My review of City Life

[soldyne 111]

well, after a 4 hour download (on a cable connection btw; 400+ MB) I finally got a chance to test out this new SimCity competitor.  I kept my opinions to a minimum until I was finished with the demo so i could give it a fair review.

Over all I would say that City Life has quite a few innovations and diffierences over SC4 and is IMHO a whole new game altogether.  the biggest difference I saw was that CL concentrates on the social aspects of city building more so than the mechanical.  SC is more of a mechanical simulation concentrating on commute times, tax rates, congestion and other numbers, graphs and charts.  I would go so far as to say that CL and SC are compliments of each other and not competitors as many of us have been thinking.

GAME PLAY COMPARISON:

Being less mechanically driven, CL builds its cities with a broader brush giving the player less emphasis on detailed location of buildings and roads.  There was no grid that I could find and infact roads and buildings were not limited to the stoic 90 and 45 degree system that is ingained in the SC games.  The terrain was all pre built with no terrain editor in site.  The focus of game play is on scenerios but there is a free mode (not available in the demo).  there are many different map options to choose from and the maps are very large and quite realistically detailed with a good mix of flat buildable land and eye candy terrain which cant be built on.

Most of your residential lots are simple squares of all the same size (reminisent of the original SC game).  You can click and drag an area of housing but it will simply build many residential foot prints instead of one large one.  Standard two lane roads are automatically laid out with no option to turn it off.  Commercial and Industrial are lumped together in one build option called business and industry.  Each of the 6 social groups has a different kind of building (low wealth work in factories, blue collar work in shops, middle class work in office buildings etc).  Infact, the business and industry options are not seperated by low, medium and high density but instead by social class; if you want to attract more blue collar workers then build more blue collar businesses.  even though these buildings were ploped with a standard footprint they still grew on thier own just like in SC.  The lots will either build thier own road connected to the nearest established road or it will auto align to any road you put it near including any road which might be at an odd angle.  The foot prints are all square and rectangular so there are still no triangular or cicular lots to play with.

Commercial Service buildings are actually treated like plops instead of grows.  there were only two buildings available in the demo however, a small corner grocer and a supermaket.

civic buldings and recreation were also less detailed in their mechanics.  each of these buildings had a radius.  so long as there were residence with the radius the people there were happy.  The number of residence within the radius seemed irrelivent.  there were also very limited choices for power and waste disposal and I saw no water services available to build.  Road services were standard: two lane road, avenue, two lane highway, three lane highway.  I did not see any options for mass transit but it was just a demo.

It was when the sims started to move in when I noticed where all the detail in learning the game was.  The key to CL is not in designing a city but in getting all of your citizens to get along with each other.  In SC sims were just a matter of attracting the right mix of R$, R$$, and R$$$ to fill the jobs and make commutes, but, in CL, you need to be more aware of who is moving in and where they are moving in.  some social classes dont mind others and can mix and mingle, but some social classes hate others and can cause social strife in the form of riots and elevated crime.  The focus on building the city is not to just make it efficient but to keep the social structure from collapsing.  This means providing certain areas with just the right mix of shopping, police, fire, health and education to attract just the right groups.  In SC many players avoid building slums because there is no benefit to having them and many players tend to gravitate toward a certain style, like skyscrapper forest or bedroom community.  in CL you need all areas to help maintain a balance and keep the sims from killing each other.

GRAPHICS, CONTROL AND SOUND:

This is where CL shines over SC.  The graphics are true 3-D with the option to zoom into first person and literaly walk around your city with your sims.  When a lot becomes abandoned it does not just turn black and look bad, it actually deteriorates and becomes inhabited by homeless bums and shady characters walking around doing goodness knows what.  The trees and leaves actually sway in wind.  Building, sim, and car detail rival that of standard SC4 although I would argue that many of the BATS created by SC4 fans have much higher levels of texture detail.  However, I do remember reading that CL will have the abilty for fans to make plugins so that opens a whole new level of possibility.

