Cities XL single player hands on impressions

[joebusto 0]

I've put in ~40hrs so far on CXL. Nutshell: $40 is a ripoff... for free, CXL isn't worth it. Here's what I've experienced so far: --online trade goes down frequently... city immediately thrown into massive budget deficits... this in itself is a show-stopper, folks. --graphics problems... buildings, roads, parks disappear in shards in what looks like polygon occluding issues... very annoying. --LAAAAAGGGGYYYY, memory leaks... doesn't appear to multi-thread cores

that's just some of the problems with basic game function-- I'm not even going to wade into the playability issues (nobody wants to hear my opinion, anyway)

[JakeMD 107]

Originally posted by: joebusto

I've put in ~40hrs so far on CXL. Nutshell: $40 is a ripoff... for free, CXL isn't worth it. Here's what I've experienced so far: --online trade goes down frequently... city immediately thrown into massive budget deficits... this in itself is a show-stopper, folks. --graphics problems... buildings, roads, parks disappear in shards in what looks like polygon occluding issues... very annoying. --LAAAAAGGGGYYYY, memory leaks... doesn't appear to multi-thread cores

that's just some of the problems with basic game function-- I'm not even going to wade into the playability issues (nobody wants to hear my opinion, anyway)quote>

Maybe you want to check out this review, it explains some tips to start out a city. Good luck and happy city building!

[deanco 0]

Originally posted by: Overkast

I would absolutely buy this game and subscribe to PO if MC promised those 4 bullets to us at reasonable prices for earning ownership on new content releases. HOWEVER, if they want my monthly cash then they absolutely would need to make it a guaranteed promise that I'm not pissing my money away with nothing to show for it in the long-term.

quote>

But there's no such thing as a guaranteed promise.  Of course, it depends who you're talking about.  If it's your best friend you've known for 25 years, you can probably expect him to keep that promise 99.99% of the time.

On the other hand, a for-profit corporation, that appears to desperately need a steady influx of monthly capital... well, I'll let you place your own percentage on that.

[Androv 6]

Mine seems to work when the internet is down ....

[nataklug 3]

Hello all,

I am a Sim fanatic and I am playing since the first SimCity (I still love SC2K)... So, buying CXL, was a step in my life... hehehehe... But this is not going where I expect it to go.

First: transit is always busy... there is no mass transit to play (bus, train, bigger cars, ufos...). I can't make a city without this.

Second: poluition is a pain... There is no easy way to solve polution problems, neither TREES! We don

[morriswalters 16]

Having had a chance to fool with both the planet offer and the single player game I have some comments.  Cities XL is a game looking for a direction.  Currently there is no differentiation between the SP game and the PO except for trade.  And that is a skeleton without any muscles.  The framework is there but there's not a lot  to keep you interested.  You can certainly build large cities and trade with yourself and others, but there are no overarching goals, no large scenarios to bring players together.  You play alone.  All other players can do is to help you reach your goals through trading.  However they are also trying to reach their own goals, so effectively your a voice at the other end of the phone not a co player.  And this leads to broken trades and failing cities.  As a player there is  no penalty for dumping a trade if it turns out not to be in my best interest.  So when I play I prefer to trade with Omnicorp, he a tightwad but he is a reliable trading partner.

Monte Cristo made some interesting choices.  By using tokens that can't be saved they push you to trade.  The only thing you can build up a surplus in is cash and you can't use it.  For trading you use cash flow.  The only thing cash is good for is to buy expensive items and to weather storms.  This prevents people from gold mining(is that the right phrase?).  It's also removes any play value for commercially minded people.  No cartels or trading companies need apply.  They walk up to great ideas and then step back.  Think of the Merchant Princes of Venice.

Another idea that has potential are Blueprints.  The great monuments of the world.  Sorry but Big Deal.  Let me buy those with my excess cash.  Give me a blueprint that will build something I can use, like a non polluting factory, or nuclear power plant.  Maybe a geothermal one.  Something that has value to me.  Then make it expensive to build,  but don't hit me in the backstretch too, and make it impossibly expensive to run.  And when I build those blueprints please don't list my workers as unemployed.  I'll buy all these kinds of blueprints that I can afford from whoever has them.  Give me the tools to build MY CITY, the way I WANT.

