Off of a Silver Spoon: A Review of Cities XL 2012

Games are working models. The uninitiated (or perhaps unobservant) are often oblivious of this fact, and this ignorance eventually leads to torrents of obscenities, wanton self-doubt, and a general feeling of worthlessness. Thankfully, I am not “that kind” of a person, and so I come to each and every game well-equipped and heavily-armed, prepared in both mind and means to wrestle with whatever systemic restrictions I will encounter.

But comprehension is only half the battle. Any true thought-wrestler knows that victory lies in prediction.  I also know that formulating a hypothesis based on reasonable comprehension and having that hypothesis be proven correct (and hence, prediction mastered) is one of the most, if not the most satisfying sensation achievable in a game. It’s like watching the last 15 minutes of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe, starring Dolph Lundgren, and that midget guy playing the crazy circular psychedelic flying-saucer-electric-keyboard in such a way as to open the key to ultimate cosmic supremacy.

The fantastical glory of this particular sensation is particularly fantastical when experienced dialectically; when the journey from oblivion to cognizance is pieced together manually, failure against success, and with only tangential creationist underpinnings. In other words, if you want me to have a good time, don’t tell me the answer, man.

So here’s the thing: Cities XL 2012 just keeps spilling the goods. Cities XL 2012 is like a little kid who just got a dollar, just got dollar, just got a dollar hey-hey-hey-hey, and now he’ll tell everybody how he did it. In some ways this enthusiasm is contagious; admirable, even. It shows through its willingness to be scrutinized, it springs off the screen with its impressively realized tract developments, and it flows out heavily and steadily through its upbeat, electro-luminescent rock riffs. But it’s this charming naïveté that ultimately leads to its frustrating downfall. And all the way down it chimes, “hey-hey-hey-hey.”

This happens innocently enough, but not enough to be spared judgment. Cities XL 2012 is a city simulator, and an impressively comprehensive one at that. It has roads, residences, industries, services, municipalities, economics, and citizens. And these citizens even have desires. Needs. But as a city simulator, Cities XL 2012 is too transparent.  To say that this transparency is good would be to fall prey to the base, crude, and all too human inclinations towards pride and other vices, but to say that it lacks fun would be an injustice.

Consider this, then: Cities XL 2012 holds your hand so tightly that you are never left alone. When your citizens are restless, it will tell you why. When your income slows down, it will tell you why. When your population blooms or dwindles, it will tell you why. And it will tell you exactly where, when, how, and what do to next, barring any lack of income, because Monte Cristo has decided that learning things the hard way is contradictory to fun.

Of course, I’m not one to knock a game for simply being too earnest or too caring of the player. I’m not a masochist, madame. What I am knocking it for is how this care is done; how this earnest is used, in earnest, to create an experience that lacks in that subjective, eerily condemnatory term “fun.” Cities XL 2012 just isn’t that fun, largely because once all the smoke and mirrors clear, what’s left is little more than plain-faced 7-year-old scrambling maniacally to-and-fro amongst a hundred spinning plastic plates, frantically praying that none of them fall. But it makes little sense because plastic doesn’t break and failure has no consequence, and Cities XL 2012 doesn’t let you fail and therefore offers no risk.

No risk, no reward.

The complexity of building cities is undeniable. It’s also this complexity which makes the successful creation satisfying and compelling, and furthermore the foundation for the joy of observing such a creation fashioned by one’s own hand. The inescapable comparisons between this game and others must be made here then: Cities XL 2012 is Sim City Lite. Beneath each of these games’ attractive exterior lies only the most elementary of arithmetic enigmas: Supply and Demand. But Cities XL 2012 commodifies these components too discretely. Materializing these elements makes them easier to manage, but it also dispels them of their mystery, in turn any game built upon them.

Of course, behind the curtain of every game is a rule-set. Prediction of the game’s direction is dependent on the correct comprehension of the rule-set and the proper application of it. Most games are cyclical as a result: the game’s goal is a particular result in the system, thus forcing the player to take a specific course of action to achieve that result. This means that player satisfaction cannot come from true, objective “discovery,” (because in truth, nothing is being discovered, only repeated) but rather only from reproduction. But fun via reproduction only goes so far. In fact, mastery by repetition (and by association by reproduction) is mindless, brainless, and sterile by definition. Where is the fun then? Why are games fun?

I posit three reasons: Process, Perspective, and Permutation. I believe that these three points are that which the fun in many games, especially simulations, turn upon. The quality of the process of simulating an environment or experience depends primarily on its presentation, the way that eating a fantastic meal is made more fantastic because, “Boy, that looks pretty tasty.” The quality of perspective depends primarily upon misdirection; to divert the player’s attention away from the wondrous curtain, maintaining interest in the result while only hinting at its inner workings subtly. And finally the quality of permutation is contingent upon the number of possible outcomes of a created system, playing the compulsive strings of would-be erudition and begging for exploration and exploitation.

Cities XL 2012, whilst successful in the purview of the definition of Process, fails to be complex enough to fill the big boy boots of the latter two. Its perspective, while deep, lacks mystery by way of the quantification of critical values (like “transportation need”, “unemployment,” and others), allowing the player to quickly and easily address issues that arise. While helpful, it removes the need for thought in pre-planning and destroys the sense of wonderment about the workings of one’s creation. And its permutations, seemingly plentiful at first glance, are quickly whittled down by virtue of its earnest accessibility. The lack of mystery imparts no desire to explore possibilities, devise new plans, or even create a spectacular disaster. The failings in these two areas drag down any and all advantages that the game holds in its Process.

It is a commendable effort, though. But before the last judgment is rendered at the bottom of this page, I feel the urge to speak equanimity about this game: it’s pretty okay. If you like looking at sprawling virtual capitals and rows and rows of identical buildings with an inexplicably high volume of real-world advertising spattered about their facades and streets, you’ll like Cities XL 2012. If you like pseudo-funky electric jazz rock and minimalistic interface design on top of your colorful, devoid-of-human life landscapes, you’ll like Cities XL 2012. If you like watching yourself get lots of achievements for doing very little legwork, you’ll really like Cities XL 2012.

If you like girls who are worth fighting for, you probably won’t like Cities XL 2012. If you like the bitter sting of a glass of Black Label after traveling across the Great Divide, wherein you had to shoot your dear, beloved Gertie in the face because she broke her leg jumping off that cliff, you probably won’t like Cities XL 2012. If you like spinning ceramic plates because the contradictory beauty of their silent shimmering spinning cut short by their brittle, fractured endings echoes the sentiments of your Frankenstein heart, you probably won’t like Cities XL 2012.

If you like not knowing what’s up that girl’s skirt (but finally knowing because really, your hand is going up there, man), you probably won’t like Cities XL 2012. If you like being given a stick, a map, a torch, and an enormous darkness, and subsequently scrawling out the details of that entire darkness, in detail, in the blood of your blunted foes, on that map by torch’s flame, you probably won’t like Cities XL 2012. If you love not knowing the ending of a movie, you probably won’t like Cities XL 2012.

If you like life easy and the world on a silver spoon, you’ll love it.

About the Author

Tim Hsu One part ego, 2 parts shame. Shake vigorously.