The zoom options are nice as well.  In addition to a seemless first person zoom and the standard birds eye view you can also very easily zoom out to region level and see the big picture with no trouble at all.  This is something that many SC players have been asking for.  Unfortunately, since there is no terrain editor so you are limited in what kind of regions you can play.  but as I said earlier, the terrain is very well done and there should be few complaints.

the Music seemed standard but tolerable over a long period.  I did not notice any major sound effects other those that we are used to in SC.  SC music is actually much more diverse.  However, remember that I only played a demo and so I was probably only privy to a single music file anyway.

One interesting thing that stood out was the way system messages were delivered to the player.  Instead of a bland news ticker and random alerts from your city council lackeys there was a small TV screen in the bottom right corner.  Every now and then a TV news cast would come on and you could see what was happening in the city from a sort of first person perspective, like a small riot or some sims picketing something.  I thought it was entertaining, although some might find it annoying.

CLOSING REMARKS AND RECOMMENDATION:

Granted I only played the game for 30 minuets, but, I felt that I learned enough about the game to say that City Life is not a SC clone. It is its own game with its own challenges and style.  There are many genres of games out there and city building is one of them.  It just so happened that SC was the only franchise worth mentioning until now.  If you enjoy the mechanical and design aspects of building a city with all of its detail and goals focused on commute times, taxes, building placement, style and visual asthetics then SC4 is for you.  However, if you have been looking for a more social city builder where social structure, politics, and the interpesonal relations of running a big city are more your taste then City Life is definately the game of choice.  It may be quite possible to build a very eye pleasing city in CL but one must remembe that the focus of the game is on the people not the buildings.   I myself tend more toward the SC side (numbers, design, layout, effciency) but I may grab a copy of CL in the future and see where it takes me.

[Constantina 5]

Great article. I think it makes a good omnibus article too. I haven't seen a review by Simtropolis (yet) of City Life. It makes good use for me.

[soldyne 111]

Thanks Constantina. I never thought of this being in the omnibus. I am not sure how to submit it though. maybe I should wait for more replies before asking.

anyway, I have been reading through all the other topics and replys on city life and one reply in one topic really got my attention (sorry I forgot who or where the relpy was from). The idea that CL encourages social segregation. true the game is not about race but look really closely at the color choices they made for the Elites (white) and the have nots (black). I think they could have made better choices there. although in thier defence the color scheme is a reflection of what the roads, sidewalk, and buildings look like over all and in no way are meant to represent the color of the people living there. have nots are dirty, poor, unkempt, and the elites are white, sanitary and clean.

Other than the slight racism reference the game does encourage the player to succeed at building a city by building neighborhoods of segregated people. yes some types of people can mingle with no trouble but the goal is to label people as they move in based on thier income level and force them to live in seperate areas of the city to keep them from mixing. It is even advertised that a city can be successful by favoring one culture over the others (favor the rich whites over the poor blacks perhaps?). yes this is representative of real life but it is not very representative of decent moral or ethical standards.

On that note I just want to say that it is really not the responsibility of the game or the creators of the game to enforce good morals or ethics on their audience, that is the job of the parents and the society in which we live. I would indeed allow my children to play this game but I would want to be involved in their gamming expericence making sure they understand what social segregation really means, how the game relates to reality and why such things (like racism, social segregation and the like) are morally and ethically wrong (at least as far as I am concerned).

Does CL promote racism and elitism? perhaps. but I am actually leaning toward playing CL more as a tool for learning and understanding social structure (since it is a social simulation) more so than as a tool for building and designing a mechanically efficient city.

[Rean2 10]

there's NO Racism! Why? 

Each Culture Group has Whites And BLACKs!

The Elites HAVe ALOT OF BLACKS!

It's not sorted out by COLOR, it's the way they live, there wealth, and there tastes.

