Little Kitty, Big City
Little Kitty, Big City
Game
Game2008
City Life 2008
Developer Monte Cristo
Construct the city of the 21st Century with City Life! City Life 2008 Edition is a next-generation City Builder. Its 3D game engine provides a level of detail and animation unprecedented in the City Builder genre, with total freedom of construction. From the Steam store page
105 reactions from 2 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky) · newest Oct 1, 2026 · last updated Oct 8, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
71
Fresh
74 positive · 30 negative
95% range 62–79%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 74 | 30 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 0 | 0 | 0 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
1 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
206 of 255 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What people are saying
Summary pending — the reactions are listed below.
Reactions
60 of 105 · most liked firstThis is really a tough review to write, because I really like a lot of what is going on here. But ultimately I just never found it engaging on the level of, say, SimCity. This has an awesome street view version that lets you walk around and actually FEEL like part of the city, and if you like that sort of thing then this game is definitely one you can have some fun with in that fashion. In terms of the choices on how to build the city, it all feels a lot more abstract than SimCity, because…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was fun for awhile, but ultimatly it got boring. Theres always people complaining when you upgrade your city, but if you downgrade it, there's no way to get the population up. Factions that get close to each other fight, and they end up burning down a portion of the city, they make crime go up, or they destroy the economy. Essentially you can work up to a certain point, and the entire city will fail before you can expand further. Another point to make, is that the business's in the…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Much like Cities XL, this too is another Sim City knock off. However, with the current SimCity game sucking balls, I recommend trying this game out as well. It is a little more detailed than Cities XL.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A really interesting game. It puts a unique twist on city builders by having what they call "subcultures". They're arranged in a hexagon, with the higher up ones being richer than the ones below. Those touching eachother on the hexagon are friendly, and those opposite are enemies. For example, the blue collars hate the yuppies and vice versa, the elites hate the blue collars, and most of the rich classes hate the poorest class. The key is that a fully fucntioning city needs people of every…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The interface seems to be delayed all the time no matter you have enough space in your PC for RAM o ROM, when you are building the city,even if you take away internet connection reduce all other tasks in the PC; it gets slower and slow, up to 5 minutes to build something and move to the next. It seems to be a problem from Steam or the version they got for download; cause I have play this game for many years and I never had any problem except with the version in Steam. Really really bad, bad…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When I first read about it, the concept sounded really interesting - new layers to city building that were different than Sim City, which I will lose myself in for hours. But when it actually came to playing it, the system was broken and the game itself was so glitchy and sticky that I just gave up on it. Juggling faction territory was a pain, balancing upgrades with population mood was a pain, and basically trying to do anything was a huge pain. There is such thing as challenging and fun,…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I tried to enjoy this game, but the interface, and font is made for ants.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game for its pricing and age is absolutely amazing truthfully! There is a little lag in between games which is expected on Windows 8.1 running a game that was from 2008. Once you get understanding on the business to housing down and benefit the needs of all of your people, it works out great! I would suggest just reading over the tutorial that is there and testing out things slowly, adding a house here, then a business there and watching your money as you do so before diving head first…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Such a great game, check out my videos if you would like to know how to play it.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Build the city your wanting to have! and control what happens in the big wide city! city builders, get your hats on! 10/10
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Played it, and Liked it! Great alternative to SimCity4.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →only buy if you have a really low end pc or buy it for the nostalgia edit: buy it no matter what.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →2 hours and done. im ok with that but its just not enough facing all the other similar games. i know i will never play it again because (1) you know exactly how all the City sim games are going to play (2) the nuances of this game is akin to taking a sports game and forcing you to deeply manage the vendor supply chain - you just dont want to go there when the city build aspects for me are the draw... no regrets to purchasing but wont ever go back.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game, highly recommended!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This is a decent game. I like the way it plays and the way it's designed. It's running just fine on an Aurora R9 16GB NVIDIA 2070. WIN 11 i'd love to see this game brought up to date pretty much as it stands gamewise with maybe some improvements and additions. More variety in the people and animations. I'd think any citybuilder would like this game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Thanks for putting this game on steam it's really nostalgic. The game itself is alright for its time, but now there's way better games like cities skylines. It has a unique mechanic that there's 6 different social groups and you have to seperate them into neighbourhoods, and you need all the social classes in your city to run services like healthcare, education, police etc. I kinda like it. In the end there's not much strategy, you just plop down a housing block and each service nearby. The…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An old city simulator gem from 2008 featuring an unique way to handle your population by classes/groups that will enjoy or fight having side-by-side in their neighborhood. It has some flaws here in there but it was quite fun in their time. You're better off getting City Skylines for a real good city sim. This one I got for nostalgia and have some fun building my city just like old times.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Game is defective and no updates available. Some schools don't affect education quality (they have a range of 0 feet in their description). No suits come in the city even though their attractiveness levels are through the roof. So the game is a bit buggy for my taste. Asking for a refund.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Grabbed this while on sale as an alternative to Cities Skylines and simcity4. Waste of money. This game is worse than cities XL series. Stay away.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Awesome, game where racism plays a huge problem, especially if you're attempting a diverse neighborhood
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →An expansive tool to add to any city management gamer's aresenal.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →City Life 2008 is a city-building simulation game that offers a unique blend of urban planning, management, and strategy. Here's my review of the game: I enjoyed the game's sandbox mode, which allowed me to build and manage my own city without any specific objectives or time limits. The game's graphics and sound effects were also impressive, with detailed 3D buildings and realistic soundscapes that immersed me in the game world. One of the standout features of City Life 2008 is its focus on…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Made my childhood
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No campaign mode, gets stale quickly, has few buildings and things to do and lacks many of those small details that would make it more worthwhile like better in-game stats or the ability to rotate buildings
