Several
months have passed since the launch of Cities XL, Monte Cristo’s new
city-builder; passions have arisen, passions have subsided, game hours
have been spent, and now it’s time for some community updates. What’s
the state of affairs in Cities XL? Join us as our friend Soltangris explains the current situation of Cities XL.
Cities XL is a good city-building game that manages to introduce some much needed new ideas to the genre without straying too far from established conventions. Whether you're a core fan or new to the genre, there is a lot to like about Cities XL. As a city-builder, the game largely succeeds. What it gets right is enjoyable, where it innovates is refreshing and its few missteps are not disastrous.
It is arguably the best city-building game released in the last 6 years, and remains closest in spirit to the venerable SimCity. Core fans will be on very familiar ground as the game sticks to the tried and true city-building formula. New players may also find that is more accessible than SimCity 4.
As a true city-builder, Cities XL contains two distinct albeit inseparable concepts of management and construction. And now with the online component, Monte Cristo hopes to add a new dynamic to move the genre forward.
But "SimCity Online" this is not, so while it's tempting to make direct comparisons to Maxis' game, it would be more productive to examine Cities XL on its own merits with an understanding of where it draws its inspiration.
Without going into all the specifics of gameplay mechanics, we'll look at what Cities XL does right, where it is lacking, what it can improve upon, and examine some missed opportunities that might have kept it from being truly "great".
Cities XL is a day away from official release. In the last two weeks Monte Cristo released a couple of detailed videos to showcase both the single player and online gameplay. Do these videos help make the case for Cities XL?
As a community comprised of city-building fans, we've been closely following the development of Cities XL for the last two years. Having been so close to the debates and debacles, it's hard not to look at the game without a jaundiced eye. But once we can accept that us core fans are not the centre of the universe (gasp!), that we're just a fringe nebula in an otherwise vast array of players, you can appreciate how these videos have made a pretty good case for Cities XL as a compelling game worth trying.
A quick rundown of the 4 minute single player video shows that Monte Cristo has taken great care to hit all the right notes. So for the purpose of discussion, I encourage you to watch these videos as if you were seeing the game for the first time.
If we had to distill the current debate surrounding the Cities XL's
proposed feature offerings, it would boil down to this single point of
contention: mass transit to be made available only to paid
subscribers.
The Planet Offer is what will allow us to sustain further developments for the game and keep our city builder constantly evolving with new features, including additional transport system.
So, to answer in a very straightforward manner: yes, public transportation will be part of the content made available for Planet Offer subscribers. Except for the bus system, as it is mentioned as free additional content for everyone on the Cities XL Information web page.
Ouch! At first blush, there seems to be sufficient reason for fussing. But maybe we should take a step back and consider that we haven't had any real experience with mass transit (just the prospect of our gamer dreams fulfilled...)
So I've got a confession: I just can't be bothered to play games with strangers online. That's all there is to it.
I am sure you are all decent upstanding people, but you'll understand that I just don't want to have anything to do with you when it comes to playing games.
It's not you, it's me... really.
MMO's are for a certain league of gamer and for which I am woefully unqualified. While I like the idea of teamwork in gameplay, I just don't want to be pressured to commit. Sure, I like co-operating toward a common goal, I just don't want to feel obligated to play because people need me to. I love obsessing over game minutiae as much as the next geek, but I hate the thought of missing out on something just because I haven't logged in. And I'm all for on-going developer support, new content and getting online perks, but I hate the idea of paying a monthly fee for something I may not use much (I'm looking at you, Xbox Live Gold Membership).
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