London, England – October 8th. CITIES XL, the highly polished city-building game from Monte Cristo Games, hits the stores today in Europe, and tomorrow in the USA, courtesy of distributor Namco-Bandai. In the solo mode, you can build from a selection of other 500 buildings on real-world maps. In the online mode, you can collaborate to build famous landmarks, trade with other players, and get in-game tycoon games, new buildings, and many more downloads. The game has an RRP of £29.99.
In the main game you build up your city in resplendent 3D from a selection of over 500 buildings, whilst trying to keep your population happy – in the beta players have managed to get up to 17,000,000 inhabitants in one city! You have to take account of pollution, traffic, trade and class to build that perfect city.
Cities are built on real-world 3D maps (such as Mount St Helens), and the game really reflects that scale, letting you zoom out to a Google Earth perspective or right into street level to watch your inhabitants going about their day.
If you want, you can go online and build your city on a planet with up to 10,000 other cities. Here you can trade excess resources, chat with friends, specialize your city to corner your local market, or build megastructures that aren’t available in the single-player game.
For more information about CITIES XL, please visit www.citiesxl.com.
SOLO MODE FEATURES:
• 25 diverse maps featuring different climates
• 500 buildings inspired from European, American and Asian architecture
• 15 resources to manage
• 4 wealth categories for citizens with varying needs
• Numerous transport and management problems to solve
PLANET MODE FEATURES
WEB-PLAY
• All trading activities are playable on the Web (without being connected to the game). During your lunch break, you can continue trading from any PC.
• You can also display your creations on the Web to maintain your social network outside the game.
HUNTING FOR BLUEPRINTS
• Blueprints are architectural plans you can use to start constructing exceptional buildings: the Megastructures.
• These Megastructures require a large quantity of resources and the collaboration of players to be built. They bring important bonuses to the cities in which they are built.
• Blueprints are awarded at random on the players' webpage or can be won by maintaining trade activities for multinational Megastructures (the ultimate specialization building will be introduced at the end of October).
REGULAR CONTENT FOR DOWNLOAD
The first content pack will include:
Medieval Pack: 10 residences, 1 hotel, 1 shop, 1 restaurant, 1 plaza, 1 church 2-lane road textures, 1 decoration.
A realistic map of Rio de Janeiro featuring the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer.
Sponsored Content: a Ford dealership producing real Ford cars.
Megastructures (buildings which are erected with the help of other players after obtaining the Blueprint): Glass Gherkin (London), Tokyo Imperial Palace, Alcatraz.
1 new farm model.
The second content pack will include:
Chinatown Pack: 10 residences, 1 hotel, 1 shop, 1 restaurant, 1 arch, 1 temple, 1 plaza
A realistic map of Manhattan featuring the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the road network.
New maps
An animated Ferris wheel
Blueprints: three stadiums: soccer, baseball and football
The third content pack will include:
A bus company, roads and service vehicles.
The possibility to create your own bus lines by deciding where to place each stop.
A selection of US, British or Continental Europe roads.
A selection of different service vehicles depending on the countries.
PRICES
Limited Edition: £34.99 Normal Edition: £29.99
Online Subscriptions:
3 months: £11.95 (£3.98/month) 2 months: £8.95 (£4.48/month) 1 month: £6.99
MINIMUM SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS.
OS: Microsoft Windows XP SP3 or Microsoft Windows Vista SP1
Processor: Intel Pentium IV 2.5Ghz or AMD equivalent or better, Laptop : Centrino 2 or better
Memory: 1GB (XP), 1.5GB (Vista), Laptop: 1.5GB (XP), 2.5GB (Vista), 8GB Hard Disk Space
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT/ ATI Radeon X1600 or better, 256 MB RAM, Laptop: Intel Graphics Accelerator or better, DirectX 9.0c
About Monte Cristo Games
Created in 1995, Monte Cristo is a leading game production company with over a decade of experience, having successfully published 30 games worldwide. Backed by leading international venture capitalists, we are currently focusing a team of over 80 people on the development of CITIES XL™ which merges video gaming with social networking and virtual worlds.
About NAMCO BANDAI Partners
NAMCO BANDAI Partners, one of the industry’s leading video game distribution companies, is wholly owned by NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe. The company operates in 50 countries excluding North America (USA and Canada) and Japan, and distributes titles from NAMCO BANDAI Games, Atari and other major publishers on an international and local basis.