THere is more Whites who are The Have-nots then BLACK! (i don't even think there are any black)

I'm not saying that you think there's racism, i'm just telling everyone else...

[soldyne 111]

I am not sure I understand your post Rean2. are saying there is no racism in City Life or in real life? I think you are refering to the game though, and so I agree with your post.

I agree that there is no racism in CL I was simply stating that others may view it this way if they looked at it from a single perspecitve. It is true that the color of the CL social classes is representative of how the sims live and not about their skin color. Actually I dont think there is any mention of race or ethniciy in the game at all. Which if you think about it is quite a feat for a social simulation game to achieve. It was probably one of their biggest hurdles durning the design phase and could probably be the cause of the games success or failure.

Even SC4 has wealth levels but CL takes the social level concept many steps further and adds a lot more detail to it.

[symanteco 4]

CL is not racist by any means, if anything it would be more racist against white people because when I zoomed into the poor side of town I felt like I could hear the YEE-HAW! pickup trucks with rifle racks, baseball caps and the smell of Budweiser and Marlboro's :-) Now being black myself, I felt pretty uncomfortable with what I had created LOL and got out of that neighborhood before they all found out that the mayor was Black :-)

I hope that CL is a greatly imaginative game because it would be nice to get down and dirty in a city you design. I liked touring the city and seeing the new residents sitting at their patio tables reading the newspaper looking for jobs.

CL has a lot of potential for growth opened to it. I think I read somewhere that you can IMPORT buildings from SimCity. I'm not sure if that is a feature or I misread it, but I remember reading it somewhere.

From the screen shots it appears that you will be able to create some pretty elaborate cities.

As far as the class issue, we must face the fact that all societies work on a class system and could not survive if they didn't. Who would pick up the trash if everyone was a brain surgeon? All in all it appears to be a different game then SC4 using the little used city building genre.

Aside from SC4 the best city building game I have ever played is 1503AD where you have to provide ALL the needs of the different classes of people.

[TheCrybKeeper 301]

Hello Soldyne! Congratz on your graduation, friend!

Anyways: back to your CL review;

I always like a first person perspective(who doesn't? haha)

But there was too many things about the game that I do not think I will enjoy.

I do find that small announcement monitor in corner, annoying.

The entire game concept is just not appealing at all. Just my opinion, but from other game successes and failures in the vast game past; I would say that CL is a big flop for me and many other simulation fans.

We enjoy our stats and numbers(me anyways) and I find the social classifications, are not only un-intersting enough, but also tedious.

Just me and my preference guys, not necessarily the game itself.

[defcon pilot 0]

Interesting article: Quite informative.

Well, on the point of the game being slanted toward whites and against blacks (at least in the way you depict), you are wrong in saying that it is not the responsibility of the creators of the game to enforce a set of good morals and/or ethics. It is. The commercial mainstream is where it all starts. People listen to what they hear in ads, take in what they see in entertainment, and absorb the influences of popular culture. And of course, as we know, videogames are a HUGE phenomenon in it. Almost everyone has a computer these days. Maybe a game console as well. And they have an incredible amount of influence on people. They ought to at least slip something in telling children and teenagers that, in reality, such things as segreggation are bad and do nothing but create hate.

Just thought I'd give my opinion.

-DP

[spa 970]

The game does encourage social segregation which isn't a good way to build cities in real life. That said, it does allow you to mix the cultural groups but you have to pay to do it with policing and community centres. Not really that unrealistic. People often don't naturally get along and society has to actively intervene to encourage tolerance not just through the threat of force but also through education and social programs.

[Energy Monkey 0]

Whites don't naturally get along with whites, blacks don't always get a-long with blacks. I think the social aspect in the game should go as far as maybe their style of living and culture, social classes fighting each other I think is just stupid. I know this might sound somewhat unrealistic but why couldn't you send a mediator or someone to encourage one social class to tolerate another.

defcon: I agree with your comments to a certain point. As long as the children are mature enough and know that you shouldn't be racist, then it is fine with me if a 10 year old played this game. Also, I think it is the responsibility of the parent whether the child gets influenced by this game or not, not the game maker themselves. There job is to sell the game, your choice is to whether buy it or not.