The 3D look of this game is beautiful.  The vistas are superb.  But if you are going to let people get that close you need to be perfect.  Not the terrain, but the actors.  Traffic animations are good until you get to and intersection and then they are ugly.  It's every lane for himself.  If that was the real world there would be a lot of bodies in those intersections.

Bridges, beautiful and versatile.  But the 2 biggest bridges are overkill for most of the maps.  Add plain concrete highway and expressway bridges.  And try to keep the pier size down  They would make great elevated highways. 

Roads, well I like em.  But there is one piece that should have been in the game from the start.  A small compact elevated overpass with off and on ramps in either direction for urban locations.  Another one is a small highway piece to give people a way to break highways when they wish to add something, half a city link so to speak.  And one other thing.  If there's a limitation on intersections with your road implementation then make some small model intersections, kinda like miniature interchanges both 3 way and 4 way for the 2 smallest streets.

And finally,  when it's all over and I have to move on let me take a my cities with me as viewable models.  At least I want to be able to see what I worked for and spent money for.

[pkd 0]

Okay, here are my thoughts after having the game about a week. Overall, I like the game. (Granted, I have only reached a city of about 150k, so far after failing numerious times) I'll start with what I like. The visuals are great and I love the roads. Being able to make roads at all angles and curves is quite nice. I also like the transportation AI, the people are much smarter/logical is getting to where they need to go, in SC4 I had the hardest time get the Sims to use the highways and public transportation I wanted, on this game, the people use the roads I want them to and roads I'd use, if I lived in the city. I like the potential of the trade/economic system. The fact that the good and services produced/sold in your city have to have a buyer/seller, is something SC4 never had and adds a complexity to the game I like. Trying to balance it all is quite challenging and fun. the online portion of the game, the GEMs, etc I think have lots potential to keep people playing for a long time.

Criticisms: No public transportation. While at this point, I don't really need, it is a major thing missing from the game. Trade system, as much as I liked it, in Solo Mode having only one person to trade with makes things very hard. Online trade, was very buggy and people should be punished for canceling contracts early, or else it's not really a contract! This point in time no real reason to pay to play online. I think it has lots of pontential, but MC has to deliver first. It is something I'll revist in a few months time, but will stick to solo play for now. Pollution...while more realistic than SC4, there's really no way to combat it. What's really missing is the "city ordinances" from SC4, that would nice to have and be used to help specialize your city more (and could be a way to combat pollution with anti-pollution ordinances). Education system, seems no matter how many schools you plop down makes little difference, that should be fixed or better explained. Hotel system very much the same, they always seem unhappy or low profitable to matter what I do, so either needs fixing or better explanation on how it works. Resource map, one minor thing, but would nice to be able to view where all the resources before you start your city. Sometimes, I found I started my city in the middle of an oil field or fertile farming land, so would either have to demolish or start city all over and remember it from last time. Being able to rezone areas from low to medium to high without demolishing would be nice too.

So overall, I enjoy the game. Has many things I like, many flaws, but many can be fixed with simple patches, expansion packs, etc. Probably be a much better game a few months from now.

[Superchan 23]

in my opionon removing mass transit for singleplayer was done for a reason... to make people pay to play online, i dont think people realize that they made this game mainly for online play, they want it to make money and likely to be the World of Warcrack of City Sim games. and they depreciate the offline play to make people more likely to use online play.

