Hands On: City Life: World Edition
Not content to be just a city – it’s going to be a world unto itself.
Tags: City Life Categories: PC Previews, Previews
Posted by Tracy Erickson on Dec 12th, 2006
 |
With every PC game under the sun receiving an expansion pack, CDV is taking a different approach with its recently released city building simulation, City Life. Packing in a wealth of content, as well as a few new features, City Life: World Edition offers the core gameplay of the original package albeit with expanded content. Given the original game’s entertaining, yet challenging gameplay and vivid visuals, revisiting City Life for an improved experience seems worthwhile. While it doesn’t address all the shortcomings of the original, City Life: World Edition certainly promises to build on its strengths.
As in the original game, City Life: World Edition elects you as mayor to raise a fictitious city from the ground up. Once City Hall has been built, you’re responsible for zoning residential and commercial areas, as well as setting up basic infrastructure with electricity, waste management, law enforcement, fire response, health services, and education facilities. You’ll have to meet these basic needs in order to attract residents; moreover, as your city grows you must address more advanced requests for recreational areas, public transportation, and parks. What makes City Life unique is the concept of subcultures that inhabit your city. Six different subcultures can reside within a city ranging from the destitute Have-Nots to the affluent Elites. Successfully managing a city means not just meeting basic needs, but also addressing the diverse wants of competing subcultures.
 |
Both free and scenario modes return in City Life: World Edition, so there’s plenty of opportunity to tackle the complex challenges of building and managing a city. Free mode lets you design a city without any restrictions or specified goals, whereas scenario mode requires you to meet specific objectives in order to complete the scenario. A couple of new maps have been added, expanding upon the small slate included in the original package. Diversity among what few maps are included is nice, ranging from tropical archipelagoes, green valleys, and watery estuaries. The maps are quite large consisting of several zones, which can be purchased and developed. You’ll start with one zone which you can expand by purchasing new zones or unlocking by earning city keys awarded for meeting certain gameplay requirements.
Although the elements of gameplay remains unchanged from the previous version, City Life: World Edition packs in a bunch of new content that should make it worthwhile. Over a hundred new buildings are being added ranging from dilapidated apartment complexes to chic restaurants. New landmarks will also be available in the enhanced World Edition including the White House, Eiffel Tower, Kremlin, and Statue of Liberty. The most significant addition in City Life: World Edition is the building editor. Following the release of the original version, editing tools were available, but required a licensed copy of 3ds Max. City Life: World Edition integrates a building editor without any additional software requirements. You’ll be able to edit buildings as you please and then use them in your cities. Even better, online functionality means the ability to share edited buildings with other players.
 |
City Life: World Edition offers another chance to check out this surprisingly solid city building simulation. Loads of new content, as well as a few enhancements like the ability to import your own music for use within the game, warrant a look at the game. It would be nice to see some terrain editing tools, as well as some balancing between the socio-economic classes; yet, there appears to be enough altered to make it worthwhile. Even if you’ve already picked up the original, CDV plans on offering a rebate for those who pick up World Edition. Set for release shortly after the advent of the new year, City Life: World Edition may just be that post-holiday pick up to replace all of those crappy titles you’re bound to get under the tree.
[ Post the first comment | View related posts ]
Tags: City Life
Posted by Tracy Erickson on Dec 12th, 2006 and is filed under PC Previews, Previews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can post a comment, or trackback from your own site.
