Product Reviews

If you think you could create something better than New York's skyline, Tycoon City: New York gives you the chance to try, as it's your job to build a property empire in the Big Apple.

The road layout comes in place, so you can't completely change the city. Instead, it's your job to construct new houses and businesses as you build up your property portfolio. While this is probably enough for those just interested in building, Atari has worked hard to introduce a competitive edge by limiting the areas in which you are allowed to build. Each section has a number of opportunities and prizes that you play

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through before you can progress to the next stage. It's done so you don't have to attempt a challenge until you're ready, so you can wait until you've got good cash reserves before you attempt to complete a challenge.

Building your property empire is easy. You can click on residential property to see what people's needs are. Trying to place a new building in an area changes the colour of the surrounding apartments: green means that residents really want it and red means that they'd hate to have it. However, placing a new building isn't enough to guarantee success. Using upgrades, such as outdoor tables for a cafe, you must attract new customers and keep existing ones happy. You're only allowed a set number of upgrades per building, so place them carefully.

A map filter lets you see at a glance which businesses are performing well and which are doing badly. Unfortunately, it applies to all properties on the map and not just yours, so it can be hard to get an overall sense of how you're doing.

Aside from this, Tycoon City is brilliant fun, with excellent graphics that produce a bustling city full of people, hours of gameplay and the chance to dominate the Manhattan skyline.