[Voar Tok 4]

Originally posted by: soldyne Thanks Constantina. I never thought of this being in the omnibus. I am not sure how to submit it though. maybe I should wait for more replies before asking.quote>

That's pretty simple.  Ask someone on the SHS, like myself for example, and unless the admins say no, it will probably end up there.

Anyway, back on topic.  I'll have to check it out, as I've noticed that CL does have some interesting stuff that SC4 doesn't (like non-gridded roads).

[soldyne 111]

Originally posted by: defcon pilot Interesting article: Quite informative.

Well, on the point of the game being slanted toward whites and against blacks (at least in the way you depict), you are wrong in saying that it is not the responsibility of the creators of the game to enforce a set of good morals and/or ethics. It is. The commercial mainstream is where it all starts. People listen to what they hear in ads, take in what they see in entertainment, and absorb the influences of popular culture. And of course, as we know, videogames are a HUGE phenomenon in it. Almost everyone has a computer these days. Maybe a game console as well. And they have an incredible amount of influence on people. They ought to at least slip something in telling children and teenagers that, in reality, such things as segreggation are bad and do nothing but create hate.

Just thought I'd give my opinion.

-DPquote>

 

I can see your side of the argument Defcon and would like to say that there are two sides to consider here:  the way things are and the way they could be.  you are right in saying that the way the world works is that morals and ethics are highly influenced by the commercial mainstream.  My side of the argument was more toward how the world could (and IMHO, should) work.

People underestimate the power a parent has over the intellectual and moral development of thier children.  unfortunately, many modern parents are either too busy or too wrapped up in the commercial mainstream to take charge of their childs development.

So, I guess, what you and I could agree on here is that if the company wished to make a difference in the world they should recognize their influence on the moral development of their audience and make products to help support a good moral infrastructure.  but I feel that this is only a bandage for the bigger problem that modern society is becomming more and more dependant on the "commercial mainstream" to help tell us how we should grow and develop.

The only thing I can do is to take charge of my own childrens development and hope that my influence will continue into future generations.  sometimes change happens quickly and sometimes it takes a while.

[MrVegetable 2]

So basically, if we combined features from both CL and SC we'd have a near-to-perfect game? Sweet!

[Energy Monkey 0]

Thats what I was thinking, SC has the mechanical, wealth and tax aspects while CL has the social aspects, political aspects and 3D engine.

[Joesocwork 4]

Originally posted by: Energy Monkey Thats what I was thinking, SC has the mechanical, wealth and tax aspects while CL has the social aspects, political aspects and 3D engine.quote>

 

Well that has me intrigued!

Originally posted by: Energy Monkey Whites don't naturally get along with whites, blacks don't always get a-long with blacks. quote>

 

I'm not sure I buy the "naturally" part at all.  But that's the subject for a completely discussion.  I haven't seen game.  If race relations has to be protrayed maybe that can done (if it's not already) by protraying the characters as completely different colors such as blue, red, green, purple, orange, etc.

Thanks for pioneering and sharing Soldyne!

Oh, and to keep things orderly, I'm going to move the thread to Gaming Talk.

[symanteco 4]

I can't believe you guys discussing this game as if it's an article in the newspaper :-)  IT'S A GAME!!!  It isn't racist in any way.  Whoever posted that the poor were black and the rich were white in the game didn't play the demo because that is just a false statement.

Every city operates on different classes and cannot operate on just one.  We all need each other, unfortunately the trash man doesn't make as much as the doctor, but in most major cities the trashmen make pretty good dough!

Every society needs FRINGE workers or you'd have to make your own U WANT FRYS WITH THAT?

Every society needs BLUE COLLAR or we'd be all fixing our own cars and hauling our trash to the city dump.