[rkellywlu 1]

I have played city simulators since the original Sim City - every one I can get may hands on. Cities XL is a real disappointment. Many of the disappointing factors are places where its ancestry (City Life) shows through: zoning by social class (ugh!), all lots square, lot size not flexible, can't access high density from beginning, no evolution of properties. The trading bit is just a bother, especially in solo play - and why is the solo play so crippled? - Oh, right, you have to pay extra every month for the planet, so of course solo play is lame. The fact that the AI only offers one trading partner is just ridiculous. You can't even trade among your own cities, which would seem to me to be a minimum. Curved roads are nice, but what is the point if all the lots are square? Worst of all for this railfan: NO TRAINS!!!!! What this all adds up to is that rational city planning is almost impossible. Nothing evolves in a rational way. It wouldn't be so bad if Monte Cristo hadn't over-hyped and raised everyone's expectations so high. As I send this I am loading up my Sim City 4 CD.

[SimDragon 3]

I would like to clarify something for you guys about trade. I reported this as an issue in the beta but it was turned down as working as intended. You can't always blame your trade partner when a trade cancels. The game does not take what your trading out of your available pool for your city. So when you started trading 9 water for 3 fuel the water is still available to the city. So as you build and build and build guess what you use up your water and no longer have 9 water for trade and your trade cancels. The fuel guys is now pissed at you all because the trade system does not work properly even though you did not intentionally cancel the trade. And this just discourages people from trading. This was only one of many flaws in the logic of the game that made me decide to not purchase this car crash of a game.

[Androv 6]

SC4 has rectangular lots, in one of four directions.

CXL has small or large square lots, facing any direction.

And what city starts with high density zoning?

And in what city is service determined by a 500 m circle drawn around it's centre? Or a 2,000 bed hospital that only accepts patients from 1 km away? Or where people choose to drive down a tiny street when there's a large avenue one block away? SC4 was not an ideal simulator, and it could be completely unrealistic in many ways. The only thing it has was that EA gave up on it and allowed the community to mod it extensively.

[ScaryMonkey 0]

Originally posted by: Androv

SC4 has rectangular lots, in one of four directions.

CXL has small or large square lots, facing any direction.quote>

Absolutely true;  I don't think anyone is arguing that it should be just like SC4's system.  I think a lot of people's disappointment stems from the fact that this release, 7 years later, has still not mananged to improve on the square zoning concept.

And in what city is service determined by a 500 m circle drawn around it's centre? Or a 2,000 bed hospital that only accepts patients from 1 km away? Or where people choose to drive down a tiny street when there's a large avenue one block away? SC4 was not an ideal simulator, and it could be completely unrealistic in many ways. The only thing it has was that EA gave up on it and allowed the community to mod it extensively.quote>

I also hated this about SC4, and the determination of service area by network, with traffic factored in, is one of the improvements I was glad to see in CXL.  Unfortunately while this aspect of the simulation were improved, many others seem to have been left out or simplified.

[DazzaDazza 29]

 

Absolutely true;  I don't think anyone is arguing that it should be just like

SC4

's system.  I think a lot of people's disappointment stems from the fact that this release, 7 years later, has still not mananged to

improve

on the square zoning concept.

 

I 100% agree, and you still have more freedom with SC4 zones because I can zone 1x1, 1x2, 1x3, and 1x10 if I won’t as long as I have a lot to fit, in CXL you just have the same old boring 40x40 all though your city.    

     

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

 

[Flexor 0]

In SP mode, the thing I find most aggravating is the trading values with the computer player - it just makes it impossible once you start getting a big city!! I have a city of >500,000 and I have so many tokens in the -ve but can't afford to buy anything because it's all too expensive to trade. I can't afford to build everything needed either because of pollution etc etc. Frustrating.

[nivking 0]

First all good things.

Finaly a new city sim!

The grafics are an Eyecandy!

easy interface

Than all the bad things.

I was promised micro manegement of companies, as a ceo and switch back to mayor,

 this is not in the game.(will be a buyable expansion pack)

there's no statistics or values that should be there, "produces some electricity", "profides some healthcare" how do you mean some?

No transit?

And still no 3D walking and driving in my city anno 2009 (ok they didn't promise that)

No subterrain managment like water sewer power internet or phonelines.

No laws or regulations to administer the city.

Only 2 tax sliders. very basic

Online game is only irc chat with other people who are also horrofied by the arcade style enviroment.

