~OFFICIAL: CJ REVIEW~
CJ Review by Evillions
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The Auburn Metropolitan Area city journal, opened on May 15, 2011, features an American themed region that progressively expands. The author is attempting to build a very large region while retaining realistic features. At the moment, the author published twenty-two updates.
While viewing each update, I realized that the cities were decent, but nothing special. For example, the road networks were too grid-like and the sprawl was more wealthier than an average American suburb. The suburbs in my opinion require a significant amount of lower-class housing and businesses as I only saw high-wealth offices and services along with decent sized houses and mansions adjacent to each other. Realistically, the amount of wealthy people are much less than the middle-class / low-class citizen. If the author used more custom content, this would have been much better, but I have a feeling of too much Maxis.
In addition to the road networks, most suburbs have developments or less-grid like networks. The only time grids are acceptable are urban centers. Beyond that, the road network needs to be more curvy and unique. However, the author stated that he used grids for its simplicity and less abandonment problems. This could been solved by no-abandonment modifications.
Centering into the city centers, the author does much better in this department than the suburbs. In fact, the ritzy sections of each city were pleasing. However, some of the city centers are somewhat flawed. For instance, they were too utopian as EVERY section were high-class. I would love to see some slums or deteriorated buildings in the outer section of a city center. Besides this, some of the city centers were lacking seawalls. On a whole, the cities need a slope mod because the roads and bridge slopes were too steep.
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Despite these flaws, its a solid city journal because I find the captions to be interesting and that Glenn Harbor was very eye-catching. Besides this, the author did not suddenly changed his playing style in order to gain more attention. The author retained his style while hording loads of followers.
I really would love to see more work done on the cities themselves instead of focusing on completing the region. With more polished cities, this would have been a favorite city journal.
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*NOTE* The original review came with pictures. That original review can be found on Page 1 of the new official CJ review thread located in the old CJ section
Big thanks to Evillions!!!!
EDIT: Sorry for not having recent updates. I was busy with school and now I am on BREAK!!! Expect something very soon!
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