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What's great about Tycoon City: New York is its accessibility. Whether you're a rookie on the bottom rung of the tycoon-gaming ladder or an old hand, friends with Sir Alan Sugar and as proud as can be with your magnificent railroads, rollercoasters, pizza restaurants and intergalactic cityscapes, the game never tries to make you feel unwelcome or try to confuse you.
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Even those that aren’t well versed in managing a living, breathing city-scape, will be right at home here, with an easy to navigate interface, and simplified economic models.
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Pelit (Finland)A quality building game. Unfortunately there is not much else to do but build, a better business simulation would have been good. [Mar 2006]
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Each district also serves up specific challenges, so that opening a business at a certain time or reaching a profit milestone will unlock reward buildings such as churches and law courts, which please the locals and boost their satisfaction levels.
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BoomtownThere's definitely a market for this type of game, it's easy to get into, easy to play and you get a good sense of achievement from it.
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CPUGamerGraphically, Tycoon City is gorgeous.
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It never really takes the kid gloves off and makes you deal with the realities of running a real estate empire.
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It’s certainly addictive enough to draw in even expert players for a decent number of hours, but where it shines (whether intentionally or otherwise) is as an introduction to the genre for less experienced players.
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PC FormatLooks great, but not quite as full of variety as you might expect from NYC. [Mar 2006, p.92]
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Games Master UKImmersive, innovative and fun to play. [May 2006, p.58]
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It's this basic lack of thrill or challenge which limits Tycoon City's appeal, at least to the gamer audience. It's entirely possible that Tycoon City will find an audience for the more casual player with its less stressful lifestyle, but that's the sort of design decision which gains sales not marks.
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Tycoon City: New York may be big and colourful, but under its ostentatious, shiny surface and character-driven tasks, it's ultimately just another by-the-numbers tycoon game. [PC Zone]
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The various parts come together to create an entertaining experience, although not quite well enough to create an entirely engrossing one.
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The ability to drop seamlessly from a sun-gilded skyscraper-sentinelled skyline to a pedestrian-eye's view of the bustling taxi-clogged street hundreds of feet below is wonderful (SimCity 4 suddenly seems very dry).
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While it is no Sim City, the simplified interface and game mechanics will appeal to some, but it also remains the game’s biggest downfall. A little more variety could have had this one a real winner.
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For a light session with a favored city, this is a fun enough game for short periods at the computer.
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Dazzles the senses more than it does the mind. The buy-upgrade-buy-upgrade cycle simply becomes tiresome after your first few hours, and there just isn't much relief for veteran tycoons and strategists.
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If building a real estate empire were this easy, we’d all be bored millionaires by now.
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The interface elements in the game are also fairly well conceived, but the overall package suffers from gameplay that doesn't offer much challenge, eliminating any sense of tension.
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Tycoon City might be fun enough if you’re more familiar with New York City (and if you want to, say, place a comedy club where your house is) but otherwise there’s just not enough to it to be any fun.
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The gameplay is very poor once you’ve played it for a couple of hours and realize that you will be doing practically the same thing over and over again.
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Other than the simple pleasure of playing in a sandbox and building a really cool version of the Big Apple, TCNY offers players little incentive to keep on trudging through it.
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A very pretty title, one of style over substance. It doesn’t even try particularly hard to have substance; the objectives are there to provide some vague structure.
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PC GamerOnce you've breezed past the campaign and sandbox modes, you'll wish there was more to this Sim City for dummies. [Jun 2006, p.76]
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It’s just not a terribly compelling game in any way.
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The game mechanics that make up this title are just too limited to be fully enjoyed. With a little more work, it could have been a very enjoyable and complex game, but at this stage it actually feels somewhat incomplete.
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Edge MagazineTycoon City’s desire to create a believable Big Apple has become an obsession, focusing on that end rather than the means of getting there. Where its peers extol freedom, this game calls the shots. [Mar 2006, p.90]
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If you prefer your tycoon games in sandbox mode with the capitalism aspects removed, and you love the idea of designing the perfect version of Manhattan Island, Tycoon City makes a neat little construction kit. But if you're looking for an actual strategy game, give this one a pass.
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Though the premise of developing and building your very own New York seems a fantastic idea, for those of us brought up with the freedom of the Sim City series, the restrictions are just too much to bear.
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Computer Games MagazineAs an urban sandbox, Tycoon City: New York is passable. As a strategy game, it's the dumbest deal since that urban legend about the Indians selling Manhattan to the Dutch. [July 2006, p.61]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 6 out of 10
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Mixed: 3 out of 10
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Negative: 1 out of 10
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Mar 15, 2020
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Jul 12, 2016
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Aug 17, 2013