Megalopolis Hot

Megalopolis is a Sim City style game where you manage a virtual island in a series of scenarios. The aim of the game is to build housing for your residents, providing them with water and power sources which increases the population thus earning you money. Power sources are a strong feature of this game, it follows an environmental theme in which you must decide between clean and dirty sources. Clean sources such as wind power do not pollute the atmosphere but they provide power to fewer zones, while dirty power such as coal covers a larger number of zones but it is more harmful to the environment. Unused zones can attract slums and dump sites which cost you money and increase the pollution. Too much pollution will cause environmental disasters such as forest fires or in the worst case mass flooding which can wipe out your city in seconds.

Presentation is excellent and the graphics are very well drawn and suit the game, it reminds me of a cross between Sim City and Civilization. Each building type is clearly definable with smoke bellowing out of factories chimneys and lights in housing to show the occupancy level. The music is relaxing and works well with the pace of the game, there are not many sound effects but these include a robotic voice which repeats your commands when performing actions or to explain if you do not have enough money.

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I was looking for this type of game for months. Finally, some indie-developer came up with it and after testing the trial, i purchased it. I played Sim City a lot, when i was a child, so i thought it would be the same game. But this game is a bit different as it includes environent parameters like CO2. If you built too much "bad" energy sources like coal plants, your CO2 level will raise and lead to serious treads like flooding, storms or fire. What i like most is the fact that you can
actually see this on the screen happening using nicely animated 3D-Graphics.
Speaking of graphics, this is one of the first indie games with a really nice 3D Engine which seem to display many objects at the same time. I am not sure about pushing XBOX360 limits, but its nice to see some new indie developer can pull this off. Lets hope they continue developing and create more games, i am sure waiting for it, because this is really a great start. As this game is not a fullprice game, for sure go check it out. It´s the price of a starbucks frappe. thanks microsoft for letting indie developers release their games.
(Graphics 9/10 Music 10/10 Gameplay 8/10)

Normally I would have rated this game as a 6 or 7/10, but I have to balance out that 1/10 review. I think the tutorial does a pretty good job of teaching you the basics, and if you read through the pages of "How To Play" under "Help & Options", you will have a fairly good understanding of how everything works/what buildings influence other buildings.

Now, I must complain that the slums pop up way too quickly. Trying to play "A Second Chance" in the Free Play mode, I am quickly overwhelmed by the slums, and what is most irritating is that they are building right on top of the river!

If you are good at and enjoy this type of game, I think you will be able to figure out how to keep everything under control. For me, I've never been too good with these types of games so it's a pass for me.

Games only run 10 minutes, so it is easy for someone to get some play time in when they are on a strict schedule, so it's neat in that sense, and I like the environmental message the game conveys.

Granted I only played the trial...but it kept me from wasting my money. The game seems to be a SimCity knock off, and though the controls are pretty easy, there no clear direction on how to achieve any of the objectives. You use the R-stick as a radial menu to choose what it is you want, and then hit the right trigger to start the process. I think in the trial situation I played, I was supposed to build a mall, maybe??? In the three or more times I tried, I was unable to figure out what needed to be done. If objectives, and how to make your way towards these objectives were more obvious, I would have gladly paid for SimCity Lite.