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New Urban Transportation Sim/Game

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This looks interesting:
About Cities in Motion:
Developed by Colossal Order Ltd, Cities in Motion sees players develop and operate their own public transport company building a travel network across Vienna, Berlin, Helsinki and Amsterdam using more than 30 different modes of transport including buses, trams, subway trains and water buses. As each city develops and grows the player must continue to meet the ever changing transport needs of its commuters, while at the same time ensuring it remains as profitable as possible. Featuring an in-depth campaign mode made up of 12 scenarios along with an open ended sandbox mode, an advanced map editor that allows players to create their own cities, plus much more, Cities in Motion will challenge players to create the perfect public transport system that has no cancellations, no delays and where the passengers are always happy!

Features:
- Realistic 3D graphics with over 100 unique buildings
- Advanced economy simulation including contractor deals, banking, insurance and fluctuating economic trends
- Play through 100 years of transportation history across four eras between 1920 and 2020
- Choose between over 30 different vehicles based on real-life models including buses, trams, water buses, helicopters and a subway system with underground view
- Real-time city and traffic simulation as people commute between their homes, workplace and social lives.
- Three difficulty levels – easy, medium and hard

Check out the latest Cities in Motion developments:
Facebook – www.facebook.com/citiesinmotion
Twitter - www.twitter.com/citiesinmotion
Webpage: www.citiesinmotion.com
Forum: http://forum.paradoxplaza.com

I'm not a computer game player, though, but this may interest some people: the "advanced map editor that allows players to create their own cities"sounds like it could even be a planning tool for Toronto transit plans (since nothing real is ever going to be built here on the ground, let's move the whole future of the TTC to virtual reality anyway...)
 
I installed the demo and enjoyed it. I will probably buy the full version. Though I'm concerned that my 3 year old laptop isn't powerful enough to run it properly.

It's clearly an updated version of Traffic Giant (if anyone else played that game).

I hate how much they locked down the demo, though. Only one, small city... okay. Limited vehicles and mode that you can build... sure. Boots you out after about 30 mins of play... now that's excessive.
 
O.K., thanks for being the guinea-pig, I have to overcome my old-fashioned aversion to games on the computer and try the demo sometime. Does the demo install a whole boat-load of files/drivers into the system directories? Does it uninstall cleanly? That's what I worry about with games... I always have system backups, but I don't want to invite trouble.
 
It's quite slow though, graphics are a bit overkill.

Definitely. There's no need for the graphics to be as detailed as they are. I turned down the anti-aliasing and the shadows all the way in the hope that it would reduce the load.

I'll happily give up graphics for accurate traffic assignment.

I fear that my computer simply won't be able to handle a larger city with more routes.
 
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Got the game + downloadable content + US Cities expansion on a Steam sale for about $15. As someone who has always enjoyed city building games and their transportation parts, this game is like crack laced with heroin. In other words, it is good. I'm currently working on a transit system for Leipzig, Germany (a small city, larger ones are more difficult), and it is a great joy to layout your routes and upgrade them as ridership demands. On a side note, maybe this would get through Ford's skull that going from bus to full metro is not a fiscally sane method of planning transit.

Performance wise, my machine is currently mid to upper range (AMD Athlon IIx4 635, 4GB RAM, non-integrated ATI Radeon HD 6450 w/1GB RAM) and it runs fast enough for this kind of game without tweaking any graphic settings. The mouse feels a little floaty, but it is hardly a big deal. There is even a mod which allows you to play the game in full 3D which I am about to check out, so I don't know how that would affect performance.

Last but not least, there is even a map editor which allows you to build your own cities and place buildings where you want them to be. Another interesting tidbit that unlike Sim City where a building is strictly residential or employment, in this game the buildings tend to incorporate a mix of home and work. This allows you to construct mixed environments which are more sustainable and transit friendly.

One thing I think they could have done better is to show ridership on different routes. While possible, it can be difficult to figure out which lines are consistently running at or above capacity and where citizens are commuting to and from in order to plan your next routes. Also there seems to be a glitch where trams may get stuck on the tracks, meaning you have to pause and unpause the line to get it working again.

Oh, and the Steam version of the game is Mac compatible as well.
 

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