City Life
Jun 15, 2006
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.
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.