Every society needs OFFICE WORKERS so they can call and harass you to pay your credit card bills for the FRYS WITH THAT, fixin your car and picking up your trash.

Every society needs DOCTORS, LAWYERS (well maybe not lawyers :-) and the high wealth occupations just come with the territory.

Phew!  Let's just hope they did a good job on their social interaction simulator, and if I meet any of you in a dark alley - I'm runnin!  :-)

[spa 970]

Just because it's a game doesn't mean it can't make moral judgements and have questionalbe views. No one said that they actually made the poor people black and the rich white. What they said was that the neighbourhoods are colour coded accordingly. In the fringe neighbourhoods, the buildings and pavement are black and in the elite neighbourhoods, from the screenshots we've seen, a light white colour is used. It was also noted that this may have no relation to race since poor fringe neighbourhoods are going to have dirty buildings and elite neighbourhoods are going to have clean ones. I personally don't think its a problem but that's the gist of it. Not that they colour coded the people by race.

[soldyne 111]

frndofyaweh - Thank you for your congratulatory comment.  BTW, I don't know if you have seen my CJ, Newtopia Valley, but I make mention of you in my second update.  Click on the link in my sig and read the captions in the update to see if you can find the reference.  I also referenced some other ST members that have been friendly and influential to me in that update, see if you can find them as well.

Voar Tok - You are also mentioned in my CJ, second update, take a look!

Joesocwork - Thank you for posting and thank you for moving the topic.  When I posted originally, I missed seeing the gamming forum so posted in the general.

symanteco - back to the subject at hand, I agree with you completely.  My comments on racism were directed at those people who would take one look at the game and make a judgement about it, seeing how color was being used to segregate the social classes.  this prejudice is exactly what racism is based on.  If people spent some time with the game (and people in general) and got to know it like you and I (and the others here) then it would become obvious that racial distinctions are not being made by the creators of CL.  Thank you for your input it was well recieved.

spa - you took the words right out of my mouth.  Thank you for clarifying the topic on how color is used in CL.  I enjoy talking about games on a higher level like this, it gives us gammers and sites like ST a higher level of distinction IMHO and gives the members here a chance to look past the game screen and think more deeply about the real world.

Thanks everyone for participating and I would like to here more comments from everyone about CL and its impact and statements on social stratification and class.

[Jelligraze 0]

Throughout this thread i've heard a few things I feel like commenting on:

I've heard some mentioning of the game being racist. I think it's the opposite. I've played the game a LOT over the last week and I have to say that the main goal of this game in terms of the various groups is diversity. I've been able to satisfy my citizen's needs and while doing so having them live right next to each other with no problems. I noticed there was a scenario named Detroit in the demo files - I don't believe it's active in the game, but I feel that is what the game creators had in mind. I live right by Detroit and, therefore, one of the things I disliked in SimCity was that there was no cultural diversity. Anyone who knows the history of Detroit, White Flight, the 1960's race riots, or the segregation going on today between Detroit and her suburbs know what I'm talking about. I think culture plays a huge role in cities and, therefore, it should be that way in City Life.

I've also heard some people make the, awkward, claim that SimCity focuses on "buildings," and City Life focuses on social groups. Wrong. City Life added, what I and many others always felt, was the needed addition of social groups. I've noticed that people who dislike the social groups in City Life think of a city solely in terms of the buildings and roads within the city - this seems to aesthetic and not realistic enough for me. I see a beautiful city as being not just one that has lots of parks and nice architecture - Detroit has lots of that, for what's left that is, but the financial and racial tensions in Detroit are far more complex than any system presented in SimCity. If the world were like SimCity I believe Detroit would be a pretty progressive city today - simply because there would be no bigotry or segregation. What is going to help Detroit prosper is cultural diversity - this is also what causes a city in City Life to prosper.

