Reflection paper - Essay Example

Players of these games become familiar with some of the outstanding issues in the urban planning profession. Professionals in this field have taken time to study the emerging games in an effort to integrate ideas from the simulated cities to the real life urban planning activities. Without doubt, computer games simulating urban planning activities have gained increasing popularity and proved to be learning source for both students and urban planners. After a close analysis of computer games such as SimCity, it becomes evident that urban planning games are involving and intriguing.

Notably, the release of SimCity caused increasing excitement, as players were able to achieve goals that real urban planners are unable to achieve. Notably, the SimCity computer games gave the player an opportunity to control and monitor traffic to determine the levels of happiness exhibited by people and carry out monthly policy reevaluations. In addition, the computer games allowed an individual to carry out GPS tracking of different people. Other intriguing computer games include the Transport Tycoon, Simutrans, Rail Roal Tycoon, and Caesar.

Most of these games present a player with a blank city so that the player can develop an efficient and functional system. Players control plots for development, lay down transport systems, and build social amenities. Notably, some companies have advanced and developed simulation games that have a close similarity to the actual transportation systems. The only difference is that simulation games lack live data. In these games, players can control an entire transportation system determining whether commuters are happy or not.

Some of the modern computer games illustrate historical events and integrate realism in an effort to make computer games a learning resource (Levy 45). The most interesting aspect is that urban planners take special interest in analyzing computer games that simulate real life situations.