Urban Empire

GameWatcherMichael Brown

7/10

Overall, Urban Empire is a solid outing for Kalypso and has a nice blend of city building and political management that players of the genre should find interesting. It has flaws but its new perspective on an old formula is something that can be explored further in the future.

IGNLeif Johnson

6.4/10

Urban Empire's premise of focusing on the political tumult that's usually behind city planning is a good one, and the emphasis on four families allows for some lightweight roleplay in how you guide your city to greatness. Unfortunately, the personal approach tends to stumble as each game more or less plays out like the last, and the constant juggle of votes makes for an experience that's more exasperating than exciting.

WCCFtechChris Wray

6/10

Politics has always been a funny game. You have to look at huge swathes of data, managing whatever you're in charge of, but also manage public perception. Strategy and management simulation games focus on the former almost ideally and you can find yourself buried in data. Urban Empire looks to reduce this while promoting the public perception, and the internal conflicts, that come with politics. Take on the mantle of a powerful family, each of them successive mayors of a growing city in continental Europe across the past two centuries of real history.

Game SkinnyAshley Shankle

5/10

Urban Empire tries hard but ultimately falls flat in its shallow attempts at being both a political and city simulator.

Rock Paper ShotgunAlexander Chatziioannou

Unscored

The pleasures of a focused strategy title like Civilization lie in juggling the numbers in just the right way to succeed. Those found in a freeform city-builder like Sim City come from unleashing your unbridled creativity on a blank canvas. By sticking on a rigidly deterministic (and, thus, politically questionable, however well-intentioned) reading of two centuries of European history, Urban Empire fails to tap either of those joys, revealing its incessant march towards the present is not an ongoing process actively shaped by individual players, but a foregone conclusion simply waiting to be ...