Online should have some trading but it didn't function properly when i played my 50€ 7day trail.

7 days online play only, after spending money for a full game.

No patches and promised content before i am giving them a montly fee for completing the game that should have been completed in the first way.

Some promised content are now buyable addons.

Memory cloging

Terraforming ? you can only flatten area's, not rising or lowering the ground.

Online login annoying me with several popups that planet offer can give you the rest of the game(full version somewhere in the future no date mentioned) + irc chat and website seems to be the real content here.

Online play is lagfest.(no i do not have a slow pc and yes i have a 100mbit line so don't come with that flaming).

Lost 40million (all money) after i relogged.

Middle mousebutton rotate is indeed a panic rotate option that spins out of control real easy

i could make this list longer, but i think i made my point.

conclution:

the game has great potential but is in a beta phase, way to arcade and absolutly not finished.

I bought the game, played the beta trail version (thats how i look at it), never gonna touch it again if they are not gonna implement the features they promissed for free instead of buyable content.

me no idiot.

And than the burning question:

should you buy the game?

well i can't speak for other people, if you like arcade and not all the speadsheet screens that usualy come along with sim games, than this is the game for you, but if you like to be able to have some influence on your city, than this is absolutly not a game for you.

Personaly i wish i wouldn't have bought cities xl, but thats personal

[willisj 1]

I have enjoyed playing the solo game so far but I am really frustrated with the lack of content that came with the shipped game. There is no region play and the AI wont trade properly in solo mode. The lack of mass transit is the killer for me. I cannot see how MC, or anyone could have released a city builder game without it!!!! I agree with all said in the above message too so I wont repeat it in this one.

Cities XL, on the whole is a good game and I think it will improve with time but I think MC has treated solo mode players as lepers of sorts. Not everyone wants to play online games MC!

[ForceInfinity 0]

Originally posted by: nivking

First all good things.

Finaly a new city sim!

The grafics are an Eyecandy!

easy interface

Than all the bad things.

I was promised micro manegement of companies, as a ceo and switch back to mayor,

 this is not in the game.(will be a buyable expansion pack)

there's no statistics or values that should be there, "produces some electricity", "profides some healthcare" how do you mean some?

No transit?

And still no 3D walking and driving in my city anno 2009 (ok they didn't promise that)

No subterrain managment like water sewer power internet or phonelines.

No laws or regulations to administer the city.

Only 2 tax sliders. very basic

Online game is only irc chat with other people who are also horrofied by the arcade style enviroment.

Online should have some trading but it didn't function properly when i played my 50€ 7day trail.

7 days online play only, after spending money for a full game.

No patches and promised content before i am giving them a montly fee for completing the game that should have been completed in the first way.

Some promised content are now buyable addons.

Memory cloging

Terraforming ? you can only flatten area's, not rising or lowering the ground.

Online login annoying me with several popups that planet offer can give you the rest of the game(full version somewhere in the future no date mentioned) + irc chat and website seems to be the real content here.

Online play is lagfest.(no i do not have a slow pc and yes i have a 100mbit line so don't come with that flaming).

Lost 40million (all money) after i relogged.

Middle mousebutton rotate is indeed a panic rotate option that spins out of control real easy

i could make this list longer, but i think i made my point.

conclution:

the game has great potential but is in a beta phase, way to arcade and absolutly not finished.

I bought the game, played the beta trail version (thats how i look at it), never gonna touch it again if they are not gonna implement the features they promissed for free instead of buyable content.

me no idiot.

And than the burning question:

should you buy the game?

well i can't speak for other people, if you like arcade and not all the speadsheet screens that usualy come along with sim games, than this is the game for you, but if you like to be able to have some influence on your city, than this is absolutly not a game for you.

Personaly i wish i wouldn't have bought cities xl, but thats personal

quote>

About the "Walking the City" part, that is not entirely true.  You can zoom all the way down to ground level and then use the movement keys to effective "walk/drive" in the city from the first person perspective.  It's a little glitchy on some suspension bridges, but otherwise works.

