My Country
From the makers of the very popular game Paradise City is their latest release “My Country” it is a new game that packs a lot of features for extended gameplay. It is a mobile simulation game along the lines of Cityville, City Story or a mobile version of SimCity with a more structured objective based gameplay.
How It Works:
When you first open My Country you are presented with a short tutorial in which you begin by selecting your head office. You can choose between a humble municipal building or a large corporate headquarters, in which you start to build what starts out as a small village into turns into a great country.
Gameplay starts out slow as you begin to build the basic necessities for a working city from Two Flat Houses to a Post Office. However as you progress through the game new features become available with new buildings to add to your expanding city. One key point of gameplay is that you need to hire employees for each of the new buildings that you construct before they open. The different employees for example a driving instructor for the driving school require three items to be acquired before he can be hired a bus ticket, a digital watch, and a screwdriver. The items are earned when you construct or upgrade specific buildings which are shown in the hiring menu. This adds another dimension to the gameplay as the items required are not always the ones you get which at times can be frustrating causing you to build many of the same buildings taking time and money. Compared to Cityville where all you need is energy and money and you can construct whatever you desire while still being challenging. At first I disliked this aspect, but as I continued to play it became less of a frustration and more of challenge calling for more thought and planning as you build your country. I have yet to open my driving school because the digital watch requires the purchase of a million dollar illuminated fountain, but I am definitely saving up because the driving school is required before I can build a bus station and add mass transit to my growing city. Employees are required to be hired each time you construct a building even of the same type, so as you collect items see which employees you have earned and construct buildings that can put them to use.
As you progress in the game you raise in both level and Era, level being earned by XP and Era which has certain requirements including population size, your city’s eco rating, and building requirements. New businesses and housing options are unlocked as you raise in level and Era. Buildings upgrades can be purchased and as you will learn some buildings are worth the upgrade and some are not, it will be up to you to decide how to make your city as profitable as you can. As your city grows you will need to purchase surrounding areas in which you can use to grow your city.
Opinion:
Overall My Country is an addicting game with a lot to offer. I haven’t stopped playing since I installed it and with all of the built in challenges and requirements its not a game you can play for a whole night and finish. I have it installed on both my phone and my Honeycomb tablet and it works well on both devices, but the tablets extra screen real estate is a big plus as your city expands.
Ratings:
- Speed (5/5) – Very responsive the game is visually appealing and runs smoothly in all areas of gameplay.
- Features (4/5) – There are a lot of features built in to the game, which allow for extended gameplay and plenty of new items to look forward to.
- Overall (4/5) – The game is a lot of fun and if you like the city building genre its simply the best option for a mobile device.
Pro: Clean UI, adequate graphics, intuitive and extended gameplay.
Cons: Hiring requirements can become frustrating, starts off slow, prices can become extreme.
Conclusion: My Country is a very addictive game that allows for days of gameplay while your build your small village into a large regional center. I would recommend this game to anyone who enjoys the city building genre and to those that are looking a mobile game that will provide for hours of fun gameplay. It looks good and runs well, My Country is a well put together game and is a welcome addition to my app collection.
You can download it at the Android Market now by clicking here.