City Life is like Sim City 4 with the cartoon elements stripped out and more playability and depth put back in its place. You take on a role similar to Sim City, managing all aspects with the task of building a supreme city that can not only survive, but run a profit.

To start this off, we really need to look at the short comings of the Sim City games, of which I am personally a big fan, hence getting my hands on this. First of all there isn't too much of a challenge to them; it's basically build housing, create jobs and supply electricity, with a few prayers that the roads don't get too clogged up, yet there are some strange things like having to manage the water services that just become distracting and there is way too much micromanagement, such as being able to run smoke alarm programs or legalise gambling.

In Sim City 4 there was also a kind of strange showing off with the graphics, which I didn't quite get, but that could be because there wasn't a great deal of change since Sim City 2000 and it focused more on terrain development, which itself ended up not making too much difference in the long run. City Life, while admittedly having good graphics, with reflection mapping, dynamic shadowing, etc., doesn't seem too concerned with how it looks - it's all about the gameplay, which when you're going to spend long durations playing it, has got to be a good thing.

Where City Life builds on the flaws of Sim City is firstly that you have to manage six subcultures, all unique in their tastes, needs and jobs. The social classes also only like people like themselves and if there're polar opposites living near each other, you can expect anything from conflicts and riots to widespread fires engulfing your city caused by arson; and trust me, when half your city gets set on fire because you forgot to build a fire station, it becomes quite an interesting game. If everyone is catered for equally then things like these are unlikely to occur, but if the Have-Nots aren't being catered for and the Elites are getting everything, you can be sure to expect a city on fire!

There are ways around this, such as trying to have a one sided city, but if you want any of the upper classes that bring in money then you're going to need the lower classes that provide the services for them. Not only do you need them for the services, but you can't create jobs for the upper classes without progressing down either the Blue Collars job tree or the Fringe. Now, this sounds relatively simple but it isn't, as the Blue Collars job tree is highly polluting and can't be built anywhere near the houses, while the Fringe on the other hand doesn't pollute at all but they also bring in less taxes. The problem with getting less taxes in a socially unbalanced city is that the Fringe are horrific at providing power, as they only have wind turbines and they don't work as the police, health workers or firemen, which means all these services will be a major drain on resources without Blue Collars. Welcome to the wonderful world of social management.

A step above the Fringe is the Radical Chic; they are the polar opposite to the Blue Collars, yet the Blue Collars provide just about all the services the Radical Chic most want. This is the same with the Suits, who are the next step up from the Blue Collars and are in most demand of Fringe services, even though they're likely to kill each other if they live near one another. To tackle this you have two options; the first and usually easiest is segregation, where you build two mini-cities only connected by roads and mutual services like power in the middle. The second is by providing everything that everyone wants - and this one is likely to run you into the red, but it does make reaching the target goals easier.

One of the greatest things and worst things about Sim City is that it is totally open ended; you create the gameplay by playing how you want to play. However, this is also a problem, in that there isn't always a motivating factor to keep on playing. The way City Life tackles this is by having three target goals in the form of city keys; Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each of these has an income and population requirement, which provides significant motivation to keep on building your city - and by the time you have completed these goals you have built a city within which all six subcultures reside, and one that provides all the challenges you need to keep on playing. Hitting these goals is also rewarded with opening new maps to play on, which provide more challenging landscapes, such as an arid environment more prone to fires starting, or landscape difficulties.

This is one of the things some people will like and some people will dislike; there are no terrain editing tools in the game. You get the map and you play on it; if there so happens to be a mountain where you want to build, well, that's just tough luck, ain't it? At first I found it quite difficult, when you're dragging out a building zone you tend to miss the terrain it's actually going on, but after a while you get used to it. After playing the game for a couple of days, it soon becomes a good quality, as you spend less time managing the landscape and more time managing your city, which as a city simulation is actually the point of the game. There is an editor that comes with the game, but it's only recommended to the more advanced users, as you can generally kill the game, because the editor seems aimed at modders. Every parameter is open to being tinkered with, which means you can create custom buildings and any landscape you want. To me this is a better way to go about the landscaping, as it's only there for the people who really want to do it and it won't get in the way of actually building a city.

I mentioned earlier that there are different maps to choose from, a total of twenty-two spread over five different environments, each with their own challenges. The temperate regions are the easiest to build cities in, as they have large, flat spaces and also the simplest goals to accomplish. The other regions are tropical, sunny, canyon and mountainous, all of which have their unique goals; for example, the sunny landscapes are more likely to require you to have large populations of the upper classes, whereas the tropical is likely to require a large income from the tourism industry. If these goals aren't your thing then there's also the Free mode, which just lets you play in the environments and do whatever you like, Sim City style.

For the newcomers to this type of game, it's always best to check out the tutorials; there aren't any slow missions to play with lengthy tasks - just mini-clips on a tutorials page. I'd even recommend seasoned city Sim City builders check out the cultural pages, as they explain everything about neighbourhoods and the path colours, which indicate the dominant subculture in the area.

The graphics are surprisingly good for a city building. The camera can go from satellite view to street level, all the time keeping perfect frame rates and continuing to look great, whatever the scale. I recommend inspecting the water for its reflection mapping, as it's very beautiful on all levels; there's even reflection mapping on the building windows. For the first time ever in a city building game, the trees actually look like trees and are dynamically generated, not just 2D sprites in a 3D environment.

The music is what you would expect in a city builder, it isn't going to win any awards and it is purposely designed to be listened to for countless hours on end. I spent a ten hour stint in the game and in the first thirty minutes you notice the music, but after that it just melts away into the back of your mind. This is perfect, because there aren't any tense or dramatic scenes and using music to create this would be a total faux pas; it'd be like going fancy dress to a funeral! The sound is similar to the music, in that it seems purposely designed to be forgotten about and couldn't possibly annoy you. They're just the sounds of the game and it's accepted at that, the worst thing that could be done with a game like this is try to make the sounds noticeable, because it only takes one annoying sound and no one is going to be playing the game for more than thirty minutes. For another weird and wonderful example, imagine playing the game and every five minute Barney the dinosaur pops up - forgetting my Barney-reflex, which takes about .2 of a second before I'm trying to kill him, after an hour of playing you're going to be on the phone to the Russian Mafia to get a briefcase nuke so you can annihilate your computer. I know there wasn't much need for that example, but hey, any excuse to nuke Barney!

City Life tackles the inherent flaws of the city builder genre by introducing subcultures and including target goals, both of which increase the playability and replay value of the game no end. As such, it not only makes for a perfect introduction to the genre for those curious few yet to sample a taste of Sim City, as well as providing some more meatier challenges for the experienced simmer. Combine this with the incredibly detailed, smooth and well-conceived graphics and the discrete sound and music, and you have a game that's pretty much a must have. There's even no need to fear that City Life may actually educate you, because you'll be having too much fun to realise! Have fun and, erm, don't destroy the neighbourhood!

Reviewed by Nik Gregory for AceGamez (All Rights Reserved).