Cities in Motion - A new transport game on the horizon!

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paperfist

paperfist

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
6,539
287
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www.the-teh.com
Previews:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/cities-in-motion/

http://www.gamespot.com/pc/sim/citiesinmotion/news.html?sid=6274178&mode=previews

Gamescon gameplay trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hvcS5IJPt8

605288_20100819_640screen004.jpg


Features:

- Over 100 unique buildings
- Advanced economy simulation including contractor deals, banking, insurance and fluctuating economic trends
- Play through 100 years of transportation history across four eras between 1920 and 2020
- Choose between over 30 different vehicles based on real-life models including buses, trams, water buses, helicopters and a subway system with underground view
- Real-time city and traffic simulation as people commute between their homes, workplace and social lives.
- Three difficulty levels – easy, medium and hard
- Map editor to let gamers create their own cities and then also presumably share them online with other urbanites

I can't really tell how deep a game it is, if its going to be Transportation Tycoon reincarnated or shallow like Railroads! Looks like he has a little Sim City/Cities XL mixed in as well. It's due out Q1 2011.
 
Elcs

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
Wow... This actually looks like it's going to be a very deep simulation type game. Not sure if it's going to hit the right balance of sim and fun for me..

Definitely keeping tabs on it.
 
Scouzer

Scouzer

Lifer
Jun 3, 2001
10,358
5
0
ehh... paradox is involved.. probably pass. hearts of iron, victoria, etc. are such amazing games, but paradox treats their customers like shit. terrible unfinished buggy games every single time
 
minmaster

minmaster

Platinum Member
Oct 22, 2006
2,041
3
71
isn't paradox just a publisher? and their games have different developers? or do they actually make all the games too?
 
lozina

lozina

Lifer
Sep 10, 2001
11,711
8
81
Looks very nice but also looks a bit limited. I hope there is a good amount of strategy involved and not just watching trains go in circles
 
D

dinkumthinkum

Senior member
Jul 3, 2008
203
0
0
I've been playing the beta. There's a lot of really nice touches to the graphics, like how they change over time, and lots of little objects (city clutter, etc) are represented.

The game is not anywhere near as complex a transportation tycoon as OpenTTD or Simutrans. There's no concept of vehicle orders beyond "make a stop". All tracks are double-tracked, no explicit signal placement. You can't lay single-track tram lines and have them change ends, or go in a circle, there must be a loop. On the other hand, they've made it fairly simple to lay a route, and share it between multiple vehicles. The underground construction is fairly nice.

The really nice thing they've done is adopt a similar model to Simutrans with regard to passenger destinations. It seems that the thousands of "people" in the game have several designated "important" locations like "Home", and "Work", and they make regular effort to commute between these. You can click on an individual person and find out where they are coming from, where they want to go right now, and how they are getting there.

Micro-managing the business side of things is also important, you have to control fares, maintenance costs, and wages, or else you won't make money. You can take out loans and there are several banks with different terms. The city will grant you some cash once in a blue moon.

There are also a number of problems which I hope get fixed. First of all, the game crashes after a while. It seems that underground metro lines cause a crash fastest. You can't save a game in the beta, so I basically play until it crashes. Changing elevation is tricky to figure out, sometimes it works, sometimes it won't let you connect the elevated line to the ground, or back. You can easily bulldoze a road accidentally, and there is no way to rebuild or undo that. For some reason prior to 1960 you can created elevated lines, but not elevated stations. The business reports are really hard to understand. I keep getting mysterious "Purchase" charges for which I have no idea the reason. The "HeadQuarters" screen gives you the projection for the next month, but there's no way to see the actual "past month" report. The map is okay, but it is really hard to get an idea of typical commutes from it. I just ended up sampling random citizens. Some of the "missions" are really hokey, though I suppose that goes along with much of the humor in the game. It's easy to cheese the game by establishing a wacky bus route which satisfies the odd requirements that pop up. You can even cancel the route immediately and still reap all the benefit.

I have high hopes for the released version. Sadly, I can't find any means of reporting issues found in the open beta to the development team. There is no contact information, and the last time I checked, no part of their forum has a section for the game, not even under "Upcoming games."
 
H

HydroSqueegee

Golden Member
Oct 27, 2005
1,709
2
71
Throckmorton said:
I don't understand the concept. You start with a prebuilt city and build transportation in it?
Click to expand...

sounds like you understand the concept just fine. ;)


you set up a transportation company to take people to the different places they want to go in the city... and be profitable. It can be a lot harder than it sounds.
 
Elcs

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
If Steam is typical at release, this should be unlocked in 23 minutes... and I'm not hearing anything :(
 
paperfist

paperfist

Diamond Member
Nov 30, 2000
6,539
287
126
www.the-teh.com
w00t thanks for the reminder guys! Just bought and downloading from Steam. Hopefully I can put some time into it tonight when I return from work.
 
Elcs

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
Just written up my own short preview, hoping to pick this up some time soonish.

http://www.elcomesoft.com/

The game is as cheap as chips, always a highlight. A few links at the bottom of my article for you guys.
 
Elcs

Elcs

Diamond Member
Apr 27, 2002
6,278
6
81
To conclude, Cities in Motion is all that you expect of a simulation game. It is a peaceful game which you can pause to you lay each piece of rail track perfectly or attempt to rectify routes that are just not running to your satisfaction. It is well polished but exhibits some of the typical niggly bugs which are synonymous with new PC releases in this era. In my eyes, the level of statistics has been kept beautifully simple - not too basic but provides enough number work to satisfy all but the most stat-happy people. Simply put, if simulators are your poison then at the price that Cities in Motion is, you'd be simply mad to miss out.
Click to expand...

My full review of Cities in Motion.
 
Inspector Jihad

Inspector Jihad

Lifer
Apr 17, 2005
13,465
3
81
bump...its on steams DD today for $6.75

how has the developer support been? have they worked out some of the problems?
 
Regs

Regs

Lifer
Aug 9, 2002
16,666
21
81
Looks interesting but can you actually build cities like Sim City or is it just strictly transportation?
 
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