I like that you can get somewhat artistic with the city layouts, but unfortunately I found that I can't do double decker roads/viaducts like I was hoping to.  Not terribly a big deal.  For the most part the road tools are alot more flexible than Sim City, though Sim City carries the advantage on the use of ramps from the Freeways.

In trying to do a self-sufficient city, I'm finding that the game does get fairly challenging as you start to approach 400,000 people.  I'm still net positive on the income and through unlockable buildings I have a chance at boosting income further.  The thing is the waste and electricity deficits are becoming more problematic as the game goes on.  I suspect I can get to maybe 600k people max.  Will still need to experiment.

Overall, its an okay game, but I get the feeling without mods I wouldn't be able to pull off a good enough self sufficient city in the SP mode.  I'd probably have to go MP in order to do either a righteous self-sufficient city or I'd probably have to do one of those specialized types that feeds everyone oil or something.

[jeremy12 0]

This is meant to be a Miltiplayer game, take Battlefield 2 for example, it has Single player, a really bad one but its there none the less.

Same goes here from the start they always talked about "always connected and online" City Builder

And if you want the Stats they are out there, they have been data mined from the game you can find them, i will be making all of it easier to understand and find by posting it all on the cities xl wiki (see my sig) but i do agree they need to make it so you can have that detail in game and not have to find it in round about ways.

[Craig-Abcvs 1,595]

--Liv

[Mastaflex 0]

Originally posted by: jeremy12

This is meant to be a Miltiplayer game, take Battlefield 2 for example, it has Single player, a really bad one but its there none the less.

quote>

Playing a FPS against bots is boring, ask anyone. Playing a city building game solo is what we have been doing for 20+ years. That's why your comparison doesn't make much sense and why an option for both in this game would have been ideal.

[Imperiusleader 0]

I was really looking forward to this game. I had followed all the comments in the citiesxl main forum and what was promised.

When I got my limited edition of citiesXl through the post I could not wait to load it on the PC and start building. Well I can certainly say the game really matches what it says on the box..."Limited". Like so many of you I thought it would include the massive transit (A city without this feature is very naked), plus the fact I thought that the limited edition also included 2 free GEMS (the ski resort and the Holiday beach resort).  However I Persevered. I must say the building graphics are amaizing and It was really showing promise untill I got down to ground Level.

Why? oh! Why? did they insist in putting in those horrible looking avatars. It really spoils the impression of actually being in a real city environment. Those cartoony characters really put me off  zooming  to street level cos they certainly don't match their realistic surroundings. They should have kept the same looking avatars as were in CityLife or better still make them more realistic looking as those  in Tropicano 3 (who's vehicles I must say look better also).

I have played this game on and off  quite a few times, but , I'm affraid I am very disapointed. I find it very dificult to really get dragged into the game and tend to loose interest very quickly. There is no adictiveness as I have had in past  games such as the sim city series, Children of the Nile, Pharoah, Caeser III, New York Tycoon, Anno 1404, Tropico 1 and now Tropico 3(which I am very adicted to at the moment).

To me, like so many others have mentioned, the game feels incomplete and also missed that oomph appeal that keeps you wanting to play and play like some of the other titles I've mentioned above.

[fafa123 0]

You say it!

This is the truth about the game!

What boderd me most is that they did`n put mass transport in solo game option!

How they Dare?

Cities without  transport!?

I buy this game just because of it!...and suprisse?... they just did it!

i still can`t belive it!

This is pure misleading of the costumers!

THIS GAME IS a HUGE tROJAN HoRSE!

Good Luck Monte Kristo!

[DazzaDazza 29]

I would have to agree with Imperiusleader, the avatars are not the best looking around, but I don't really go down to street level that much anyway its a bit of a waste of a feature, and that's the same for the night time, I have only used it once. Mainly because it doesn't look that grate, and there is really no need to uses it.

[danny_1990 0]

I'm so disappointed in the Single Player. It's like playing a demo.

