City Life [PC]

The same cannot be said for the sound. In fact, about the most pleasant thing we can say about the music is that the slider to turn it off is easy to find. Do yourself a favor and play your favorite MP3s in the background instead -- sound isn't exactly crucial to this genre, and it's not a focus of this game.

City Life even allows you to zoom all the way down to street level, and wander about your city as if you were a pedestrian. A lot of work has clearly gone into making the game look good from this perspective, but you really can't play the game from all the way down there. Walking the mean streets of City Life might reveal that Have-Not neighborhoods are deprived and look a mess, but you can see that much better from the game's standard 3D map view. Sure, having the opportunity to explore doesn't hurt the game, but it's not useful enough to really be counted as a plus point.

Although the game does include a sizable set of objective-based challenges and numerous preset maps (and even a map editor), you'll probably spend most of your time in the sandbox mode. This is partly because much of the enjoyment in a game of this style comes from unfettered building and expansion, and partly because the objectives in the more structured modes aren't particularly interesting. Again, no real harm done.

How about the interface? Logical and sensible are the best ways to describe it -- you'll pick it up in no time. Sure, it's heavy on the icons, but there's no getting away from that in a game like this. City Life's symbols are clear, color-coded consistently, and organized in a structure that's obvious and simple to navigate. The game uses a "newsflash"-like video window in the corner of the screen to keep you updated with important events, and like most of the game's elements, you can mouse-over it for a detailed pop-up help window. Beginners to the genre will be right at home.

But next to Sim City 4, by far the best known and most popular city management sim on the block, City Life looks a touch low on features. Conversely, Sim City can come across as over-complex in a number of areas. Do you really need to tweak the funding levels of every individual elementary school and health clinic across your entire city or see the exact route Simon the Sim takes to work every day?

Dedicated Sim City players are probably saying, "Yes, of course I need that level of detail!", and that's why City Life isn't going to appeal to them too much. But plenty of folks will be glad of a little more abstraction and a little less overwhelming detail. In City Life, not much gets between you and the big decisions of town planning, and if that's the way you like it, this is right up your street. Although it lacks depth next to Sim City, that might be just as much of a strength as a weakness.