cities-in-motion posts

The weekend, and indeed the end of the month, is fast approaching. We have plans to check out Darkspore. What about you?

• Steam has new automatic updates for Tommy Tronic, Cities in Motion, Team Fortress 2, The Settlers 7 and Sol Survivor.
• The country of Australia is thinking about replacing the R15+ game rating to R18+ but there's a catch.
• IGN has posted up a preview of the Free Comic Book Day edition of The Darkness II comic.
• Do you want a Duke Nukem Papercraft doll? Of course you do.
• Portal + Super Mario = This video.

There are plenty of city-building games that touch upon the complexity of creating a working transit system, but none that look at it too deep. Cities in Motion has just launched, and it aims to do just that. This trailer, naturally, shows off all the beautiful vistas and gameplay tidbits that you would expect from a launch trailer. It's certainly a stunning-looking game, although not one we know a whole lot about.

Download Cities in Motion Launch Trailer
Download Cities in Motion Demo
Check out all Cities in Motion downloads

For the next six weeks, PC gamers will experience a flood of new game titles across many genres. The overflow of games begins this week with a WWII RTS game, a long awaited adventure title, a MMO expansion pack and a first person shooter co-developed by two well known FPS game studios.

Bulletstorm - People Can Fly and Epic Games collaborated on this sci-fi pulp themed shooter that has a bunch of ragtag soldiers stranded on a planet filled with enemies both great and small. The game has players perform combos with their weapons called "Skillshots" and is generally very over-the-top in terms of its violence and its sense of humor.

This is the playable demo for Cities in Motion, the game where players design and run the transportation infrastructure for a bustling city. The demo includes the tutorial and goes on for one in-game year. System requirements are shown after the jump. The full game releases on February 22nd.

"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!"

Download Cities in Motion Demo (232 MB)

Game publishers love to offer free goodies to entice folks to buy games beforehand. Today we got word of two such offers for the upcoming RTS game Men of War Assault Squad from developer Digitalmindsoft and publisher 1C Company and the urban transporation sim game Cities in Motion from developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive.

People who purchase Men of War Assault Squad on Steam before it's released on February 25 will not only get instant access to the game's current beta test but also will get the original Men of War game for free; that's a $14.99 value. Meanwhile if you pre-order Cities in Motion before its February 22 release date you will get five exclusive vehicles to use in the game. It includes the Jubilee Blim bus, the the Skylark III helicopter and the Arnauld Porte metro train.

February 22 is going to give PC gamers an interesting choice when it comes to new game releases. Do they go for the "so-over-the-top-it's-insane" first person shooter Bulletstorm or do they instead try out the "very-calm-and-collected" urban transportation simulation game Cities in Motion?

Of course there's no reason why PC gamers couldn't buy both. After all developer Colossal Order looks like it has made a Euro-centric title with players asked to create and grow a transportation network in, around and linked to four real European cities. Will gamers get excited about making deals with contractors as opposed to making skillshots in Bulletstorm? We only have a couple of weeks to find out for ourselves.

Another PC game has started its own beta test today. This time its Cities in Motion, the upcoming transport-city sim game from developer Colossal Order and publisher Paradox Interactive. The beta client, which can be downloaded via Paradox's web site, allows players to check out Vienna, one of the four cities in the full version of the game. The beta can be played in sandbox mode or with one scenario, Part With Petrol. The open beta will continue through February 20.

The full and final version of Cities in Motion, which contains four cities ( Vienna, Helsinki, Berlin and Amsterdam) and a 12 scenario campaign as well as the sanbox mode, will be released later this quarter.

Our pal Andrew Yoon of our sister site Joystiq went over to the Paradox Convention press event in New York City today and gave us some more info on what publisher Paradox Interactive had to say today (thanks Andrew):

• Paradox's CEO Fredrik Wester told the crowd that in 2010 the publisher generated 45 percent more revenue than in 2009 and has generated a whopping 1,000 percent more revenue compared to 2003, nearly all of it from PC game releases (specific financial numbers were not disclosed; Paradox is a privately owned company).
• Paradox formed the GamersGate PC game download service in 2006 and later spun it off into its own separate company. Paradox now gets 70 percent of its game sales via digital download services GamersGate's revenue in 2010 came in 45 percent higher and its profits are up 300 percent (again no specific numbers were revealed).
• Magicka, the humor-filled fantasy action-RPG from developer Arrowhead Game Studios, is close to being released and in fact could be out as early as next week.
• Cites in Motion, the transport sim game from developer Colossal Order, should also be out soon as well, according to Paradox.

Earlier this year Paradox Interactive announced plans to release Cities in Motion, a new city building simulation with a empahasis on transportation sytems. This week Paradox announced that it is taking sign ups for people to participate in the game's closed beta test.

If you want to be considered for the beta test for the game developed by Colossal Order, you had to go and sign up at Paradox's beta web page by October 11. If you get picked to become a "transport tycoon" in four European cities in the beta you will be notified by email on October 25. The game is due for release in early 2011.

It's been a while since the classic Transport Tycoon, and there really hasn't been anything comparable, in quality, to it in the intervening years. Sure, there's been SimCity 4: Rush Hour, Chris Sawyer's Locomotion, and the open-source remakes of Transport Tycoon, but nothing has come close to truly providing that gameplay that was so addicting 15 years ago. Cities In Motion aims to fix that, and it has excited us with its quiet announcement.

There's not a whole lot to the trailer here except calming music and some text, but it's interesting to see all the different things that will be available to the player. If the visuals are any indication, it will be a stunning game to watch, and the fact that it is a simulation in a marketplace full of wargames and shooters is notable in and of itself. Plus, we can never say no to a good economic game.

Download HD Cities in Motion Gamescom 2010 Trailer (90 MB)
Check out all Cities In Motion downloads