Random: Arctic Monkeys Song Potentially Makes Obscure DS City Builder Reference

Sniper


City Life
Image: Monte Cristo

Sheffield-based rock band Arctic Monkeys have released their seventh studio album The Car today. This may have been something playing on the radio (or however the younguns listen to their music nowadays) here at NL Towers, but it’s now on our radar for a totally different reason today — it apparently makes a reference to City Life on the Nintendo DS.

Freelance games writer Jordan Oloman spotted a breakdown of the song ‘Sculptures Of Anything Goes’ on Genius (thanks GamesRadar!), where one avid listener has pointed out a potential video game reference in the song’s third verse.

The lyrics in question are: “The simulation cartridge for City Life ’09 / Is pretty tricky to come by”. Definitely very specific, and the DS version certainly did release in 2009 — and only in Europe. So it’s a pretty niche reference if that’s the case.

The annotation on Genius reads:

“This lyric is a reference to the pc game City Life and the release of the Nintendo DS version in Europe in 2009. The game centers around the creation of a city and the economic structures within the city that the player is able to control.

Turner mentions the difficulty in obtaining this game because not only did Nintendo discontinue the manufacturing of all DS handhelds in 2014, in 2020 they announced that they would no longer be selling DS and Wii U related games on their eShop.”

Well… not something we expected to read. But maybe it’s true! It’s a fun little nod towards the game if it is. And hey, a UK band making a reference to a Europe-only port? We’ll take it. Someone should ask frontman Alex Turner about it.

City Life on DS was a port of the 2006 PC, and it was the first modern building game that let the player work in fully 3D environments. The DS version was obviously fairly compromised, but it still got decent reviews at the time from publications.

If you’re not aware of the 2009 DS game, check out this trailer below to get a feel for it. And let us know in the comments whether you think this is a fake tale from San Francisco or whether this is a cornerstone!