Tycoon City: New York

Format PC

Developer Deep Red

Publisher Atari

Genre Sim / Strategy

Start spreading the news: just when you thought we were fresh out of lyrical references and jokes about large fruit, we get our hands on Tycoon City: New York and are forced to squeeze some more puns out of the Big Apple. So erm, whassa-madda-you? And bada-bing. And gimme the money or I kill the broad. And also, have a look at how we fared trying to build Greenwich Village, home to the friends of Friends and birthplace of both Bill Cosby's and Barbra Streisand's careers.

10:32am
BLAM! That's the noise of a tutorial starting, a noise that fills many with dread. Luco, a young, heavily-stereotyped New Yoiker, comes strolling out of a tenement building, full of confidence and explains the basics of camera movement and how to build a cworfee house nearby. It's actually a decent tutorial, and Luco (for some strange reason) isn't annoying, amazingly circumventing the New Yorkers' inherent condescending and patronising nature. Constructing a building is as simple as clicking an empty plot of land (Greenwich is oddly barren) and selecting from a vast range of buildings.

Advertisement:

10:41am
Luco has left, rather abruptly. Before he went, he explained how to upgrade my businesses. Each building can be upgraded in several different ways, each upgrade enhancing the building's appeal, beauty and satisfaction levels. Things like signs and billboards to drinks machines, trees and skylights all enhance and customise your buildings, making them more profitable. You have a limited number of upgrade points though, so distributing them evenly among your various businesses is important.

11:03am
Greenwich Village has now been formally introduced to me, and I'm told that it's full of no-good students. My first assignment is to please the students - an all-night Tesco won't do it though. These guys need a wide range of businesses to keep them happy. So I get to work building discount clothes stores, fast-food restaurants and Internet cafés near the university library, before building huge apartment blocks to house the swarming mass of Dawson's Creek extras. I miss Luco.

11:40am
Optional objectives and bonus prize objectives are coming at me from all angles, and I'm beating them all down with my entrepreneurial prowess. Build a successful lingerie shop, make Washington Square Park beautiful, enhance the nightlife in a certain area - there's no shortage of things to do. I thought I saw Luco on the street, and chased him for a few hundred metres before I realised that it was actually two plastic bags tied together with a piece of string.

12:10pm
I've just built my first landmark, a great big church. Famous landmarks, such as Greenwich Church, exist as building sites, waiting for you to build them using landmark bonds, which are given to you for completing objectives. This means you can't build the Statue Of Liberty on Times Square, or stick the Empire State on top of the Chrysler Building, but it also means that your city will bear a vague resemblance to the actual New York. Right now, my city is beginning to look a lot more populated with huge crowds of people. There are no muggings or crimes, and strangely enough, no policemen either... Deep Red's utopian view of New York is unsettling.

12:12pm
Looked up Greenwich Village on Wikipedia... Why doesn't mine look like that? Well actually, my virtual Greenwich does look similar to some of the pretty pictures on the Internet. The Washington Square Arch is there, and my student apartments look exactly like the real ones - Deep Red's research team deserve a pat on the back. Wikipedia also tells me that in the 16th century, Native Americans referred to Greenwich Village as Sapokanikan. This makes me smile, as it's a funny word.

12:48pm
Disaster strikes like a big snake-like thing with fangs: I've completely overlooked this year's Halloween parade, which Wikipedia informs me is the largest Halloween parade in the US, with over two million people coming to see it every year. I have two months to jazz up the parade route (as in, actually put some buildings there), and make the district happy. Never one to give up in the face of two million angry Americans expecting a show though, I get to work building newsagents, comedy bars and even a rock club along the parade route. Oh, and a locksmiths too. Something a bit different isn't it?

1:20pm
Halloween comes and goes, my rock club was a resounding success, but unfortunately it wasn't enough to convince the parade committee to drag their inflatable pumpkins down the street. I did a great job on the local park however, even getting an early morning news story all about how Greenwich citizens are grateful for me funding the planting of trees and strategically placing homeless buskers. They mercifully glossed over the fact that I ruined Halloween though - bless. I saw Luco, giving a tutorial to some other budding entrepreneur. I feel used and betrayed.

PC Zone Staff