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Tycoon City: New York Review
Chris Leyton
25/02/2006
Take over New York in Deep Red's latest tycoon offering...
Establishing themselves as leaders of the tycoon genre, Deep Red Games' latest takes the entrepreneurial action to Manhattan as players attempt to rebuild the world's greatest city from scratch. Tycoon City: New York is very much a tycoon title compared to the likes of the Sim City series; the focus is on business acumen and maintaining empires, rather then road systems and power grids - fans of the latter would be better advised to keep an eye out for Deep Silver's City Life or hope Will Wright isn't spending too much time on Spore.
Faced with the option of either "Sandbox" or "Build New York" modes, it's not long before you're into the game and starting from humble beginnings in Greenwich Village. The challenge laid before you is simple, establish an empire by catering to the whims of the resident New Yorkers whilst at the same time crushing opponents that dare to compete against you. The basic philosophy behind Tycoon City: New York appears to be "Supply and Demand and Upgrade", to this extent a large amount of your time is spent outlining the various needs, and building enterprises to cater to/take advantage of these.
It's immediately obvious that Deep Red have spent the years of development creating an engine capable of populating New York with up to 65,000 individual New Yorkers. To this extent New York has a great feeling of being densely populated, however because of this it can be hard to identify just how advanced the AI is of each of these. It's certainly a city that never sleeps with the inhabitants on a 24/7 quest to shop till they drop, and you're left feeling the division between their work needs and recreational time could have been better portrayed.
The game presents a gargantuan list of shops, establishments and landmarks, each geared towards the many different demographic splits to be found within New York. Everything from newsagents to Greek restaurants can be found within the game, each offering the potential cornerstone of your very own empire. Typically the success of any particular building is governed by various factors, some of which can be enhanced via Upgrade Points to improve a particular place's Appeal, Beauty, Customer Satisfaction, all of which dictate the building's overall rating. Additionally furnishings such as signs and placards will also increase the Sphere of Influence, in turn drawing customers from further a field as they learn about the hidden gems on offer at your antique dealer's or perhaps the tasty ribs at the Tex'n'Mex. Upgrade Points along with cold hard cash serve as the game's forms of currency; a global bank is expanded by continuing to develop throughout Manhattan and maintain your empire, whilst a specific upgrade cap on each building ensures plans have to be developed wisely. Tycoon City: New York appears to pay a lot of attention to this level of micromanagement, decorating facades from a huge selection of accessories and customising the city of New York as you see fit. Although it ensures Tycoon City: New York has more charm and personality than most other titles (becoming slightly more accessible in the process), there will be some who question whether this is the way true empires are established, and wonder where the deeper aspects are when it comes to managing economical factors.
Within the "Build New York" mode the game does a good job of providing a certain sense of structure, perhaps too much so for some, in the shape of Opportunities and Prize Opps. These essentially act as tutorials early on and provide "missions" to keep you focussed on progressing through the game, whilst rewarding with a variety of bonuses such as Landmark points and increased upgrade points limit. Furthering the touch of personality, news broadcasts mark any landmark achievements accomplished throughout the game, whether it's organising the Greenwich Village Halloween parade or significantly raising the Happiness within a certain district.
It can take a little while for Tycoon City: New York to get going; it's not until you've expanded past Greenwich Village into the other 12 districts that the competition heats up and the game really begins to move. Building a certain number of the same type of businesses and improving them to a certain standard, will present the opportunity to open up a chain and along with it the chance to truly stamp your presence on the map with a towering headquarters. Doing so not only raises your profile within New York's elite, but also enables the upgrade cap on chain outlets to be increased - thus enforcing your capitalist grip on the city. Naturally one of the game's governing factors to dictate success is who owns the tallest buildings, an area that headquarters help immensely.
Despite its obvious charms, Tycoon City: New York isn't entirely perfect and has a number of strange quirks. Trying to organise information in a particular way can be difficult, such as listing your various businesses profitability at a quick rather then just their overall rating. Given the sheer number of people squeezed into the game it can also be difficult to identify general needs, with the option to check residential dwellings or individuals on the street - it seems there's a constant need for varying things, but I guess you can't please everybody! Speaking of which, the distinction between establishing businesses and building new lodgings is never entirely clear; though naturally you'll want to ensure a healthy balance to make certain the population keeps increasing, whilst also dictating which type of people move into which districts based upon the type.
One area that feels slightly odd to begin with, but likely to stop the game from becoming far too much, is the fact that the AI opponents will work with you. Concentrate on building shops and businesses and the AI will establish residential dwellings to house the people you're enticing, and similarly vice-versa. Despite the fact this puts an unfamiliarly brisk tempo to the game, fortunately it doesn't become something that breaks the experience as they're also competing, so it's up to you to ensure you get the best from both.
There's a tremendous sense of scale to be found with Tycoon City: New York's visuals, pitching out to the clouds right above and zooming into capture wieners on a sidewalk grill. Despite this Deep Red have also managed to pour a startling level of detail into every aspect of the game, along with the noteworthy fact that up to 65,000 virtual New Yorkers can be wandering around your creation towards the end.
Continuing the sense of personality brought to every angle of Tycoon City: New York, each individual building have individual music/sound effects to differentiate between them. It may sound like a small touch, however it's one that helps to ensure the game is nothing like the sterile experience often seen in other titles from the genre. Despite the occasional hammy New Yorker, Tycoon City is a game that very much puts presentation and production back into tycoon titles.
Disappointingly the review build that TVG has received suffers from a number of glitches and oddities. The interface still suffers from certain windows overlaying each other and confusing the experience, although more peculiar is the fact that all ranges of HQ cost exactly the same fee, presenting little reason to opt for the small establishments when the infinitely more impressive ones are available for the same price. A number of smaller glitches also became apparent, such as crowds congesting on one point and sound effects skipping, however they rarely interfere with the game.
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