Jaclynt.com

City simulation game anyone?

I got Cities XL for Christmas. My brother laughed because I put as Very High priority on my Amazon Wish List. I was super excited about it as it sounded great. And it would have been great, could still be great even, if Monte Cristo didn’t screw it up so bad and release what basically amounts to half a game.

After I installed it, I discovered there was a Planet Mode, where you can trade city resources online with other players and have access to public transportation. Neat! Except it was $9.99 a month. I wasn’t willing to try that yet, so I just went into Solo Mode. In Solo Mode, you can’t trade city resources with other players, so instead they give you only a single option to trade–and it’s shitty. You get less than half the amount of money on items you sell than what you pay for items you buy.  Meaning: it’s easier not to trade and just produce everything yourself… UNTIL your city starts to get big and you basically get stuck because you can’t produce enough of everything (fuel, water, agricultural areas, etc). The game limits areas on your city map where you can build fuel fields, water towers, farms, and even holiday areas. And some city maps are labeled harder because they don’t have any areas for these resources. Meaning: you have to trade. But again, trading isn’t so hot when you’re stuck with one lame computer city to trade with, and they screw you. Obviously: online trading with other players would solve this.

Issue two with Solo Mode: no public transportation–e.g., buses. These are only in Planet Mode as well.

So…sounds like Planet Mode is the way to go, which I just figured out after trying my hardest to build unique cities on the different maps available and failing when they reach a certain size every time.

Only, Monte Cristo just ended the Planet Offer because not enough people were subscribing. Gee! Maybe because charging $9.99 a month to play the full version of a game you just paid $40 for is completely lame perhaps?

Complete failure. Now I’m just hoping Monte Cristo incorporates better, diverse trading options and public transportation options in Solo Mode. I’m kind of skeptical though. I’ve read somewhere about this being included in a Cities 2011, which would be a new version of the game we all have to pay for again. Sounds pretty assy to me.

I’m rather disappointed in them for being so shifty. City Life, Cities XL’s predecessor was a whole lot of fun, but also could have been a lot more–which of course, is what Cities XL promised to do. And now I’m really in the mood for a new city simulation game, fully featured, and I don’t have one. I’m currently tired of Sim City 4, plus it’s so old, and runs like shit (random crashes, slow). I popped in Sim City Societies the other day, but turned it off because I wasn’t in the mood to re-learn the utterly ridiculous zoom/navigation controls.

Sigh.