| Product: |
Netropolis |
| Date: |
20/01/01 (71 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Great idea. It's free and it can be rewarding.
Disadvantages: Takes long time to make any scratch on the amrket. Frustrating and tedious.
This appears to be the jewel in the crown of www.lineone.net, as far as the games they offer go. The motto for the game is, 'Business is a game', and unsurprisingly that very game is Netropolis.
Being honest, this game is great for a number of reasons. Firstly though lets talk about the game itself! Getting onto the site, it takes about three minutes to register as you give a company name for yourself, as well as what your alias in the game is (such as Grohlonnavitch which is mine). Once you are registered, you are let loose on the world of Netropolis with £50,000 credit to spend. As you are in the game, you are given a very professional looking interface, which gives you a number of options. You can look at your own company Headquarters, which gives you the chance to get to your bank account, and also commit suicide in case business is bad, as well as other options. You can also look at the last actions that you did as well as look at a smaller version of the map that dominates the screen. On this screen, you are shown many little pictures of shops such as an Internet café or even an arms research laboratory. These all belong to other businessmen/women. If you click on them, you are given the option to leave a message, (derogatory of course), buy the business outright or vandalise the place from a smoke bomb to kids graffitiing the place. I assume you can do more damage with better weapons although I wouldn't know, as I am crap at it! With all this said, the general idea is to create an empire of business's which earn you money, whilst keeping the competition down, (unfairly of course). Just be aware that people put security on their premises so the police (annoyingly) may catch you.
The game itself is very addictive for a while, and I also think it is a great idea. Top marks for the creative boffins in fact. Having such an well-implemented game that is on the Internet for free is very good indeed, so a well done to lineone.net th
ere. It has a number of different shops you can purchase, which is interesting as you can make virtual money from your own hard graft, which is rewarding. It also gets the competitive juices flowing, and considering there are many countries with many cities in each for you to plunder, there is a lifetime of playability.
So that’s it then. Round up with a nice conclusion after brownnosing the game horribly throughout this opinion. Well no I'll think you'll find. It is flawed in many ways. Firstly, with any new business that is un-established, (cue A-level Business Studies garble), it seems nearly impossible to break into the market full of so many established firms, (in this case the other users). The only way to do so is hard work, which is a real problem. I have only just got flat rate internet access so I have only been able to go on the internet at limited times in the day for not long at all. This means that if you have a session where you have bought up a few businesses and taken the first few months rewards you go away feeling happy. Then the moguls from America come on later and buy up all your businesses, because Americans have had Flat Rate for a lot longer than us here in old Blighty. This means all your hard work is undone. Frustrating and after the first few times of this, tedious it doesn't really offer great fun after the novelty factor has worn off.
Another problem is that every time you do something, i.e. buy up a new outlet, it automatically sends you an e-mail, which means that you can accumulate twenty e-mails in one, one-hour session. Obviously the Netropolis webmaster is racking up the bucks off of mailround.com! This is actually very annoying indeed, and is totally unnecessary. It can also be a problem if your computer is not very fast, (like mine), as it can take quite a while for the site to upload the information as there is so much to transfer.
Looking at Netropolis, the phrase flawed genius come
s to mind. Enjoyable and rewarding? For a while. Frustrating and tedious? All the time!
Summary:
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Last comment:
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ddonley - 20/03/01 The review was fine enough, but I feel that id Craigannovitch had played Netropolis, (or netro, as we 'real' netro players call it - lol), that he would have discoveredd much more. If you are trying to build uip a business, the usual way is to destroy the properties of other companies, and get the land. After a while, a war will break out between you and the person you took the land from.
As well as war, you can build up friendships with the other players in the towns/cities/capitals. This is one thing Craig missed reporting on. The other players who are online with you are listed on the right, and you can send them an instant message in the game, useful for really annoying people, or keeping in touch with people you originally met in netro.
So I would suggest to Craig and anyone else trying netro, to stick with it for a while, and actually speak to the people listed on the right, as some of us have been there for a while, and take no pleasure in destroying the new companies, but are willing to give a little help.
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