode. That is not to forget the massive and flexible editor by any means, but as far as actual gameplay, there are the two modes. In Scenario mode you are given a basic storyline to follow and steps to complete along the way. You will be rewarded with "Keys to the City" for properly completing tasks. These will allow you to unlock other assets and lands later on. The Free mode is just that. Build your dream city in various locales. After you have decided how you want to play, you must then choose where you want to play. There are several terrain types. After you choose a terrain, you then have many maps to choose from. Some of these maps are locked in the beginning, but can be opened as you advance. After you have chosen your land, you then choose the plot of land you wish to start your city on. There is no lack of choices for you to make, and they only get bigger. Once you have settled, you begin to lay out your city. Thinking ahead to future growth will help keep you from having to make expensive demolition decisions early on in the game. Plan wisely.
Difficulty: As you progress in the Scenario mode of City Life: World Edition, you will unlock more and more land choices. These new lands, in each of the different terrains, pose new and interesting challenges for you to deal with both physically and logistically. You have to keep track of so much. This in itself is an extremely difficult task to balance the budget, the population and needs of a city. There is no easy road. You have a tutorial to access. The tutorial is small, but the mechanics are very straightforward; balancing it all is, of course, the trick. If you have crime, you hire police as long as there is money in the budget. The editor is a large and daunting aspect to jump into. Have no fear, there is a lot you can do with it. It is easy to get into and can give you a huge and rewarding mod experience.
Game Mechanics: The core elements of City Life: World Edition are actually quite simple. The small tutorial is evidence of that. All of the subtle connections of every action are of great consequence later. You will, however, have many of these simple concepts to play against each other in order to create harmony amongst your citizens. The thing that struck me the most in contrast between this game and say, one more like Sim City, is that usually these types of games will lean heavily towards one form of asset management or the other. You either spend a lot of time on social necessities, or you have hard core bean-counters that play like spreadsheets with graphics. This one has a nice balance between all of these ideas. I've got another game editor to learn, so that is all from me for now. I am having a blast with the 3D Max imports. Don't be shy about posting your creations and developments up on the community forum. The main website itself has a few toys to download, so go check those out. Funny thing is in Free mode, I built my city from my home town... It isn't going so well. I guess that's why I don't live there anymore. Enjoy!
-WUMPUSJAGGER, GameVortex Communications AKA Bryon Lloyd
Minimum System Requirements: Minimum: Processor: 1.5GHz, RAM: 256MB, Video: 64 MB RAM Fully DirectX 9.0c compatible video adapter such as the ATI Radeon 8000 or, nVidia GeForce 4Ti Recommended: Processor: 2.5GHz,RAM: 512MB, Video: 128 MB RAM Fully DirectX 9.0c compatible video adapter such as the ATI Radeon 9700 or, nVidia GeForce FX   Test System: Windows XP Pro, 3.2 GHz P4HT CPU, 2 GB Ram, 512 PCIE 16 ATI X1600XT
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