Back to the point, City life is also about buildings - it will have a BAT and will include a decent number of buildings in the initial release - not as much as I personally would want, but still enough considering the game has a BAT. The only reason Monte Cristo is selling the social groups is because that is the largest distinction from SimCity, that plus the 3D which is also advertised by Monte Cristo. I could make the argument that SimCity is about commute times and road layouts - due to the release of SC4, but the modding community took care of that. I think modders are going to mod the culture groups so their not as "bad" when it comes to living with each other, but there will be some problems that must be overcome - just like in real life. Then again - for people who simply want a 3d SimCity, i'm sure modders will take away all the values from the culture reactions to one another - leaving the cultures completely indifferent with one another. In the game each group likes two other groups - i'm sure modders can make each group like all the others.

I've also heard people talk down the so-called "arcade" style of play. I don't understand what they mean: it's fast paced in the demo because you have 30 minutes to play. If you mean the campaign style play, where you have to reach certain scores, what's wrong with that? SC4 was supposed to have scenarios too, but it was incomplete. SC3000 had scenarios. Plus, with modding we will be able to make our own campaigns in City Life - which to me is pretty neat.

[Odainsaker 2,136]

SimCity always bugged me in that it never really touched upon the social issues of the sims inhabitaing the city. I read so many city journals where low-value neighborhoods were torn out and remade for high-value lots with prettier buildings and better revenues. Sometimes this was even enthusiastically refered by its correct term of "gentrification," without a second thought of the side effects of projects labelled as gentrification or urban renewal, which historically were also blatantly nicknamed "black removal." No accounting by the simulation really goes into where the unwanted lower-class people go, as long as they are gone. No accounting is ever made that one group is disproportionately targetted. No doubt this comes from SimCity's built-in form of statistics managing aimed at optimal results and limited costs. The higher land-values do bring in more tax revenue for real cities, but real cities also have to face angry people and political fallout when they act in the manner we do in SimCity. SimCity always kept the blinders on when it came to city issues of class, race, or ethnicity, which gives a very skewed vision of urban planning. It will be interesting to see how the larger majority grapples or avoids those issues in City Life.

[defcon pilot 0]

@symanteco: 0.o Duh. Of course it's a game. But there are aspects of games that can be discussed on high levels of intellect.

How can you prove that that isn't a false statement? Have YOU played the demo?

And where did all that other stuff come from? We're talking about racism, not about society's need for certain types of workers. (OK, so we might be, at least indirectly. But at least try to relate your point to ours.)

@soldyne: Companies usually don't wish to make a difference in the world unless it'll get them loads of dough. That's why they need to be made to enforce morals and ethics. Sure, parents are a big help, but when they're immobilized (in a metaphorical sense) with the hassles of work, taxes, daily chores, etc. like you said, they don't have enough time to devote to their children for such causes. And many parents are, like you said as well, tied up in the mainstream along with 'em.

[Androv 6]

It is true that the 'underclass' is represented by dark grey/black colours - their footpaths are grey, the slums have a lot of black dirt, their medium-density buildings are all ash-grey and have dark alleys which you wouldn't want to walk down (I've got a screenshot somewhere )

The 'elite' class of Donald Trumps and Rupert Murdochs is represented by bright/white colours. So in that respect they're 'white'. Not sure if this has any racist undertones, but I doubt it.

As an aside, I don't think the industry/commercial buildings 'evolve', you just plop them down and a building develops immediately (2 choices per type; for instance, there are three blue collar industries available, a small 2x2, a medium 4x3 and a large . . ?x? which I never build because it costs a whole lot of money; for the 2x2 and 4x3 building there are two variants. I think this is the same for every building type except the city services (only one grocer, supermarket, clinic, hospital, park, plaza etc). The only buildings I've seen evolve are the residential ones. Maybe I just misread the post above.

[Energy Monkey 0]

Originally posted by: defcon pilot @symanteco: 0.o Duh. Of course it's a game. But there are aspects of games that can be discussed on high levels of intellect.

