Urban Tycoon

Many summers ago, I went on a last teenage hurrah holiday to Greece where I encountered a world that much resembled the one served up here in Urban Tycoon. No, I didn't suddenly start viewing the world from an isometric point of view, but rather, I couldn't help but notice that there were scores of buildings that looked half-built: perfectly formed one or two level homes with another level half-constructed on the top.

The Greek government, in a noble attempt to spur urban development, had provided tax breaks for home owners willing to add a storey to their house. The problem was, a loophole meant that said storeys didn't actually have to be fully constructed, which resulted in a pack of half finished buildings. Here were homes with much promise, but sorely lacking any kind of finishing touch.

Urban Tycoon belongs in that same cityscape. It is, in its current state, little more than a shell of a game, lacking any substance or content, waiting for someone to fill in the considerable gaps in the framework that currently exist. Renovations are much needed because, as things stand, it isn't worth any of your pennies or pounds.

In its own words, TouchSoft intends Urban Tycoon to be a boardgame take on EA's popular SimCity franchise, where you're charged with developing and managing mini-metropolises. That concept has been stripped down and infused with a turn-based management system that has the potential for playability. Using the tax money you earn from said residents at the end of each turn, you then buy amenities - shops, schools, hotels - which slowly raise your grand city.

Since your income is generated by taxes, attracting more denizens boosts your cash flow for expanding your city. You do this with a pleasant urban engineering and keeping taxes at a low rate. Dealing with your tax rate proves the first of many frustrations. Maintaining a low rate spurs growth, but limits your income; on the flip side, raising them too high means citizens will leave. At the very beginning, it's frustratingly hard to get going at all.

With more fruitful buildings such as hospitals and schools costing an arm and a leg, you're forced to continuously ending your turn without doing anything just to build up finances. For reasons unknown, however, the number of turns you can take in a minute is restricted to just five. This means having to repeatedly sit counting down the seconds until you can take another turn.

It's not uncommon to have to sit through this rigmarole two or three times before you can actually do anything of substance. Even then, Urban Tycoon amounts to little more than a population totaliser, with every building and development made by your hand built along a prefabricated road structure. The population builds nothing of its own volition.

With SimCity proper on the way from EA, Urban Tycoon will soon have much more to live up to than this version's failings. While it could improve with updates, its currently empty structure does little more than construct a hell of a lot of boredom. This is one city that needs a new set of blueprints.