City Life [PC]

Download and Buy City Life at Yahoo! Games on Demand.

Over three years have gone by since the last in the tremendously successful Sim City series, and there's no sign of another in the near future. Maybe that's creating something of a gap in your gaming life -- and if so, it's a gap which French developer Monte Cristo's newest release, City Life, will be more than happy to fill for you. City Life takes the unique approach of splitting its population into rigidly-defined social classes, and uses that to build a novel -- if slightly simplistic -- take on the traditional city management formula.

In vague order of prosperity and prestige, City Life's social groups are Elites, Suits, Radical Chics, Blue Collars, Fringes, and Have-Nots, and each fulfils different roles. For example, Suits are likely to be managing supermarkets or upper-class restaurants, while Blue Collars and Fringes make up most of the workforce. Have-Nots do the jobs nobody else wants to do, like manning the pumps at the sewage treatment plant. Nice.

City Life's take on today's socio-economic strata might make interesting reading for a researcher, but does it make for an enjoyable game? Splitting up the population so explicitly certainly serves to set the game apart from Sim City and its ilk, and gives the game a decidedly different focus. Mostly, the differences stem from the simple way you zone residential land -- you don't designate one area for Fringe housing and another for Suits, you just zone for housing and the inhabitants move in wherever they like.

In practice, and with a modicum of planning, you'll find clustering each group together fairly straightforward. They'll tend to congregate in areas with the type of jobs and services they prefer, up to a point. Neighborhoods with an overwhelming population from one particular caste will be color-coded to indicate their dominance, and any isolated members of other social groups within those areas will tend to get a little antsy.

No, mixing different social groups isn't generally a good idea. Some pairings get on OK, but others, if living in close proximity, clash. These clashes develop over time into standoffs and eventually civil disorder and rioting. Needless to say, rioting isn't exactly the best advertisement for your city, to say nothing of the fires that inevitably follow if the problem goes ignored. Leaving aside what this seems to say about the French attitude to cultural integration, avoiding class warfare is a big part of City Life's gameplay, and it's implemented with nearly enough depth to carry the game on its own.

Although City Life isn't exactly a high-budget offering, you wouldn't know that from the graphics. It isn't crammed with fancy special effects, but the buildings really look the part, and help underline the differences between each social class. Radical Chic individuals live in modern, open-plan houses and frequent futuristic restaurants; Have-Nots live in what looks like a garbage dump. Stereotyped they might be, but it's appropriate -- the game's entire concept is based on a series of stereotypes, and there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.