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I bought this game because i couldn't find the trailer song anywhere else on the internet. Turns out that i still can't find the song that is played in the store trailer either; it's not in the game's music folder and neither is it played while playing the game. If the store music is what you're after, better move on. There are similar 80s music in the music folder but not nearly as interesting. From the store's description it seems like an interesting take on city builder sims by delving…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Of all the Monte Cristo city building games, I think this one is the most fun to play. The different classes of residents interact in entertaining ways and make the city-design process more interesting.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Bought it on Steam sale, gave it two hours, no rhyme or reason to the AI or actual needs of anything. If you havem't already, just buy Cities; Skylines and enjoy real city building. This is just Citties xxxlxxxlxxxxl in a cheaper suit.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →There does not appear to be a random map generator, and you're limited to a tiny corner of the map at the start of each game. These factors alone are sufficient to make it inferior to the first three SimCity games (Though it is likely still not as bad as SimCity 4 or SimCity 5). Also the camera controls are extremely wonky. Other than that it's pretty clever and good. In summary, by todays standards it's absolutely great (much better than CIties: Skylines or SimCity 5) but today's standards…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I could probably get away with saying the games management, you can place down a house then a business, you can plan out city areas very well, but it has it's deficiencies, i get a lag when i zoom in, it's not a good feature, the helicopters that aren't simulated, not very well done. Probably getting lag issues cause i'm on windows 7, but sim city is better than this already, and we all know the disaster with Sim City not enough space and all that. Cities Skylines is still better at the moment…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Fun, and with some interesting concepts. I really like the idea of social classes occupying residential areas, being able to build per social class services, and different social classes not tolerating each other (meaning you may want to avoid mixing them up). But this implementation of these ideas is very buggy -- it freezes up way too often just to display a bunch of errors on my screen. It also does not tolerate alttabbing (this is on 64bit Windows 8.1 and NVidia GTX 770). And I may be…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It had some good ideas. Different social classes, fillable spaces between buildings? I get where it was going, but Cities: Skylines just does the genre better and is a better use of your money.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was one of the first contemporary city builders to be in full 3D, preceding Simcity 2013 (ugh) and Cities Skylines by many years. It stands out mostly because of the various social groups throughout the city that you have to juggle with. Very neat game for the time, and I remember playing this when I was younger. If you're interested in city builders, it wouldn't hurt to give this one a try.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Yes, it's old and archaic, but good fun. I like to zone out and relax, listen to some smooth jazz, and turn off my brain for a while. City Life is good for that.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →"Teens don't like work" The work im giving the teens is being a cashier in a supermarket at the other side of the continent.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A love letter from the childhood
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good graphics, for a 2008 game.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Its a mediocre attempt at a city building/managemant game. It is better than some but not good enough to be a worthy investment. My advise is to just buy tropico or simcity as they do the genre good.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Another big waste of my money. If you want a good city building sim, try what's been actually proven to be a good one, aka Sim City. The makers of this game were trying too hard to be different and yet bring something new and wonderful to the table. I found City Life to be the most boring game I've played EVER, not to mention the stupid instruction thing constantly telling me to build more houses when I don't even have the ones I built filled up with people. The mechanics themselves are simple…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This Game is Cool You can Create your own City and have alot of fun
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I played the base game on CD in 2006, and when I saw it on Steam, it immediately caught my attention, so I bought it for nostalgic purposes. However, compared to other superior games like Cities: Skylines, City Life became boring for me after just two hours of gameplay. Nevertheless, I do believe that this game has some aspects that are better than C:S. Positives The game offers a selection of unique buildings to construct, allowing you to create massive army depot industries or food…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Here I will leave the cat, friends who pass by can pet it and give it a thumbs up ／＞ フ | _ _ l ／` ミ＿xノ / | / ヽ ﾉ │ | | | ／￣| | | | | (￣ヽ＿_ヽ_)__) ＼二つ
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →my childhood game :)
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good game inside my chilhood.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Soooooo gooooood game :) and you need to think hardly [(G)old]
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game can be unclear at times, I personally recommend you save your money for Cities Skylines instead.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Over all it is just a bad game
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →bad game and graphice
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →3/5 i am an avid simcity fan, but i am having trouble with this game, can't get the ratios (homes to businesses) right
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Dont even bother, I bought it for 2.49 on a steam sale and for the most part it was fun but the game is not worth 9.99 besides that Simcity and many other games just like this are much better. stay away unless its %75 off.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →LOVE IT. Even though this was released in 2008, i love playing it despite only for a few hours, its better then simcity 2013 LOL. i quite like the game and its genuinely good, mechanics are good for 2008.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →If you have a potato pc like me, download it
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Good soundtrack. For an old game it looks amazing. For me it was a bit hard to get used to the menus and mechanics but it's fun once you understand it. I love the fact that you can walk around in your city.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →It can be challenging to manage the different social groups, cater to them and build a stable monthly balance, but that's what's so great about this, absolutelz recommended!
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Overall, it was a semi-rewarding experience. I did build some kind of functional city, however, the option to change the angle of the road was non-existent. PROS: > A wide range of environments > You can build a ♥♥♥♥♥ bar > Street view > Big budget to start off CONS: > The angle option (mentioned) > Not enough building diversity > Graphics could be bumped up, but it is a 9 year old game
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →its good for its price
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Great game to kill a couple hours. similar to other simulations for building a city. Does get boring after you reach the peak of a city. no new context to change up.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game is fun if you just want to build a city
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When they port the game on smartphones(android/ios)?
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →The game looks horrible. Nothing like the Steam page. It struggles with frame rate on a good computer! I can't believe this gets positive reviews!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This game was probably.... sort of OK...... 15 years ago. One or two aspects I like, but most of it is just odd... and unpolished. The UI is absolutely awful!!
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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