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 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.
What makes a game a classic? Is it graphics? Is it brand name? Is it
replay value? Or, is it much deeper than that? Why has SimCity4 lasted
for over 6 years and why does it continue to reign supreme as the
world's foremost City Building Simulator?
Six Years is not an insignificant amout of time in the world of
software; it is downright ancient. The longevity of SC4 is seen not
only in the community support on the web but also on the retail store
shelves. SC4 and its expansion pack, Rush Hour, are still being sold
in many venues all over the world, it was even included in the latest
boxed set for the more recent Sim City Societies possibly as a way to
increase the value of the much loathed sequel. You would be hard
pressed to walk into a video game store and find a new copy of a 6 year
old game. SC4 is one of the few titles that has stood the test of time
in spite of more recent 'next gen' simulators that have tried (and
failed) to topple the city building monopoly that is SC4. Sim City 4
has out dated graphics, a limited grid design structure and is no
longer maintained by the manufacturer (last official patch was April
2003), so, why has it remained so popular over the last 6 years?
Hello, I'm your new creature. Same as your old creature.
Every city-building game ends up being linear, formulaic and predictable to play.
Monte Cristo calls it "gardening", and it's a perfect description.
Once you've figured out the precise conditions required to make your city grow in a predictable way, you often have little reason to try anything else. Some games might take you longer than others to discover this, but once it's been "solved", you pretty much have to find something else to maintain your interest with the game or it gets shelved.
So I got thinking, wouldn't it be great if you could never truly solve a city simulator? That every time you built a new city, it's a unique experience? That you'll always be a mayor and never a gardener?
Let's be blunt, hardcore city simulator game fans are not a profitable demographic.
That should surprise absolutely no one.
That's not to suggest that we don't matter to game developers, it's just that are a small, niche interest group.
What does matter are our opinions, our insight and our nuanced understanding of the details that make a city-building game fun -- but the truth is that we have never been concerned with how to make such a game profitable. And while we may satisfy ourselves with that, it's important to remember that a company such as Monte Cristo is very much concerned with the latter point as well.
I realize that kind of rationalizing offers little comfort to many of us whose only concern is to get a good, solid, fun city-building game. Games for this genre are all too rare, and we have waited long for a worth successor to SimCity 4. But it doesn't hurt to take a step back and examine the sitatution with a dispassionate eye.
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