Now that Maxis has been swallowed by Spore and the guys who made Sim City Societies have moved onto bigger, better things Children of the Nile, indie developer Monte Cristo is free to snap up what little market there is for city-building sims in the wake of their 2006 game, City Life (which is, you guessed it, another city-building sim).

What sets XL apart from both City Life and from the Sim City franchises is the online component. This is problematic for an early look at the game because none of what makes an online community pass or fail really exists yet. But the gist of it is, when you buy the single-player game (that you'll burn through in about four months), you can register for the online service at 5 Euros a month. The online service is really an online multiplayer mode, like an MMO along with a social networking site a la Facebook where you can interact with other people that opt to sign up for the online account.

Through the online mode, you can build a city near your friends' cities or on a completely different planet so they can't visit. But if you do that, you won't be able to trade with them – which is where the appeal of vity-building online really comes from.

Because XL features a persistent environment, you can actually work with the cities around your city to balance the needs of all the whiny townspeople that need jobs and not to die of pollution. So you could build a city that's entirely made up of amusement parks, stadiums and tourist attractions while your buddy builds a stale, totalitarian state and then just send the citizens back and forth between you so they're never really unhappy, but they continue to grind away at soul-sucking factory jobs.

In addition to sharing balancing duties, you can also trade resources with people online. So say you want to build that new stadium and you don't have enough oil or water resources to build it. You can use the site's search engine to find someone nearby your city (with the appropriate shipping capacities like airports or docks) with a surplus of those items. Then you can offer them whatever you have extra of (cement, electricity, etc.) or absolutely nothing at all and see if they'll accept a trade or just give you what you want out of the sheer goodness of their hearts.

The key to any simulated city game is maintaining balance; which is even more crucial in an online environment where seasoned MMO players already know all the tricks (twinking, gold-farming, etc.). To keep unfairness to a minimum, Monte Cristo has changed a few minor things that city-building pros might take for granted. For example, excess resources don't accumulate over time in the online mode. So if you've got 10 extra energy, you'd better spend it or trade it – or lose it when the week the ends. This keeps the online environment mostly equal without letting players that have been there the longest gain any unfair advantages. Also, special blueprints for stuff like the Eiffel Tower or that giant statue of Jesus Christ in Rio are given randomly to online players in a sort of lottery – they require a ridiculous amount of resources to build and usually give your city a major stat bonus (like attracting more tourists), so it encourages trading between gamers.

Monte Cristo is also introducing Facebook-style tie-in stuff. The singleplayer and online modes will both have Achievement-ish rewards that you can display on your XL profile or possibly on whatever social network site you use. And like Facebook, the XL site also features friend lists, news RSS feeds and ways to track the stats of your city. To go along will of this is your personal avatar – a cartoon-y incarnation that you can use to walk the streets of your own city (even in singleplayer mode) or other people's cities (although I'm told you can't do anything besides observe).

That stat-tracker will come in handy if you decide to leave your city alone for a long time. Because the online mode is a persistent environment, your city keeps on living while you're gone. So an earthquake can wipe out half your population and leave construction stalled out on your new monument and you'd never know it ‘til you logged in again. But, says Monte Cristo, you'd be warned well in advance before you built over a fault line – so it's your own damn fault if it happens, really.

To me, that's what sounds the most interesting about online mode in Cities XL: there will be different planets with different conditions for you to build cities on. One planet might have absolutely no fossil fuel resources; which means you won't have to deal with as much pollution, but you'll have to look at alternative energy sources. Or another planet might have tons of fault lines but a lot of fossil fuel, so you'll have to weigh earthquake risk against drilling for oil. Singleplayer modes in many city-building games have scenarios like this, of course, but it's how you and your online buddies work around it that could be vastly entertaining.

The last thing that Monte Cristo has done to make XL stand out from its predecessors is tack on "gems" – Gameplay Extension Modules – that can be bought and plugged into your online or singleplayer game for extra mileage. The two the developer plans on releasing when the game launches are a "Beach Gem" and a "Ski Gem" where you get to play resort tycoon with either a beach or a ski slope. These gems are a more detail-oriented layer of gameplay where you can get as specific as designing a black-level ski trail or a beachside cabana with one of those bars in the middle of a pool.

That's where Cities XL will show its strength (if it has any): switching between micromanagement on the street level of your city (where you can watch citizens walk to work or get mugged) and the godlike view where little flashing icons tell you how much money a business makes or how many people have been brought to the hospital. Monte Cristo built an entire engine from the ground up to handle this view-switching and – buggy though it was in pre-beta – it looks fairly decent.

The three key problems with Sim City-style games are 1) overwhelming the player with too much to keep track of, 2) boring them to death by not throwing them enough curveballs and 3) boring them to a second death when they run out of motivation to keep building stuff. Time will tell if Cities XL address all of these problem – but I think the online mode (if it works like it's supposed to) will definitely take care of the latter two. And that first one? Well, it's the kind of thing that becomes a mark of pride for hardcore gamers ("You couldn't get past the tutorial? N00b!") so perhaps it's no big deal.

