Good morning everyone,
I do hope that you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and found much to be thankful for in your life.
We have an economic strategy game to review for you today, one that is in the same vein as Monopoly.
I first want to mention the game publisher, Alawar Entertainment – whom I believe to be one of the more intelligent, consistent game publishers on the net. Regardless of the outcome of this review, remember that Alawar really is worth checking out. I have around 20 of their games on my machine, that I consider to be ‘keepers’ and I’m sure that I’ll buy more in the future.
Developer: VSP Game Studio
Publisher: Alawar Entertainment
Supported Languages: English
System Requirements: Windows: NT/2000/XP
Additional Requirements: None
Tested on: Windows XP Pro.
My first couple of comments are that;
This game is a Monopoly clone – almost exactly;
If you suffer from motion sickness, play this game cautiously and turn your head away from the screen when the board spins around to locate each player’s car. I say this because a few people I know, have actually said that it triggered motion sickness in them.
Monopoly and City Magnate Comparisons:
Monopoly has various icons to represent each player on the board;
City Magnate has different colored cars to represent each player.
Monopoly uses paper notes for money;
City Magnate just keeps a running tally on each player.
Monopoly has a square playing board;
City Magnate has a octagonal shaped playing board.
Settings/Options:
As you can see by the thumbnail to the right, there are only three options available, each controlled by percentage arrows to the left and right, except for the tutorial:
Sound: I found a comfortable percentage for me was 40%;
Music: The only way I could deal with the music, was to turn it right down to 10%;
Tutorial: This option is a toggle – either on or off.
Game play:
Up to 4 human (or 4 computer players) can play.
Setup and game play that I was grateful NOT to have to do:
Choose/be banker;
Deal out paper money;
Trying to keep my paper money tidy!
The game can be played against the computer or against another human player, however, it’s a shame that the game can’t be played over a LAN. I really dislike sharing one keyboard in a game.
That said, I guess it wouldn’t be so bad on my keyboard, which is a 10PK 111 key PS2 PRO Internet Keyboard Being larger than the normal QWERTY keyboard, at least you wouldn’t be sitting on top of one another while you play the game.
So, with all that said, let’s move on:
The game launches and immediately asks you to key in your name. The screen following that, gives you the chance to pick the color of your car for your token on the ‘board’.
The next step is to choose whether or not you want to play against the computer, or another person. You can also remove a player on this screen (odd, since it doesn’t retain names anyway!) and finally begin your game.
The Board:
At the bottom of the board are eight circles; each one representing clusters of property types. If your opponent lands on any that you own, he must pay you. (Automatically computed by the game.)
Just as in Monopoly, the more of each cluster (3 total) you own, the more money your opponent has to pay you. Once you own all three properties in the cluster, you’re able to upgrade in order to collect even more money, if your opponent should land there.
To the left of the board are two dice which you roll, to indicate how many spaces to move ahead on your next turn. Just above the circles, are two buttons; roll and close. At bottom right of the board, you’re shown how much money you have. When your opponent has his turn, you can also see his monetary balance.
As mentioned earlier, each person’s token is a colored car, which gamers do not need to move themselves. Once someone has rolled their dice, the car simply zooms around to the relevant square.
When you land on one of the various gambling squares, there’s a pop-up screen that tells you you must pay $n to play that particular gambling game. The outcome of course, is reflected in your balance when you return the game.
You can also click on ‘more info’ which will explain the game to you if you don’t understand it immediately. You don’t have to play these games, you can choose simply to click on ‘close’ and return to the main game.
The ‘777′ square, is a bit of a surprise and I think meant to be similar to the ‘chest’ cards in Monopoly. You could recieve money or have an amount taken away from you. The ‘Mafia’ square claims 10% of all your cash – ouch!
The dartboard will either give you money or take it away, same as the ‘777′ square.
Once you have a negative balance, a window will pop-up telling you to either, mortgage or sell one of your properties. You can refer to the property circles at the bottom of the board, which will show you how many stores you have in each cluster.
Click on one the cluster circles and you’ll be presented with information: sale price; profit; and next level. Choose which building you want to sell (if you have more than one in the cluster,) then click either; Sell; Trade; Mortgage or Close.
There is also a ‘done’ button for you to click after that, which is totally redundant in my opinion. It’s obvious that you have completed your turn, and it should immediately go to the next player for them to have their turn.
There are a few other details that I haven’t explained, but they won’t be difficult for anyone to work out and I’ll leave you to discover these for yourselves.
Music:
The music is reminiscent of 80s elevator music. If the game lasts more than 20 minutes, I think you’ll find yourselves reaching for the options to turn the music off as I did. Recently I’ve chosen a few songs from my hard drive that go well with certain games. Then I just play the game with the music turned off, but my game playlist active. Hey! It works for me! 
Help File:
At the top left of the screen is a large question mark, which you can click to reach various explanations of the games and managing your stores etc.
So help is available at all times throughout the game. The game is so easy to play though, even if you’d never read any of the help files.
To win the game, you must bankrupt all the other players. A player loses the game by becoming bankrupt.
Graphics:
Bright and colorful, but badly in need of some strong anti-aliasing. This graphics designer needs to double check his work and see the same thing that I’m able to see and improve all of the graphics. Even something as simple as the circles surrounding the property clusters at the bottom of the board are unprofessional and need to be addressed.
Features:
Game is able to be saved, for players to resume playing at another time – I don’t see any other features.
Negatives:
Absolutely no way to minimize the game. No window option and no [x] that you can use, as with other games;Doesn’t retain your name for subsequent games (unless you’re resuming a game,) you have to key it in every time;
Game quickly becomes boring if you play against the computer;
Graphics aren’t great at all.
Points:
Originality: 2/10
Game intuitiveness: 7/10
Features: 1/10
Fun factor 1/10
Price: USD$19.95
I couldn’t believe the price of this game when I saw it! City Magnate is worth $10.00 in the bargain basement only.
Summary:
As an introduction to the more superior Monopoly game, I do believe that City Magnate will be a good game for young children (8-11.) But only if played with an adult who doesn’t mind explaining a few things, in order for children to learn a few basics in economic strategy.
I don’t believe that any adult would enjoy playing this game. Instead, I’d suggest downloading Monopoly to have a lot more fun.
Recommendation:
No recommendation – at least not yet. This is only version 1 of this game. Perhaps with newer releases, the game might become more interesting and fun, along with the option of playing the game over a LAN.
Personally, I think the board needs to be a little larger, so that it can accomodate more properties. At the moment the board is small even though it has eight sides – and passing Home, happens all too frequently.
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Enjoy the rest of your day!
~ Swan
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“The day will come when machines and software will tell us whom to know; what to eat; what to wear; when to go to work and what profession to pursue; when to sleep; what entertainments to enjoy and with whom to have any kind of relationship. It can’t be avoided and you will succumb.”
~ Swan (2005)
Posted by ~ Swan 