Being a Philadelphia native I find it almost poetic that while my city faces a huge budget crisis and is in need of financial stability, I’ve been given the keys to my own city with the latest demo of Cities XL. Over the past few days I’ve plotted land for thousands of homes, created jobs for the qualified and unqualified, and managed to spend entirely too much money on fancy bridges.

Cities XL looks to carry the flag in which the Sim City series did for so many years but with a very innovative addition. Where in Sim City you simply created your city and interacted with a few AI constituents, Cities XL will have you visiting, chatting, and trading necessary goods from people on the same planet. With an almost MMO feel (especially the chat box), it gives city building a whole different look.

So many choices and everyone went for the oil

Starting from the beginning, you select a planet (shard/server etc…). From there, you select a patch of land to call your own. Though the demo only showcased 3 types of land, the full version will give you 50 distinct locations to choose. Find a cozy island getaway to cater to vacation goers or plop yourself right in the middle of a nice piece of land rich with oil to make yourself the next up and coming tycoon. Areas will have more or less resources depending on location and it’s up to you to monitor your resources and get them from others when they get scarce. While it’s entirely possible to make trades with OMNICORP (the defacto AI that deals in all aspects of the game) the smarter (and cheaper) route would be to interact with your fellow city creators. This type of collaboration brings with it a whole new type of interaction in a genre that really hasn’t had any to begin with.

Couldn't get an island so I suppose this will do.

Trades and land picking aside, your day to day tasks will indeed be building your very own paradise. Much like Sim City, Cities XL will have you placing down police stations, recreational areas like bowling alleys and parks, hospitals, schools, and mapping off zones for residents and businesses. There’s even an option to select specific houses and commercial landscapes for the extra creative types.

Yes, you need to watch your pollution level, make sure taxes aren’t too high, and keep residents happy, but Cities XL does it with a little less complexity than you might expect. With all of the graphical warnings and easy to read meters, figuring out how to keep everyone happy and employed won’t take a Harvard degree. There’s no need to go underground to make sure you’re connecting water pipes or drag electrical lines across the map. The only daunting challenge I found was the lack of any real pausing mechanism. It’s quite a drastic change from what I’m used to but citizens are less likely to perform a mass exodus and there’s also (and I say this with a heavy heart), no ability to summon tornadoes, fires, riots, UFOs, floods or earthquakes. Things move at a balanced pace and I never felt rushed to keep up with their demands.

Cities XL also allows you to create (extensively from head to toe) your own Mayor that you can use to travel and walk the streets of your own city or others. Interaction with avatars looks to be extremely basic with a few gestures and a click and drag function in order to move them around. It could (and should) have been a fully function character but I don’t see this as a huge drawback in a game where you’re the creator, not the created.

This is the kind of guy you don't say no to.

Cities XL shows a lot of promise especially with the help and interaction of thousands of others on a shared persistent planet. The demo still featured a few bugs and loads of missing features (apparently the demo only offered 10% of the actual game) so it’s tough to say how much it could really offer, but if developer Monte Cristo comes through on their word before the October release date they might just have a winning recipe on their hands.

Related posts:

1. Cities XL MMOMFG Review
2. Email Out to Subscribers; Cities XL to Drop Planet Mode
3. The Official MMOMFG Aion Preview
4. Champions Online Beta Preview
5. Bayonetta Demo – The MMOMFG Preview