Another month and another simulation program developed by CyberPhobX and Excalibur Publishing, who seem intent on dominating this corner of the games market.

Traffic Manager is a simulation strategy game for those with a burning desire to control the traffic in their very own city. You take the role of the city traffic manager, armed with a budget from city hall it’s your job to keep the traffic running and the citizens happy.

You have various choices and tools to choose from. Hiring more men and buying new equipment allows you to widen streets, determine the placement of traffic lights and plan new transportation routes. Of course, with all this traffic flowing there is repair and maintenance work to undertake. If you do it right the citizens will be happy, which will make the mayor happy and who knows he might increase your budget. If not you can always raise revenue from the public transport system.

The graphics are basic, almost quaint for a modern release, although this is generally not an issue in this type of game where the fun comes from playing God, trying to maximise your profits without unduly upsetting the citizenry. The simulation part of the game works well and should please most city building types.

What impressed me less was the interface which, without going through the tutorials, is far from intuitive. Like most people I like to just start a game and fiddle with things, Traffic Manager will not let you do this easily.

If you are successful your city will grow, increasing the level of complexity, especially when you figure in the addition of simulated weather, which has a detrimental effect on your road surfaces and traffic flows.

The interface notwithstanding, Traffic Manager is a pretty fair micro management game.

7

Charles Packer