Cities XL: Statuesque

My present "spare-time" gaming could not have two more extreme poles. On the one hand I am playing a bit of Quake Live - jumping onto capture the flag maps to realise I still know how to use a railgun (weird how it returns, like different programming, hardwired into fundamental bits of my brain) - and on the other I am poking about in Cities XL, slowly trying to drag my farming town into megalopolis status. Cities XL - which is still in a long, long beta - has proven to be a slow burner for me. I'm not spending a lot of time with it, but I've been spending time on it regularly. Today I've been browsing other people's cities (your avatar can go and visit other player's cities anywhere on the planet) and realising that I still have a long way to go to get a properly functioning large city. I'm definitely a long way off worrying about the stuff featured in this trailer, which is about maximising the "attractiveness" of the city, which means big, geometric city-plans, parks, and status the size of skyscrapers. Hell, I'll settle for being able to develop a decent number of skyscrapers on my commercial district. There's a single glass tower on the map right now. I feel like I have made the Swindon of the Cities XL universe. Maybe I have. A recession-banged Wiltshire of virtuality.

Anyone else building? Or Quaking, for that matter...