Now I'm waiting for PAypal to become available for CXL. So I can subscribe to the Planet Offer, and then I can play the real game

[DaveParker 0]

meh - started it up today and nearly all the billboard ads have been replaced with adverts for planet offer

I don't mind the billboard ads that look like the ones you see in real life but these make it seem like I'm playing a demo (one that cost money) :-(

[City Planner 121]

The strange thing to me is that the Original Poster in this thread posted his message on Oct-09-2009 07:52 AM it's now over 2 months later and many of the things that he's listed are still in the game, still glaring the players in the face and unfixed. I don't pretend to know what MonteCristos priorities are but it couldn't possibly be bugs and improvements to the game when this kind of basic stuff is still problematic in the game.

I thought I had to login everytime but I just disconnected my internet and was able to "play offline" so apparently my little tyrade about having to login everytime is wrong, I just have to turn off my internet connection if I want to play offline.

I'm really teed off about needing to login everytime anyway, I'm Not playing the planet offering as it's not worth it to me, so I don't want to have to log into the games server everytime that i want to play single player. Granted my internet has an average uptime of about 99% but there will eventually come that time that either the internet is down or that I wish to play this on one of my computers that I don't allow to be on the internet and I won't be able to. The more I think about it, the more I realize it stinks that MC has done it this way. But my own fault here as I should have read the last line in the requirements on the Impulse game page that clearly states that I must login to the internet to be able to play my game, however I did assume that meant for the planet offering and not for the singleplayer portion of the game and I imagine many others thought of it the same way.

I also don't care for all the "information" screens that popup here and there when I start the game or end the game telling me about how I can do such and such on the "online" portion of the game, it's very obtrusive thus far and rather annoying, I feel it's more like being spammed in a game that I payed for and I shouldn't have to see any of these unless I go online with the game.

Yeah, text and icons are too small at 1920x1200, if you have trouble at 1680x1050 then think of us at higher resolutions. I agree, even blowing up the UI to 100% in the options doesn't help.

I saw this complaint about 2 months ago and would have thought for sure that MC would have added the ability to desensitize it with all the complaints but apparently MC doesn't listen to consumers at all. It spins the game wildly out of control when I try to use the middle mouse button to spin the screen, and their view options panel is chunky and turns the screen far too much with one push of the buttons to spin the screen.

I'm really not digging on the way that the view options panel window doesn't stick where I last left it, instead it constantly resets to the default location which is assenine for it to do.

I agree about the speed buttons are way to small and I didn't even know what they were at 1920x1200, they just looked like somebody at MC messed up the UI and left a smudge on the UI. They really need a new talented UI artist because whom ever created this in the game doesn't know the business at all. Simple things like being able to right click to close the building menu would have been so much more convenient than having to click another button on it. Im sure that a talented UI artist could have really done this game justice in the UI department. Honestly, Im sorry if the UI person reads this if it hurts his feelings, but if I were the Lead at MC, I would have fired the UI person if this was the best he could do.

The way that the information icons overlaps was complained about during beta and I had hoped they would have fixed that in retail but again, priorities are somewhere else (counting our money maybe?) that something as annoying as this wasn't fixed just shows contempt on MC's part to their customers, heck the fact that they haven't fixed this for their paying customers is absurd at best.

Trade is indeed annoying in singleplayer but then again, I believe you can simply create new cities and trade between them which is what I plan on doing.

Cities XL needs much more than several patches, they've already put out several patches and haven't even touched on these items, so again I have to wonder what their priorities really are because it doesn't appear from the outside looking in that they're going to fix any of this stuff. It feels more like they are simply milking it for all that they can get out of it and I honestly woudn't be surprised if they just closed it down one day with a minimal of notice to the players when they are no longer making enough money out of it.

