Playing games is supposed to be about enjoyment, learning, and connecting to others. What CivCity Rome does quite well is the teaching portion, but it fails utterly at every other aspect of what makes a good game. It's far from enjoyable, infuriating is much like the opposite of entertaining, and it's single player, thus opting out of this last component.

When playing a city-building style game, one of the most important features is the menu system. The menu is the way players affect the world, the way we interact, and the way we progress. It gives us access to our tools, like the new buildings, the data which helps plan our expansion, and the budget which allows us to keep the world we're creating in running order. In CivCity Rome, that menu system is beyond poor, it is downright useless. The views for civilization and population are childish and provide little, if any, insight into how to improve your city.

Then the buildings... One might think that in a game entirely centered on building things, the buildings would be lain out in a sensible manner, easily accessed and informative descriptions would be given. Not the case in CivCity Rome! Here you're stuck with one long menu with obscure pages that make only a mild passing attempt to organize the structures, and which give absolutely zero information about what each structure produces, requires, or employs. Sure, the game provides a dumbed-down version of the Civlopedia, but looking everything up or waiting until you've built it, wasting precious denarii (early roman coin) is ridiculous.

Civilization, with its far removed view and world-focus, rather than being zoomed down to the actual city level, is still better looking than CivCity Rome, even when viewing the individual cities. CivCity doesn't need to look like Gears of War or Half-Life 2: Episode One, but it shouldn't look like its already three years old either. Even the cutscenes are very lacking in visual expression. Sure it all looks like a very accurate Rome, but it looks like an accurate Rome that is built of blocky pixels and poor animations.

On the upside, the game is pretty stable. There are no bugs to be found and little to argue with in the function department. Sadly, there's also little to be done. All that's provided is a crummy menu and expansion. How are we to keep playing if each home will get everything it needs with just a few buildings. Fires and raiding animals are quickly eliminated, and the funds are generally always positive. All that's needed is a ton of houses and access to a couple simple buildings the tutorial (which is pretty small and provides only a click-thru menu) teaches players about the first time they play.

CivCity Rome was built on the foundation that it was 'the people behind Civilization's take on city building.' However, the game itself was made by team Firefly, who had nothing to do with the amazing Civilization series. Sid Meyer's hands never touched this game, and it shows. Whether it was a lack of funding or a rushed date from 2K Games, or simply a lack of creativity or even plain old laziness from Firefly, the game plays badly. It's amazing Fraxis would associate itself with a group so willing to throw a coat of varnish on a game when it needs to be almost entirely retooled. Rome might not have been built in a day, but in CivCity Rome that's more time than you'll ever want to spend building it.