Facebook Games - Social City1311774

When I was asked to play Social City  by a friend of mine, I was rather skeptical at first. Yes, Facebook games can be rather addictive for some, mainly puzzle games, but simulators? However after hearing that Playdom was the one who develop the game, I put my doubts aside and give it a try instead.

Game play

Game play is rather easy to pick up for Social City  as you first start off the game with a limited amount of money and the tutorial will give you a short introduction on how the game works. The interface allows you to pick what you wish and build and how you arrange your small town during the first level of the game.

As the Mayor of your new city, you are in charge of raising your town population, keeping your citizens happy and manage the town resources in order from a small town into a mega city. Sound easy? Actually it is after a few minutes into the game I have already got the hang of the game mechanics.

One of the main goal of the game is to raise the populations to your newly raise town and as the Mayor you will need to build residential area for your people to stay (for Social City, it seems that you train your citizen instead of attracting them from neighboring town or cities, not unheard of really) This somehow feel more like one of those war game strategy game like command and conquer instead of the standard city simulator. Training citizens...sound like a military town  to me.

Once you have enough citizens staying in your town, as their Mayor it is your duty to keep them happy and productive by building theater, fast food outlet and leisure area. The interface to allow you to build your town/city  is rather easy to manage as it is divided into categories (Residential, Factory, and Leisure). One problem I do find during my time in Social City  is that although the buildings are very well design, there is no options whatsoever to allow you to rotate them. I truly wish that Playdom can implement this feature as it will allow me to better place my structure on the map.

One area of improvement for Social city  is that I notice is how slow you gather resources during the beginning of the game. As Mayor you do not collect any tax money from your beloved citizen. Instead your major income comes from taking up contracts and manufacturing various goods in your factory district (food, clothes to high tech gadget). Everything that you manufacture  takes time and you need to invest  a bit before you can see your  returns. I really like how Playdom add realistic to the game, however I do wish that I can suck some hardworking tax payers money a bit. I am the Mayor after all and it is my job to keep the city  running as best as I could.

Also, I do notice is that you need more than a few friends to play with you in order for you to grow or to expend your land. The more people in your friend list the large plot of land you can purchase. I do find it frustrating a bit at first since I notice that I have quite  a number of friends playing this game, but I still have to send one by another to request them to be my neighbors. Hope Playdom just add them automatically and with this feature, I could save myself the trouble of sending the invitations manually.

Graphics

For a web base flash game, I am truly amazed what Playdom has done. As soon as you look at it, you will be awe by how detail the game is. At first I was expecting this game to be just a normal city  simulator with  buildings  all over the map. However, I was rather surprise to find a lively city  with people walking around the streets, working in the factory and even spending quality time in the theater. This is one remarkable game that can make you sit back and marvel at your creation and think back how far flash game  has gone from the day of 2D Sprites to 3D models.

The details even go as far as providing clouds hovering over the little city, law officer patrolling the streets and normal citizen mowing their lawn. Now only thing left that would make this game more alive is to have cars driving down the streets, that would be really cool, right?

Sound

Nothing much I can say  about the sound quality for this game as it is like any other flash game with repetitive music going on a loop. At least the music is not that annoying, but if you prefer something  else, I would just suggest muting the music and just listen to your favorite music in iTunes.

Conclusion

I do find Social City  rather entertaining and like all  Facebook  games, this is for those who actually wish to spend their spare time playing with it without installing it into their system. It can get a bit dull after you run out of cash and have  to wait till your funds get bank in, but this will be rather fun once you learn how to manage your resource and make your city grow the way you like. I would give this game a 3.5 out of 5 stars.