The good? As mentioned, it looks pretty when up close, however from a distance, those gray blocks for cars is just wrong. When on high settings the cars should be cars. And that brings me to the settings. Did they really have to dumb it down this much to only be low, medium, high etc? They couldn't have broken it down to the individual options for each of those so that we can choose how we want the game to look, be it better to show cars from further away and turn off the shadows or turn off that focokta haze that is evident when zoomed out a good ways, but instead they simply give a dumbed down option of low, medium high, etc. That's lame at best. And hey, what about environment sounds, are there ANY in the game? I've got them cranked up to 100% but I don't hear a thing.

Sadly this game needs a heck of a lot of work, it's even more absurd for it to be in the condition it's in with them (MonteCristo) calling it an MMO game. Even the free to play MMO's put out more quality than Cities XL is. Still it was only a $19.99 investment to buy it this weekend so if they don't fix anything then fine, it'll be the last MC game that I buy or recommend to anybody and it will have been less than the price of dinner for one at one of the nicer restaurants around town. It just would be nice if they fixed all this and more to try to regain some reputaion that was lost in this games whole fiasco.

[ride277 0]

Ok, i've tried the game too. First, i made a trail account. It ended. I made a new one, and i bought the limited edition of the game last friday for reasonable price. So roughly i've been playing this game for about 2 weeks on a regular basis. I also own Simcity 4 Deluxe, and i love this game despite of its obvious shortcomings (as stated above)

My overall opinion of Cities XL is that it is not what i expected it to be. Surely, there are some positive sides to it, but the negatives (for me personally) wipe the floor with these positives.

Lets start with my positive comment on the game;

* Graphics look good

* Tools for building roads and bridges are perfect (not counting the unable to connect to road bug)

* Bus system looks promising

And also the negative ones;

* Too many glitches in the end result for roads. When i make a triangle of avenues, and use the free building tool for any type of zone within that triangle, the game often gives overlapping roads in the corner of the triangle with the smallest angle. It looks like roads are built on top op each other. Similar problems occur when i built highway over a slightly inclining hill, at some bits, the road disappeared below the surface.

* When i try to use the leisure overlay to see what inhabitants do not have enough of this resource, all the buildings are bright green, and thus it is impossible to see what houses need addtional leisure

* The well-known problem of contracts in PO lasting for just 5 days

* I bought the game to also try the solo mode. I was thinking about making a seperate city for every resource. So, the plan was to make an agricultural city, a dirty industry city (air poll.) and a city with clean stuff like offices and HT industry. I made some small cities with alot of excess resources, thinking i could trade these with my other cities. But to my amazement i could only trade with Don Madalff, so there's my whole idea, straight into the toilet. I prolly should have read the FAQ on the site better, but still i find it strange that this feature one would expect in the game (as it follows idea set in online mode) isn't there.

* The game is incomplete. It is like building a sandbox city. It doesnt feel alive at all. (no public transport, no ships (have never seen any ships at my harbor)

* I got excited about the idea of playing Cities XL in solo mode with the new bus system, as without it, the game is rather boring. So i checked the site on the details of the buses, and the site said, only for Planet Offer... So i figured, i'll buy one month worth of planet mode, and then, as i payed for this "extra" feature, i could also use it in solo mode. But none of that, you can't. If i want buses i have to stay a PO-subscriber for the rest of my life..

* Parks; when i had built a large part of my city,  filling about 1/4 of the map, i decided to try and beautify my city by adding parks and plazas. So i used the park tool, but to my amazement it had a size limitation, and had to be enclosed by roads.. So i had to lay fake roads to decrease the size of empty land and then lay some parks, delete the roads again. Far too much work for laying parks..

* Holidays. This point shares alot of its characteristics with the sandbox comment earlier. When i made some holiday hotels on one of my maps, i noticed they had to be placed in a certain area which became smaller after i placed a hotel in that area, much like ground water. As i obviously needed more than one hotel to satisfy the need for holidays in a 1M city, i had to build more. But because of the shrinking of the green overlay view for holidays, i had to place my hotels at weird places to get the most out of these zones. The end result is awful, and totally unrealstic and ugly, as the hotels are apart and can only be connected by roads and the empty zones with parks, cuz when i fill the remaining space with anything else the satisfaction of the hotels goes down.

