ost companies have abandoned takes on SimCity and are trying to find new things to simulate. Bullfrog let us stock dungeons and bizarre hospitals, and a German company called CDV even made a simulation of running a pornographic movie empire (no, I'm not kidding. It's called Wet: The Sexy Empire). Acclaim has returned to the more traditional routes of building a city…well not really.
Constructor, you see, is a humorous take on building houses, accumulating territory, having the finances to keep things running, and so on. You're building against a rival contractor, trying to claim the most territory on the map, or meet certain financial and construction goals for victory (having a bank with so much money, having one of every kind of structure first, etc.). But the spoils do not go to he who plans his neighborhood efficiently. Not necessarily. You see, you can try some dirty, underhanded tricks to bring your rivals down. Why not deal with the mob? Or why not send the scum of the earth over to lower the property value? Chanting hippies on the lawn have a way of grating on your neighbor's nerves. All characters are animated cleverly and sharply--dopey construction workers, greedy bankers, human trash neighbors (with about 12 children and 50 hounds dogs living under the porch, no doubt), leering mobsters, bikers, cops, and so on. Constructor isn't quite SimSlumlord, but it is snickering reminder that there's a lot of dirty business in neighborhood construction, and sometimes neighborhoods don't quite turn out to be the paradises we'd hoped.
On the gameplay side, there are very nice graphics and sounds, and solid playability. It's all point and click, and reasonably intuitive. This, the whacky characters, and the ability to play dirty make Constructor more than just a SimCity photocopy.
Audio/Video:
The maps are very colourful and watching buildings sprout up as you order work crews to the building sites is very entertaining. Special mention must go the animation, which is reminiscent of the style used in Theme Hospital. It has that cartoonish, buffoonish look to it. Some of your tenants look so scuzzy that if you have a daughter or a sister, you'll turn to them and say, "I know it's only an animated character, but if you marry anything like that, I'll never speak to you again." On the audio front, the characters have their own personal noises (I like the hippies). The in-game music consists of stings on what sounds like a Hammond organ to let you know that you've finished building a structure, or a goal has been met (The developer must be in the U.K., since this sounds like an old Monty Python bit. The default setting uses pounds as the monetary unit, and the voices are British, too).
Storyline:
Lots of "Hallo"s and "Right-O"s reminiscent of Warcraft. Each character has a cartoon-inspired but traditional voice, which sounds as you give them orders or click on them. There is a very nice animated movie which help sets the sleazy/slightly sinister tone of Constructor.
Strategy and Tips:
The key thing is to keep your tenants happy at all times. Time flies (see Not So Nice Touches), so address all complaints immediately. Otherwise, the time your tenant gives you to address the problem will elapse. Keep work crews working at all times (if they hang around populated areas or even the Lumberyard doing nothing, tenants get annoyed). Similarly, the key thing is to make sure your opponent's tenants are miserable. The Police are useful for keeping enemy incursion at bay, while Communes are great for foiling the enemies efforts to keep his populace happy. Also, use the Mob as enforcers if your police are too busy. One last thing. DO NOT UPSET THE MOB.
Playability:
Before you start your game, you're presented with a few options. Three difficulty levels, a choice of maps, a choice of goals, and even a choice of the number of opponents (you can play against 3 other computer opponents, 3 other network opponents, or head to head by modem). Your game can be limited to a financial or construction goal, or you can just set it to keep playing until your neighborhood falls apart (much like the original SimCity).
Like many strategies or sims, structures are progressive. You need to build a Lumberyard so you can build basic structures, such as homes for tenants. There are three kinds of tenant homes, and after you build each one, you can build a cement yard. And so on. There are quite a variety of buildings--Police Stations, pawn shops, cement yard, haunted houses (coool!) and more.
You can't just expand all over the map, you need to buy territory (sort of like buying buildings in Theme Hospital). And, as you and your opponents start to eye the same territory, that's when the dirty deeds are done, dirt cheap. You can build a Commune to create hippies, who will annoy your opponent's tenants. Tenants are an important source of income. If they aren't happy in their homes, and are annoyed by noise from factories or any other kind of bad conditions, they'll vacate. If you can't keep your homes full of tenants, you can't keep your bankroll high. You can't afford to repair damaged structures, or build new ones. And most importantly, you can't claim new territory.
The interface is all mouse driven, and for the most part it is fairly simple to navigate. Leaving the cursor resting on a screen button will identify it (always a welcome feature).
Compare To:
The game is fairly similar to the last generation of Bullfrog's sim/stratagies, particularly Theme Hospital. It has a similar map-view and animation style, and at times approaches the nasty humor of Dungeon Keeper, encouraging you to use the mob or other dirty tricks to wipe out your rivals.
Nice Touches:
As you all know, we're big on languages at Gamesmania, and this game speaks more than we do. There is support for UK and American English (pounds become dollars in the American version), French, German, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. That's very impressive.
Not-So-Nice Touches:
I'm a little leery of the time scheme. Your goals have time limits (Do this in X amount of years). Your days fly by like seconds! I'd like to see that slowed down a little.
Manual/Hint Book:
We received a pre-release version without a manual. Still, after some futzing about we were able to play, so right there you know it's not too hard to at least get going. The game has some fairly sophisticated options, so I will give Acclaim the benefit of the doubt and assume a reasonably detailed manual is going to be included.
System Requirements:
P100, 16 MB RAM, mouse, soundcard, Windows 95/DOS.
Summary:
The Case For: Nice humor, layout, and animation.
The Case Against: Odd time scheme.
The Verdict: A refreshing take on SimCity.
