Cities: Skylines Review

[Tacticus Winter]

Cities: Skylines is the hopeful 'Better than the last SimCity disaster' to come around. And for these guys it was a huge success considering it's low expectations.

However, would this game have succeeded given the expectations of an actual Sim City game? By far, no.

If you had liked the last 2 SimCity game's I would not recommend buying this game, because the learning curve is so strong and stiff and the fact that the game actually overcomplicates itself at points, you would be better off sticking to the original SimCity games.

Is this game worth $30?
No. I would pay between $5-25.

If SimCity and this game were combined, then SimCity: Skylines would have been a HUGE success, given what SimCity did well on, Cities: Skylines drastically regressed on.

SimCity took me a little over 30 minutes to get the hang of. Cities: Skylines, basically the same game, I'm still learning after a little over 2 hours.

It's not that good of a transition.

What SimCity did well on, is either limited or removed in this game leaving it at nothing but a City simulator.

However;
The fact that you have almost unlimited room and multiple options for zones leaves the opportunities endless for a fun experience and actually at points more challenging than SimCity has ever been.

Lets do a rundown of what I think of some of the basic tools:

1)Zoning. Zoning was better in SimCity. You had just 3 types and they upgraded themselves. Here you have 6 types and they dont upgrade themselves meaning that you basically have to merge 4 cities together to make one. There is no zone upgrade as far as I've seen which is a huge problem that hopefully will be addressed.

2)Roads/Traffic. I loved this aspect. This is a HUGE improvement from SimCity. You can upgrade any road to any type and that is SO helpful! And you can even add decorations to improve happiness. This was well done.

3) Serivces. Services had a big regression from SimCity. You can't upgrade them and there are many problems with them at this point in time. Sometimes my fire trucks won't go to a burning building in their vicinity when they are idle. Power won't cross rivers so you have to make entirely new plants or turbines on the other side. And sometimes crime is rampant with tons of Police stations.

4) Specializations. Specializations was a huge speciality of SimCity and I enjoyed that aspect of the game. Here it is a little overcomplicated as I can't figure out how to use any of my oil and ore zones or how to zone them. And there is no ingame tutorial for them either.


So all in all. For it's expectations, it is a good game. But not anything deserving of a 9/10 on a AAA title scale.

Score: 6.8/10
Worth: $13.

If you have SimCity 4 or the latest SimCity I would stick to those games. If you don't have either, I would recommend this game as a starting point.

FOR IDIOTS: THIS IS MY OPINION ONLY. I am not biased, nor was this a paid review. This is a simple review of 'What I think'. You have your opinion and I have mine, we are both entitled to our own. Keep the comments clean.
I am open to CONSTRUCTIVE criticism.

Thanks for reading,
Tacticus.

[olElLI]

Well, sorry, but
"Cities Skylines: 2.0 hrs on record
last played on 13 Mar"

Next time set your profile to private before a premature review =P

[Tacticus Winter]

Originally posted by olel:

Well, sorry, but
"Cities Skylines: 2.0 hrs on record
last played on 13 Mar"

Next time set your profile to private before a premature review =P

You can't 'finish' this game, so I just got a decently sized city and played to where I would be at a point in SimCity.

There's not so many new things at 2 hours in.

[olElLI]

Originally posted by Tacticus:

Originally posted by olel:

Well, sorry, but
"Cities Skylines: 2.0 hrs on record
last played on 13 Mar"

Next time set your profile to private before a premature review =P

You can't 'finish' this game, so I just got a decently sized city and played to where I would be at a point in SimCity.

There's not so many new things at 2 hours in.

I do feel your review is very opinionated versus simcity (naturally I guss) - a series you've most likely put far more hours into. As such the review fall short imo.

[fayceless]

Just a quick note: Power lines cross rivers.

[Tacticus Winter]

Originally posted by fayceless:

Just a quick note: Power lines cross rivers.

I know. But for some reason power wont travel across the rivers through them. And these lines were connected to the grid.

[olElLI]

Originally posted by Tacticus:

Originally posted by olel:

Well, sorry, but
"Cities Skylines: 2.0 hrs on record
last played on 13 Mar"

Next time set your profile to private before a premature review =P

You can't 'finish' this game, so I just got a decently sized city and played to where I would be at a point in SimCity.

There's not so many new things at 2 hours in.

Originally posted by Tacticus:

SimCity took me a little over 30 minutes to get the hang of. Cities: Skylines, basically the same game, I'm still learning after a little over 2 hours.

It's not that good of a transition.

What?

[tykemalcolm]

Tacticus - that's not totally true. Yes, there is a steeper learning curve to this game and most everyone here enjoys figuring it out. For instance - you said you cannot figure out how to use your resources. At 1,000 or 1,500 (I don't remember which) pop you are allowed to create distinct districts, and you can set the industry in those districts to only work on the resources. To do that you must first create an industrial zone over the resources and then set it in the districts panel.

Also, there are lots of videos on YouTube that show you how to get into the game. Regards lack of a tutorial, yes, I agree with you.

However, it has been stated that this game will be supported with DLC's and such for a number of years to come, and I believe them - they are NOT EA.

[Robotica]

yea dude 2 hours? You can't really review a city simulator like this after 2 hours. I mean seriously it will take at least a couple dozen hours to build a full city and understand how everything works. Even a game like SimCity you can't possibly learn all of the in's and out's after 2 hours let alone 30 minutes like you said in your post. As dumbed down as that game was, it still required a time sync to understand. And if you think cities skylines is bad you obviously never played SC4 as that game required hundreds of hours to learn all the ins and outs. Actually after years and years of playing that game I still don't understand everything.

[fayceless]

(on the topic of power lines and rivers) That's strange, it works for me. I have power plants on one side of a river, along with industry, and everything else on the other side.

[Tacticus Winter]

Originally posted by olel:

Originally posted by Tacticus:

You can't 'finish' this game, so I just got a decently sized city and played to where I would be at a point in SimCity.

There's not so many new things at 2 hours in.

I do feel your review is very opinionated versus simcity (naturally I guss) - a series you've most likely put far more hours into. As such the review fall short imo.

The game tries to compete with the frontrunners of City Building, the Sim City franchise.

But every aspect the SimCity franchise does well on, is not found in this game. And every thing SimCity does wrong, is improved on. It's quite puzzling.

But the game is regularly patched, so we may see some new things and improvements.

[Robotica]

Originally posted by Tacticus:

Originally posted by fayceless:

Just a quick note: Power lines cross rivers.

I know. But for some reason power wont travel across the rivers through them. And these lines were connected to the grid.

Power worked for me across a river with power lines :P

[olElLI]

As you obviously fail as a reviewer go check out this despicable site:
www.metacritic.com/game/pc/cities-skylines
=P

[Tacticus Winter]

Originally posted by olel:

As you obviously fail as a reviewer go check out this despicable site:
www.metacritic.com/game/pc/cities-skylines
=P

Im not a reviewer, im a consumer hoping to help others :D

[😒]

This isn't a review, it's a hitjob. Worth $5, haha, sure thing bro.

[fayceless]

Personally, I won't commit to making a judgement on this game after 14 hours played. I need more time, but so far I'm enjoying it - aside from the bugs with parks and commercial demand.