I have played Sim City since i was about 8, i liked all of them except SimCity 4. I am not sure why, but i really didn't like it. And since then i've not seen any game that looks good in the same genre, until Cities XL. The demo is out now so i gave it a try, and i have to say it's really good.
You start off with about 8 or so easy tutorial levels, there boring so work through them as quick as possible. Then the fun starts, you log in with your online account and chose a planet, the planet has thousands and thousands of cities on it made by different players from across the globe. So you find your own slot and then go ahead and build on it. Different plots in different places have different resources, such as oil etc.
The gameplay is particularly great, similar to Sim City - but i think it's better. I havn't got it all figured out yet, and they say the demo only has 10percent of the buildings and content of the full game. But here's what it seemed like to me. The ultimate goal is of course, to have the biggest city, with the happiest people, and earning the most money. To do this you must manage what i consider to be a pretty vast amount of things. Power, road size and traffic, pollution levels, different types of residential areas, environment, tax's, loans, corporate tax's, fuel trading, agriculture, services and the list goes on. The difficulty much like in sim city is providing your people in the city with what they want, yet to still make money. To make money you constantly need as many people as possible, more people = more business which = more tax money for you. But the more people, logically the more services you require and people you need to keep happy.
If you're people arn't happy, your population will decrease and you'll spiral into debt and start losing money each month. It can be particularly difficult to get the right amount of the correct industrial and business's available without saturating the place with too much work. Poorer people have less skilled jobs, the richest people demand very good jobs in upmarket offices and similar things.
The graphics are great, you can zoom right into your city to street level and zoom right out. You also have your own avatar, i believe you can actually control your avatar around the city and visit your neighbours too. Each online planet has a global chat, where you can talk to people and discuss any trading you might want to do (Maybe you have a lot of spare fuel you could sell
)
So yes, i highly recommend you give Cities XL demo a try, if you're into the whole Sim city scene, or like lots of micro management and economy stuff - you'll love this. The demo can be got off most well known sites, such as fileplanet.com Of course the demo comes with limitations, but you get the idea.
You start off with about 8 or so easy tutorial levels, there boring so work through them as quick as possible. Then the fun starts, you log in with your online account and chose a planet, the planet has thousands and thousands of cities on it made by different players from across the globe. So you find your own slot and then go ahead and build on it. Different plots in different places have different resources, such as oil etc.
The gameplay is particularly great, similar to Sim City - but i think it's better. I havn't got it all figured out yet, and they say the demo only has 10percent of the buildings and content of the full game. But here's what it seemed like to me. The ultimate goal is of course, to have the biggest city, with the happiest people, and earning the most money. To do this you must manage what i consider to be a pretty vast amount of things. Power, road size and traffic, pollution levels, different types of residential areas, environment, tax's, loans, corporate tax's, fuel trading, agriculture, services and the list goes on. The difficulty much like in sim city is providing your people in the city with what they want, yet to still make money. To make money you constantly need as many people as possible, more people = more business which = more tax money for you. But the more people, logically the more services you require and people you need to keep happy.
If you're people arn't happy, your population will decrease and you'll spiral into debt and start losing money each month. It can be particularly difficult to get the right amount of the correct industrial and business's available without saturating the place with too much work. Poorer people have less skilled jobs, the richest people demand very good jobs in upmarket offices and similar things.
The graphics are great, you can zoom right into your city to street level and zoom right out. You also have your own avatar, i believe you can actually control your avatar around the city and visit your neighbours too. Each online planet has a global chat, where you can talk to people and discuss any trading you might want to do (Maybe you have a lot of spare fuel you could sell
) So yes, i highly recommend you give Cities XL demo a try, if you're into the whole Sim city scene, or like lots of micro management and economy stuff - you'll love this. The demo can be got off most well known sites, such as fileplanet.com Of course the demo comes with limitations, but you get the idea.
