The only real city-building sim left in the gaming world after SimCity Societies decided to go for a more casual approach, Cities XL is now offering quite an interesting chance to city building lovers: have their real houses rendered in the game! With a contest called "Point, Shoot - Win!", Monte Cristo offers everybody a chance to send one picture of a residential on the official forums (click here).

Only three of all the participants will be accepted intro the virtual universe of Cities XL and the winners will be decided by the gaming community itself: starting the 28th of May, forum members will be voting for their favorite picture and, on the 10th of June, the winner will be decided.

Even though it would be the best thing to send images of your own house, people are free to submit pictures of any homes, apartment buildings etc, except for trademarked buildings, monuments or other current intellectual properties. Everything has to be legal, you know?

Cities XL will bring us realistic 3D maps, an incredible collection of structures based on American, Asian and European-influenced architectural styles (and, as you have found out by now, three unique, user-submitted buildings). The maps, that seem to look much better than those we've seen in City Life - the previous city building sim released by Monte Cristo, feature all the possible environments: mountains, hills, canyons, beaches and islands, all of them set in various climates, from tropical to desert and so on. Regarding the city building itself, it seems to be, at least in theory, the same known by hardcore gamers, since you'll have to create the right combination of buildings in order to keep your citizens satisfied and happy.

At the moment, Cities XL is a PC exclusive, but we all know that game developers tend to bring their games to consoles for an increase in profits. Having in mind that the game will be released sometime during next year, there's still time for Monte Cristo do decide whether they stick to the PC exclusivity or not.