* When i click a tool, lets say the building uneducated workers zones, the sound in the game goes ballistic. It makes the clicking noise of the mouse like 7 times in a row in very fast succession.

* Sometimes, after reaching certain goals or quantities, the game rewards you with a multiplier building or other special building, like the Ford dealership or the Kodak stuff. But the weird thing is that these buildings are not always under the menu from which to build them. Sometimes the 4th icon of special buildings (denoted with a star), following the high density stuff is gone, and i have to click the main menu several times switching between the utilities and city services buttons and finally back to the office screen, hoping the special building button now DOES appear.

* Lack of demographics and feedback on inhabitants; Why  should i build a school when there is no indication about age groups or education levels. Also, normally one would presume a child attending school until he/she was 18, would move out of the uneducated workforce, and into the educated workforce, and the same could apply for educated ppl who earn a promotion. This whole concept is not in the game, so why educate ppl? (Or presume the unqualified workers only let their childern attend primary school, the qualified workers only primary and secondary, and so on)

* The online part of the game is only there to milk it dry for cash. The added content is far too pricy for what u get, and arguing the rest of the online stuff is key to this game, is idiotic. It is no more than a trade system (which fails due to the short lifespan of contracts) and a IRC type of community.

Summarizing, i think this game still needs alot of work, and at this point is no more than a payed beta, in which the players pay to make it a complete product, but only if they continue paying for it. (If you cease paying for the content, you don't get it anymore, like it is software on (extremely expensive) rent (12*8 euros=96 euros annually, far too much if u ask me for the content offered) Also, i dont get the impression MC is very involved with their customers, as i read the 3month and 2month offers disappeared from their site without further explaination why this happened, and just left player paying more per month. (no sorry, nothing)

[John-SJ 13]

Originally posted by: DaveParker

meh - started it up today and nearly all the billboard ads have been replaced with adverts for planet offer

I don't mind the billboard ads that look like the ones you see in real life but these make it seem like I'm playing a demo (one that cost money) :-(quote>

It has been my impression from the beginning that the single player portion is not a game at all, but rather, an ongoing ad for the Planet Offer.

MC actually admits that the single player isn't complete, and then goes about trying to get you to play the complete game for $9 per month.  Do they mention taht if you drop your subscription for one or more months that you will permanently miss any content that was delivered during your absence?  No?

[MrMN 0]

After having played Cities XL (solo mode primarily) for a few days, I could give a quick checklist of what I like and didn't like about the game. Unfortunately, I lack the time to go into great detail, but I could elaborate later on if needed.

Pros

*The graphics are excellent, sharp and crisp. Game rendered cities seldom look as good as they do here. Changing the time of day is also an awesome feature.

*The ability to zone for different types of industry (heavy, manufacturing, and high tech)

*Having filler areas for dead space

*Allowing greater flexibility in road placement

*Enabling the option to toggle the placement of specific buildings so you literally have a plop mode

*General ease of the game

Cons

*The larger the city gets, the more encumbered your computer gets (this game will grind most personal computers to a halt)

*Lot sizes; a single family home should not take up the same sized lot as a shopping mall

*Incompatibility with the road network; the game requires extreme precision with manual road placement to fit in lots. Not to mention it can be very difficult to get a bridge placed correctly or build a perfect grid without the game's zoning tool.

*Pedestrians...they are hideous caricatures. That and they only use the sidewalks and ignore the filler areas.

*Lack of building diversity; despite claiming more buildings (500) than SimCity 4 initially (~400), building diversity actually seems worse in this game

*Leisurely buildings as a city service...why doesn't private enterprise provide this? For that matter, why does Monte Cristo think every city should have a ferris wheel, paintball, and go-carts? They are mostly unappealing as well.

*Growing need for resources and the cost involved in obtaining them (either through trade or by building facilities)

*Glitchy graphics; roads clip into the ground, some buildings can glitch when seen from a distance.

Just a few general impressions.