Urban Empire

Never before writing a review of the game was given to the author of these lines with so much difficulty. Qualitative Review suggests an attempt to present an arguable objective merits and drawbacks of the game.

And speaking of the Urban Empire , really want to make all the arguments to the formulation of “very bad”, its flavor strong language and argue any obscene picture. In general, cold-blooded impartiality can not be expected at this time, but try to at least do not prevaricate.

Urban Empire creators emphasize that their creation – a simulator of city ruler, not a city planner, that is quite true.

After all, only in a very unassuming person turn the language to name the town-planning game in which you can only set the outlines of the new areas so choose the place of the construction of special buildings (school, town hall, etc.).

Still, after a couple of hours after the start – to set the ratio between residential and industrial buildings in each district.

And except for a few, very very minor features in this “urban development” in the Urban Empire ends. And all would do, whether urban planning application to “gradopravleniya” interesting and well thought-out system. But where there …

All the political part of the game boils down to swarming in the window of the city council, senseless and merciless. Without the approval of the municipal parliament in Urban Empire did not build a single important building, not to change the tax rate, not to adopt the amendment to the law.

And the trouble is that the parliamentarians in the performance studio Reborn Games resemble a collection of patients at home mourning, which for some reason were given the right to decide on the rules of functioning of the institution.

The game presents a decent amount of political parties, but they are, as the selection, insane from the start.

About any parallels parties in the game with their counterparts of the question: the progressives can safely vote against the construction of schools, and the conservatives – to enjoy the decrees of emancipation.

Local party completely devoid of a coherent belief system, and represent only a random set of opinions on specific issues, which as chance gave names.

At the same time they manage on a regular basis drink the blood of the player by inserting a stick in the wheel of any good initiative.

You want, for example, to build a railway station in the city. The City Council in full force against it. Liberals against. Physiocrats against. Levs! The station is so bad – no one explains to the player, but he is given the opportunity to try to convince each batch of “begging”, “demanding” and “threatening”.

To commit any of these acts, the player is almost always a little tip the scales in their favor, and almost always lose a couple of points of reputation in a relationship with the party. Contact the parties can each month during the preparation of voting, repeatedly making the same type of action with a predictable outcome.

And now, with a successful scenario, a half-year the Council will support the construction of the station accident. And so – hundreds of times per game session, because the Council did not initially like the vast majority of new buildings or buildings. Fun, right?

Obviously, deciding that the functioning of the precepts ohlokratii Parliament for full simulation of city ruler is not enough, developers pushed into Urban Empire «cloud progress.”

This is a local equivalent tree technology, again made in the form of absolutely asistemnom. In one pile is mixed antibiotics and divorce, the rights of sexual minorities (yes, 18+!)

And the construction of the subway. Create two separate tabs for technology and culture, or at least “srisovat” them from any Civilization , forces authors Urban Empire was not enough. As lacked their normal and balance: the invention of the internal combustion engine and promoting tooth cleaning yield comparable beneficial effect.

Urban Empire campaign covers 200 years (since 1820) and is divided into 5 historical epochs. Here especially carp to nothing: the era of really different from each other both visually and in the decisions that need to be pushed through the city council.

But the city at all times remains dead – rare men, cars or carts, creeping through the streets, not even trying to portray the semblance of life, and wound association with figures in the music box. The level of urban traffic simulation in Urban Empire dry loses Cities: Skylines or Tropico 5 .

And the schedule is outdated commercials years to five. But here’s the “slow” it is quite a modern way, hinting at the recommended 12 GB of RAM (more than requiredWar of Total: WARHAMMER , by the way).

And in Urban Empire constantly occurring random events – local variation text adventure with unobvious effect on the game world and the descriptions of two types: boring and incomprehensible. But do not worry, in a couple of hours of play, you will almost certainly begin to ignore them.

And as the icing on the cake: the overloaded unintelligible data interface, painted in all the colors of the rainbow. Over parts of the city are flashing some icons, colorful table tells us about the mood of the inhabitants of the city, the political compass tells about the views of the parties. So informative, that is unclear.