City life world 2008 edition is an updated version of city life 2006 but with changes and extra content. It also features over a hundred new buildings and famous landmarks.

This is my first play of a city life game and didn’t expect some of the content to be in the game , for example different societies which are quite confusing at first but once you get the hang of all its features it gets really addictive!

The first things i used was the build feature, its very easy and you can build pretty much anyway you want. At first you get to build basic homes, a range of luxuries, services, shops, businesses, road types.
All roads are automatically put in between your structures which is a really good thing and saves a lot of time.

Its easy to get carried away when building and that’s where your management comes into place. For every home you build you have to accommodate each one with a job or business, if you don’t the home they usually start in gets downgraded to the poorest (have nots) or they can complain about the lack of services in the area, so when building homes you have to make sure you build shops, businesses and other needs to help this.

Societies are split into several groups ranging from poor people right up-to the richest people ranging from have-nots to elites, they all have their own style of homes from slums to expensive pads ,you have to balance those societies into their own estates so there is no clashes.

The worst that can usually happen is a culture clash, for example blue-collars and fringes don’t get on well and usually riot when they live close together so you need to split them into their own areas.

Eventually as you start to unlock buildings its essential that you build higher class jobs so that certain members of your city will move up-to a higher class society eg blue collars will turn into suits and fringes will turn into radical chicks. Putting suits and radical chicks together will eventually make elites, so basically its like a tree you have to climb. you need to unlock the highest class citizens and jobs but at the same time keep a balance of other lower class citizens to accommodate low class jobs eg grocers, teachers etc. 

I think the whole citizen thing is a brilliant feature in the game. The main thing is to not get carried away with too many city luxuries and needs such as restaurants, school, police stations etc. Although your city will need them , its better to get businesses built first to keep your city in profit.

OK one poor point from the game is the tutorial. Its basically just a series of clips and text and doesn’t explain a lot, if there was a tutorial scenario it would have been so much easier and quicker to learn the game.

The graphics in the game are fair but still pretty pleasant, its fun to look at buildings and zooming into floor level to check all the city activity. It can stutter or freeze sometimes when zooming or when preparing to lay a new building or other item, there are some really decent looking buildings and items but they aren’t at a really high level of detail. but other than that i think its decent enough to keep you playing. This game doesn’t require a top end PC to run but even at high settings on a decent PC there are still stutters and glitches, but these minor things wont put you off the game and updates could sort it.

The music and sound effects in the game suit it well, although the music can get on your nerves after a while. Like any other city Sim that’s all you really need with this genre of game.

Its a fairly addictive and challenging game with some good visuals and nice ideas put into it. I have to say its a hard game, the tutorial doesn’t give you a lot of help and seems rushed but don’t let that put you off because its definitely worth a buy. Its a game for Sim fans but even if you haven’t tried a city Sim before give this one a try, it might go down well.

 

Game-play 8/10

Graphics 8/10

Sound 7/10

Longevity 9/10

Overall 8/10