PC Gamer - March 2012

tomorrow’s world
In ANNO 2070, the best way to predict the future is to build it by Chris Thursten
Need to know

What is it?

City-building real time strategy with an innovative online component. Influenced by Anno 1404, Sim City Play it on 2GHz CPU, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8400/Radeon HD 4350 Alternatively Cities XL (75%) Copy protection CD key tied to Ubisoft account

Of all the things to bring a civilization to a grinding halt, it’d have to be truffles. Fully half of my island is urbanized, with a workforce of thousands. My fisheries, oil refineries, pig farms and distilleries operate with total efficiency, surplus goods loaded into cargo haulers and sold at a premium to the hippies across the waves. I’m an industrial juggernaut, and yet I can grow no further. If I’m going to attract more engineers to my settlement, I need to meet a sudden and unexpected demand for lobster dinners.

Lobster, I have—but no truffles. Loading a ship with supplies, I establish a new colony, far across the sea. I build a port, a town, and truffle farms. Migrant workers toil day and night, loading fungi by the ton onto the ships that link them to a glittering metropolis they’ll never see. I think I’m doing well.

In 2070, sea levels have risen,
dividing territory into isolated
islands that are colonized and
exploited by independent contrac-
tors. The population, meanwhile, is
split between smog-and-profit mega-
corporation Global Trust and the
environmentalist Eden Initiative,
with scientists from SAAT providing
technology to both.

Clash of cartoons

Anno 2070 unfortunately squanders the topicality of its subject matter by establishing factions that are car-toonishly good and evil. Eden Initiative workers are soft-spoken and demand only tea, vegetables and a concert hall. Global Trust, meanwhile, fills its workers with booze, fast food and—I wish I were joking —aspirational television programs generated by the Ministry of Truth. It’s incredibly ham-fisted: Eco-Jesus going up against Scrooge McDuck in Ayn Rand cosplay.

You’ll work for both factions in single-player, frequently making choices about which to support. I found myself going with Global

It’s like Eco-Jesus going up against Scrooge cosplay.

Rampant Consumerism
The goods that’ll keep your workers happy

Tycoon Worker:
Eco Worker:

• Liquor Sobriety is unproductive.

• Casino
Everyone loves losing!

• Concert Hall Hope you like tambourines!

• Tea
Presumably without milk.

Lab Assistant:

Trust to see what hilarious mishaps its terrible decision-making would inflict on the world—which, if nothing else, added a little life to the fairly drab campaign. You’re led by the hand almost all of the way, as the game very slowly imparts the techniques that you’ll need to succeed.

The single mission and free play modes are much more successful. At its heart, Anno 2070 is a game of creative engineering: building a big, interconnected machine that looks like a city but purrs like an engine. While the basic principle—supply and demand—is as simple as they come, there’s enough complexity that you’re unlikely to ever feel totally in control. You’re free to problem-solve as you see fit, answering demand for resources with trade, research, and expansion.

You’re also constantly given additional objectives ranging from supplying certain goods to headhunting a certain number of glowing employees wandering the streets of your town. These side-missions keep the game moving and prevent you from ever staring at one aspect of it for too long. Should competition demand it, there’s also combat: mostly naval, with aircraft and base defenses for spice. It’s functional but far from the main event. Instead, the need for military protection adds an additional dimension to the core resource management game.

Playable and polished, Anno 2070 is a steady improvement on what has come before. If anything, it plays it a little too safe, with innovations like online elections and undersea bases not really impacting the core. Worth your time, but lacking the resource to become a management great.

• Functional Food Flavor’s for the lazy.

• Laboratories
What work/play balance?

◆ Price $50 ◆ Release Out now ◆ Publisher Ubisoft ◆ Developer Blue Byte, Related Designs ◆ Multiplayer 8-player versus and co-op ◆ Link bit.ly/o Jfv OV