In the main game you build up your city in resplendent 3D from a selection of over 500 buildings, whilst trying to keep your population happy – in the beta players have managed to get up to 17,000,000 inhabitants in one city! You have to take account of pollution, traffic, trade and class to build that perfect city.
Cities are built on real-world 3D maps (such as Mount St Helens), and the game really reflects that scale, letting you zoom out to a Google Earth perspective or right into street level to watch your inhabitants going about their day.
If you want, you can go online and build your city on a planet with up to 10,000 other cities. Here you can trade excess resources, chat with friends, specialize your city to corner your local market, or build megastructures that aren’t available in the single-player game.
For more information about CITIES XL, please visit www.citiesxl.com.
SOLO MODE FEATURES:
• 25 diverse maps featuring different climates
• 500 buildings inspired from European, American and Asian architecture
• 15 resources to manage
• 4 wealth categories for citizens with varying needs
• Numerous transport and management problems to solve
PLANET MODE FEATURES
WEB-PLAY
• All trading activities are playable on the Web (without being connected to the game). During your lunch break, you can continue trading from any PC.
• You can also display your creations on the Web to maintain your social network outside the game.
HUNTING FOR BLUEPRINTS
• Blueprints are architectural plans you can use to start constructing exceptional buildings: the Megastructures.
• These Megastructures require a large quantity of resources and the collaboration of players to be built. They bring important bonuses to the cities in which they are built.
• Blueprints are awarded at random on the players' webpage or can be won by maintaining trade activities for multinational Megastructures (the ultimate specialization building will be introduced at the end of October).
REGULAR CONTENT FOR DOWNLOAD
The first content pack will include:
Medieval Pack: 10 residences, 1 hotel, 1 shop, 1 restaurant, 1 plaza, 1 church 2-lane road textures, 1 decoration.
A realistic map of Rio de Janeiro featuring the famous statue of Christ the Redeemer.
Sponsored Content: a Ford dealership producing real Ford cars.
Megastructures (buildings which are erected with the help of other players after obtaining the Blueprint): Glass Gherkin (London), Tokyo Imperial Palace, Alcatraz.
1 new farm model.
The second content pack will include:
Chinatown Pack: 10 residences, 1 hotel, 1 shop, 1 restaurant, 1 arch, 1 temple, 1 plaza
A realistic map of Manhattan featuring the Statue of Liberty, the Empire State Building and the road network.
New maps
An animated Ferris wheel
Blueprints: three stadiums: soccer, baseball and football
The third content pack will include:
A bus company, roads and service vehicles.
The possibility to create your own bus lines by deciding where to place each stop.
A selection of US, British or Continental Europe roads.
A selection of different service vehicles depending on the countries.
PRICES
Limited Edition: £34.99 Normal Edition: £29.99
Online Subscriptions:
3 months: £11.95 (£3.98/month) 2 months: £8.95 (£4.48/month) 1 month: £6.99
MINIMUM SYSTEM SPECIFICATIONS.
OS: Microsoft Windows XP SP3 or Microsoft Windows Vista SP1
Processor: Intel Pentium IV 2.5Ghz or AMD equivalent or better, Laptop : Centrino 2 or better
Memory: 1GB (XP), 1.5GB (Vista), Laptop: 1.5GB (XP), 2.5GB (Vista), 8GB Hard Disk Space
Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce 6600 GT/ ATI Radeon X1600 or better, 256 MB RAM, Laptop: Intel Graphics Accelerator or better, DirectX 9.0c
About Monte Cristo Games
Created in 1995, Monte Cristo is a leading game production company with over a decade of experience, having successfully published 30 games worldwide. Backed by leading international venture capitalists, we are currently focusing a team of over 80 people on the development of CITIES XL™ which merges video gaming with social networking and virtual worlds.
About NAMCO BANDAI Partners
NAMCO BANDAI Partners, one of the industry’s leading video game distribution companies, is wholly owned by NAMCO BANDAI Games Europe. The company operates in 50 countries excluding North America (USA and Canada) and Japan, and distributes titles from NAMCO BANDAI Games, Atari and other major publishers on an international and local basis.
