Start your own business empire (Capitalism 2 (PC))

Member Name: Kepler

Product:	Capitalism 2 (PC)
Date:	01/03/04 (1624 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very detailed, Many different ways to play, Highly addicitve

Disadvantages: Average graphics

Capitalism II is unsurprisingly the sequel to Trevor Chan?s hugely popular Capitalism, which was released way back in 1995. In the simplest terms the aim of the game is to build and run your own business empire. In reality however this game is anything but simple, and the depth of the game is at times unbelievable. While I will try to be as concise as possible in this review I have to admit that it is near impossible to explain a game of such depth without writing a fair amount. Hopefully I won?t waffle on for too long.

When you first load the game you are taken to the main screen from which you can select the type of game you want to play. In this area there are two choices, either you play the pre-designed scenarios which have the parameters of play already set or you can play a custom game in which you are free to change any options you wish and design your own game. The scenarios are a good place to start when you first start playing the game as they contain various preset games whose aim is to familiarise the player with the main points of the game.

After selecting your game type and setting the parameters you are taken to a screen with an isometric view of part of a city. At this point I will say that the graphics in the game are not exactly stunning but they are adequate for the needs of the game. In games such as Capitalism II the graphics always play second fiddle to the actual game play and in my opinion they are a minor concern. Surrounding the map are various toolbars, which are used to implement the game controls, and a smaller map that provides an overview of the entire city. At the beginning of the game you are given a certain amount of money (dependant upon the parameters you set before the game) with which you will construct your business empire. There are four main business areas that you can venture into: retailing, manufacturing, raw materials production and farming. The best bet for beginners however is the retai
l option as this is the simplest way of generating revenue.

Your first step towards entering the world of retail is to select what kind of shop you would like to open. There are many different choices and I won?t bother to list them all but they include: convenience stores, supermarkets, computer shops, discount stores, clothes shops and many, many more. Once you have decided upon the type of shop you want to build you have to decide where in the city you would like to build it. This is where the mini-map comes in handy as it has an option, which allows you to view the most profitable areas of the city, and these are the best places to build shops. It is worth bearing in mind however that the more profitable the area the more you will have to pay to purchase the land. Once you have built your store it is now time to select the products that you wish to sell. The products which you can sell are obviously restricted by the type of store you have built, so if you have built a drugs store you can?t then try and sell furniture. Each store has four slots that can be occupied by four different products or if demand is particularly high for a particular product you can have it occupying two slots to cope with the demand.

The range of products available at the start the game is proportional to the amount of seaports you have supplying the city and by the number of opposing companies you have. Obviously the more seaports and opposing companies the more products there are on the market for you to snap up. Once you start selling your products you have the option to set the selling price and also to implement some training to make your staff more efficient at buying and selling. The higher the level of training they have achieved the more units of each individual product they will be able to sell in a specific period of time. You can also set up links to media companies and advertise your products in the press, which helps to increase the product
s, appeal to potential consumers. Once you have made enough money you can even buy your own media company be it a radio station, newspaper or TV station and then you get your advertising for free.

The other areas of the game function in much the same way but with manufacturing instead of building shops you build factories, in which you produce a vast range of products that you can sell on to retailers. Once you enter the realm of manufacturing though the game becomes infinitely more complex, in order to build products you must first make sure that the necessary raw materials are available for their production. If they?re not then you can either choose a different product or make a foray into the world of farming or raw material production. For instance if you wanted to make cars in your factory than you would have to find a supplier of steel. If none of the other companies are producing steel and you still want to manufacture cars then you have to make the steel yourself. This means opening various mines to gather the raw minerals required to manufacture steel which you can then use to build your cars. Once you start production of your cars then you can either offer them to other retail companies or set up your own car dealerships in which to sell them.

As well as all this you also have the option of dabbling in the stock market, investing in shares or trying to gain control of rival companies with takeover bids. I won?t go into this too much as it is really is a minor part of the game and not really that much fun.

Capitalism 2 is certainly not a game for the casual player, when you first start playing it can often be confusing and without reading the manual all the way through (which nobody does) there is no way you can fully understand the game. The tutorials on offer in the scenario section go someway to helping you out but the finer details of the game are still left for you to discover. In a way that is the beauty of
this game and with a little patience I have discovered that Capitalism 2 is a really great game. There are so many different ways to play and so many different options that no two games are alike. In one game you may try and set out to conquer the car industry and in another you may start out as a lowly convenience store owner and work your way up to become a global company. There is also the option to play online, which I have recently had a go at and although it?s hard to find people who are still playing this game when you do it is one the best strategy games I have ever played online. Despite the superb AI in the game you really can?t beat playing against another human being, trying to anticipate their next move and vying with your competitors for the key markets.

Overall I would definitely recommend this game to fans of strategy games, if you like games such as Sim City, Tropico or Civilization then I guarantee you will love this. It takes a while to get into but once you do you will be hooked. Hours of your life will fly by as you try and squeeze the last remaining money out of a dying market and days will pass as you desperately try and hold off a hostile takeover bid from another company.

This game is available from amazon.co.uk for just £7.99, an absolute bargain. Buy it now and build your own global business empire.

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