You’ve got a limited space to work with, and you need to balance out the city stats in order to complete each level’s objectives. Yes, although you’re working towards building one city, the game is still spread out into level-based chunks. In fact, most of the game dynamics are similar to last year’s SimCity Societies. In each game segment, you have certain objectives to achieve. You’ll need to get your population or one of the city stats up to a certain level, and you’re only given a set number of months in which to achieve this. You’ll generally have to make a new building or two, unlocked by completing the other objectives.
However, what Metropolis has over its socialist cousin is an excellent execution of the structure that made the original SimCity so compelling. Not only is the game split into levels, but there are also three separate islands that represent the residential, industrial and commercial ‘districts’ of the city. You’ll still get the chance to put down some grim-looking grey slabs in the residential district, just as you’ll need to build housing on the industrial island, but each has its own building set and general flavour. The residential zone has a pleasant green tileset, working its way down to a sludgy brown colour in the industrial sector.