Cities XL is gearing up for a closed beta sometime between the end of this month and mid-April and is looking to release retail copies between Q1 and Q2 (sorry, not for download – you actually have to go use a CD key and stuff). Keep it here on Kotaku if you want to score a beta key.

Zero Punctuation [the escapist]

Super Mario Galaxy (WII)
It'sa Mario again... in space!

Assassin's Creed (X360, PS3)
Altair is da man in 1191.

Crysis (PC)
Fight aliens!

BlackSite: Area 51 (X360, PC)
Fight more aliens!

Need for Speed ProStreet (PC, X360, PS3, PS2, WII, DS)
Race around the world in your custom car.

WWE SmackDown! vs. RAW 2008 (X360, PS2, WII, PS3, PSP, DS)
Wrestlemania. Wait, that's something else...

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (X360, PS3, PC)
Co-op killing.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 3 (PS2)
Dragon Ball Z. Still going.

SimCity Societies (PC)
Learn how buildings shape society.

Resident Evil: Umbrella Chronicles (WII)
A zombie massacre on rails.

Soldier of Fortune: Payback (X360, PC)
The game based on the magazine based on killing and guns.

Medal of Honor Heroes 2 (WII, PSP)
Invade WWII with your Wii Zapper.

Rayman Raving Rabbids 2 (WII, DS)
Rayman's Raving Rabbids return.

Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (PSP)
My money is on Aliens because they look cooler.

EA And BP Collaborate To Include Climate Education In SimCity Societies

New Game in PC Gaming's Most Popular City-Building Series to Feature Alternatives to Carbon-Producing Energy Sources

REDWOOD CITY-Oct. 10, 2007-Electronic Arts (NASDAQ: ERTS) and BP have collaborated to include climate change education within SimCity Societies, the next iteration in the genre-defining city-building franchise that has sold more than 18 million games to date. The collaboration brings together world-class game building skills and industry expertise on energy, electricity production and greenhouse gas emissions to highlight the impact of electricity generation on the emissions of carbon dioxide that are linked to climate change. The low-carbon electricity choices and monitoring of SimCity's carbon emissions provide an entertaining, fully-integrated and accurate look at some of the causes and some of the major solutions available to combat rising levels of carbon and to help address the threat of global warming. SimCity Societies will be available at retailers across North America and Europe November 15.

"Since their inception in 1989, SimCity games have served as excellent creative and educational tools to convey complex subjects. With SimCity Societies, we have the opportunity not only to demonstrate some of the causes and effects of global warming, but also to educate players how seemingly small choices can have a big global impact," said Steve Seabolt, Vice President of Global Brand Development for The Sims Label at EA. "BP was one of the first major energy companies to publicly acknowledge the need to reduce carbon emissions and begin taking precautionary measures. As such, they are the perfect partner to help educate people on this important social issue in SimCity Societies."

The game does not force players to power their cities any specific way, but allows them to make choices, each of which come with advantages and disadvantages. Similar to real-life, the least expensive and most readily-available buildings in SimCity Societies are also the biggest producers of carbon dioxide, an invisible gas that contributes to global warming. Should players choose to build cities dependent on these types of sources for power to conserve their in-game money, their carbon ratings will rise and, at reaching critical levels, the game will issue alerts about the threat of the various natural disasters like droughts, heat waves and others that may strike their cities.

Alternatively, players can strive to create a greener environment and avoid hazards caused by excessive carbon emissions by choosing from a variety of BP Alternative Energy low-carbon power options. Using hydrogen and natural gas plants to wind farms and solar power, SimCity Societies encourages people to learn about some of the causes and consequences of global warming in an engaging, educational and meaningful way. While these power sources maintain nearby property values and keep the cities' citizens safer from disaster, they also mimic real-life in that they cost players more of their funds, and do not produce as much power as less green options that take up similar space. Informative real-world snippets about power production and conservation will also be available in-game, informing players of global warming issues both virtually and in reality.

"The time was right for this partnership. EA was developing the next iteration of the SimCity series at the same time that we were looking for opportunities to raise awareness about low-carbon power choices," said Carol Battershell, Vice President, BP Alternative Energy. "EA has a powerful reach to the next generation and BP has a suite of low-carbon power alternatives. In our collaboration through this innovative game, we can provide education on the issues surrounding climate change, its association with carbon emissions and the ability to take early positive action through low-carbon power choices."

The SimCity franchise is one of the most popular PC gaming franchises in history, having sold more than 18 million games worldwide to date since the SimCity launch in 1989. Subsequent base game releases include SimCity 2000tm (1993), SimCity 3000tm (1999) and SimCity 4 (2003). SimCity Societies is being published by Electronic Arts and developed by Tilted Mill Entertainment.

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