How can you prove that that isn't a false statement? Have YOU played the demo?

And where did all that other stuff come from? We're talking about racism, not about society's need for certain types of workers. (OK, so we might be, at least indirectly. But at least try to relate your point to ours.)

@soldyne: Companies usually don't wish to make a difference in the world unless it'll get them loads of dough. That's why they need to be made to enforce morals and ethics. Sure, parents are a big help, but when they're immobilized (in a metaphorical sense) with the hassles of work, taxes, daily chores, etc. like you said, they don't have enough time to devote to their children for such causes. And many parents are, like you said as well, tied up in the mainstream along with 'em.quote>

I've changed my views after reading some of your replies, the game isn't racist, I believe.

defcon: I still believe that if a child is going to get some type of racism from the game, then its the PARENTS FAULT, not the gaming company. The parents need to set time aside to research the games their children are about to purchase. Who cares if they are "to busy," any parent can set aside 10 minutes to read a review of a game.

[bourneid 13]

Does a game make moral judments about diffrent classes or is it the players that make the judgment.

This is a debate that is going on thoughout the gaming community, not just with CL or this type of game...it is accually connected to the whole morality debate "do video games teach kids the wrong message." This really got played recently with games like the sims 2 and the GTA series. 

from what I have seen of the demo I dont see that the game rally makes a distiction between race, religion or other such thing....from my personal point of view these issues are not touched....but the issue of weath class. The iferance of race isnt in the game as far as I can see.....its our own personal exsperince that is leaching into the gaming exsperince. 

I could be wrong...I tend to be a pretty nuetral person when it comes to this so my exsperince in the game would reflect that...your exsperince might be diffrent.

Engery monkey is right in one thing...parents. We gain our moral, judgment, and understanding starting with our parents. The things they teach (or fail to) are our guidebook to the rest of our lives...any chances that are made though exsperince are balenced though the preset judgments our parents instilled.

the reason I bring this up...even though it goes a little of the CL subject is that I have issues with the recent media misreprisenting of the gaming community. They attacted GTA (fine not the best moral game) because of a mission group that could be opened (on the PC version only) that had some pretty graphic content (as if with that 3d engine you could get real graphic ). Fine, it was bad judgement on the part of the developers to keep it in there...but deadlines are deadlines and removing that could have set them back. But this mod was made by someone not associated with the developer...so how could they realisticly provent it. And giving the game (no matter the platform) an AO rating even though the content only affected one version of the game...and beyond that...I have been playing the game sense the origional "look down" GTA (and GTA london) and didnt even know about "coffee break" untill they had it on the news. 

Then even closer to home...the sims and the sims2. Maxis has always been a little off kilter with their humor...but have always been very PG-13 consious. I mean the stork bringing the baby for heaven sake! but here they are attacked because it is posable..to remove the blur (hello barbie doll body ). Now the media (well fuax news really) would have ya believe that these mods would let you see skinamax detail labodamy.....

....sorry...lost my train of though (derail really) so my rant is over...night all

[purpledaddy 6]

That PG-13 concern makes a big difference.  I won't play my RPG's or first person shooters in front of my children.  My 5 y.o. daughter, however, enjoys watching me play The Sims.  She knows about going to the bathroom and taking showers with the opaque dots.  I don't have them doing woohoo in front of her but I don't think she would know the difference yet based on how it's done in the game.  To each their own, but I'm glad that Maxis/EA games is family conscious.

Regarding parenting,  I think any type of stimulus can have an effect on someone growing up depending on how they learn how to process it.  Not every parent, however, is going to be up to date on what's going on in every form of media.  For instance I like computer games but I probably couldn't say much about popular music.  Better parent(s)/(guardian(s)), though, will at least have established a good enough relationship with their child(ren) to have an idea of what they like so that they can establish age appropriate rules and guidance.  And I would hope each respective media would act responsibly to market well enough to their particular audiences accordingly so that the distinctions are clear.