City Life (video game)
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| City Life | |
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| Developer(s) | Monte Cristo |
| Publisher(s) | CDV Deep Silver Focus Home Interactive |
| Platform(s) | Windows |
| Release date | May 12, 2006 (Europe) May 19, 2006 (Scandinavia) May 29, 2006 (NA) October 12, 2006 (Steam) |
| Genre(s) | City building games |
| Mode(s) | Single player |
| Rating(s) | ESRB: Everyone PEGI: 3+ |
| Media | CD-ROM, Steam |
| System requirements | Windows |
| Input methods | Windows |
City Life is a real-time strategy game that lets the player create a modern city. It is the first modern city-building game to allow the player to work in full 3D environment. The game is by French developer Monte Cristo. It is published in France by Focus, in Germany and the UK by Deep Silver and in North America by CDV. It was released in May 2006.
City Life allows players to zoom in and see every little bit of detail. The placement method allows buildings to be placed at an angle, as also seen in Sierra Games' Caesar IV.
More recently, the game has been criticized for lack of many detailed elements, such as weather, disasters, and more "in depth" user control.
Monte Cristo is currently working on a City Life successor, now named Cities XL.
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[edit] Summary
City Life continues the very long tradition of city-building and management game that was originally started by Will Wright's SimCity series by allowing the player to customize their urban city's roads, buildings, finances, ordinances and much more. City Life utillizes a three dimensional game engine in displaying cities, and also includes the requirement to satisfy six different socioeconomic groups within the city, an essential part of gameplay. The six groups include: The Elites, Suits, Radical Chics, Fringe, Blue collars and Have-Nots.
[edit] Classes
In game, the six classes are depicted in a circle. Clockwise from the top are Elites, Suits, Blue Collars, Have-Nots, Fringes, and Radical Chics. Each class can tolerate the two adjacent to it, but is hostile towards the three across the circle. Further, the income generated by businesses focusing on each class is indicated by its height on the circle, Have-Nots generating the least and Elites generating the most. Lastly, the left side of the circle favors education while the right side favors safety (e.g. police and fire department coverage). The higher classes are of course more demanding.When a city is founded, only Fringes, Have-Nots, and Blue Collars will settle there. The Suits must be attracted by having good conditions for the Blue Collars, the Radical Chics are attracted by good conditions for the Fringes, and the Elites are attracted by good conditions for the Suits and Radical Chics alike. Due to the literal class warfare, if classes that dislike each other live near each other, they will start riots and make complaints. Much of the gameplay focuses on arranging your city so that this will not occur.
Every business will employ a specific mix of classes; the earlier, less profitable buildings may employ only one class, e.g. six fringe, but later buildings require a mix of several classes to reach their full potential. Thus, a successful city must manage a population of each of the classes.
As their name indicates, The Elite community brings together the most powerful and wealthiest segments of the population. They're also the most demanding. They have no problems with either the Radical Chics or the Suits beliefs and behavior. The Radical Chics are in the upper ranks of high-income individuals (compare Creative class). They are very close to the artistic and creative world and have liberal views and disposition. They are attracted by both the Fringes and Elites lifestyle. The Suits are a fairly wealthy community which moves in the industrial circles in your city. Broadly speaking, they are generally managers of business. The Suits generally like the near proximity of Blue Collars and Elites.
The Fringes are artists with moderate incomes who are therefore usually fans of cultural activities. They also lean towards the liberalistic views of the world. The Blue Collars work in the industries of your city and have revenues close to or the same as the fringe. They represent the typical suburban family with traditional values. The Have-Not community is at the crossroads between the artistic and the industrial worlds. They are also lowest on the scale of power, representing the poor people of your city.
[edit] Economy
City Life has a very basic economy, compared to SimCity. As opposed to SimCity 4, City Life has an easier, less complicated way of generating revenue. City services and tax revenue are the base of income in the game, while large businesses and extreme building sprees decrease revenue.
Revenue-generating buildings
- Power plants $200-$2,000 in revenue
- Waste Management $1,500-$3,000
Revenue-decreasing acts
- Large businesses $500-$2,000 in losses
- Building sprees (building too fast) $400-$2,500
- Parks/Plazas $120-$800
- Unsuccessful businesses $50+
[edit] Technical Issues
Technical support for the product is offered by the various publishers for their territory. For North America, support can be received via http://www.cdvus.com [1], which also contains a number of documented work-around, patches and program updates.
[edit] Startup problems
Many users have problems getting the game to actually play. Sometimes before the game loads to 100%, the game crashes to the desktop which occurs if the video card does not support the pixel shaders required by City Life[1]. Users who lack the support for the required pixel shaders can use a program called 3D-Analyze to run City Life[2]. To date, Monte Cristo has yet to officially rectify the problem. The game also has compatibility issues with Windows Media Center XP, and old video card drivers[3]. Some users have also experience compatibility issues with Windows Vista.
[edit] Expansions
[edit] World Edition
A City Life expansion pack, dubbed City Life: World Edition, was released on December 30, 2006 online and on January 15, 2007 in stores. World Edition features landmarks around the world, including the Eiffel Tower and the Sears Tower.
Additional content includes:
- Building Creation Tool
- 100 new buildings, totaling the number of buildings at 300.
[edit] City Life Deluxe
On December 30, 2006, registered game users received an email advertisement for City Life Deluxe. It is available for purchase and download from the City Life website, though the site does not detail updates to World Edition within the expansion, if any.
[edit] 2008
On August 30, 2007, Monte Cristo and Focus announced an upcoming second expansion pack for City Life entitled City Life 2008, saying the expansion would include "60 more buildings, bringing the total to 360, including famous structures such as St Pauls Cathedral, Royal Opera etc... New scenarios, 10 new maps, and an updated version of the editor allow you to import satellite maps, as well as import from applications such as World Machine, or GeoControl." The official release date for the expansion pack was November 10, 2007. [4] As of November 16, 2007, the release date is November 23, 2007. The release date has now officially been confirmed as February 15, 2008.
[edit] References
Other References
- Vidéo City Life - Four videos - A trailer, E3 and two gameplay videos.
- Screen Collection
[edit] External links
- Official City Life site
- Focus Official Site
- Official City Life forum
- Official City Life forum (US only)
- Gengaming Interviews City Life - Interview regarding future of City Life and its development
