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.

[Aytum]

0/10

This post belongs in the review section of the game, not the forum.

[boxman]

Half of the fun with these games for me is actually learning how things work and improving upon it with later city builds. That being said it is not really that hard to learn compared to the previous simcity titles or many of the other simulation games. In fact I wish it was a little bit harder as it is not as hard as the older sim city games.

I really dont get why people needs the game to hold their hand at every moment. For me the dumbing down of games takes away alot of the fun and challenge.

I really dont get how you expected to master the game after just a couple of hours of gameplay in this type of game.

If you want to see something that actually is hard to learn then look at cities in motion :P This game is nothing compared to that.

[Robotica]

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

Escrito originalmente por 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

no offense but how could making an ill informed review help others? You got to understand you are not actually making a review you are just spouting opinions based on your ignorance of the game. In reality you are actually hurting others because someone might read your review and not buy something they would of otherwise loved. And if the general consensus tells us anything its that this game is a success and worth its weight in gold.

[Tacticus Winter]

Escrito originalmente por 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.

After an hour of playing SimCity(2013) I had a full grown city making about 56k a month. Lol.

SimCity make's transitioning from a town to a city from a city to a megapolis fairly smooth and easy, here it's much much steeper. Even though it really shouldnt be given the tools you have at your disposal, it's just puzzling.

[anzacloner]

The game is dumbed down some compared to simcity.It is early days yet and I think the Devs have really done well.Simcity 2 was the best of their series, then they got into too much of what little Johnie is having for breakfast syndrome.There are some things in Skylines that are not as good yet as earlier SimCity games but I am quite sure the Devs will surpass all as they update and improve.As the great Albert stated , reality is only relative to the viewer.Cheers Pete.

[Tacticus Winter]

Escrito originalmente por Robotica:

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

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

no offense but how could making an ill informed review help others? You got to understand you are not actually making a review you are just spouting opinions based on your ignorance of the game. In reality you are actually hurting others because someone might read your review and not buy something they would of otherwise loved. And if the general consensus tells us anything its that this game is a success and worth its weight in gold.

Im only appealing to a certain group of people. Those of which who loved SimCity(2013) and SimCity 4. My review doesn't appeal to everyone.

[BonaFide]

2 hours played? You can't review this game after 2 hours.

Also this should be in the review section. Specifically what that section is made for. Now you just look like a fool.

[Fictional Hero]

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

Escrito originalmente por 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

2hours isnt long enough to unlock everything in the game. so maybe play it again and put your ea fanboy aside and enjoy it for what it is, instead of trying to compaire it to a failed game.

[olElLI]

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

Escrito originalmente por 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

Next time give the game more time before "helping" =)

[boxman]

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

Escrito originalmente por 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.

After an hour of playing SimCity(2013) I had a full grown city making about 56k a month. Lol.

SimCity make's transitioning from a town to a city from a city to a megapolis fairly smooth and easy, here it's much much steeper. Even though it really shouldnt be given the tools you have at your disposal, it's just puzzling.

And that is what destroyed the game for most of us.. If it is so easy and can be done so fast then there is really not much point playing it again. And that is why I only got like 10 hours of entertainment out of it versus simcity giving me 100s of hours of gameplay that made me come back to the game again and again.

[Freedom]

Awww, poor guy. So used to crappy worthless EA games that blind half dead monkeys can play in their sleep.

No worries mate, you can be sure EA will make a lot more for you.

[Tacticus Winter]

Escrito originalmente por boxman:

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

After an hour of playing SimCity(2013) I had a full grown city making about 56k a month. Lol.

SimCity make's transitioning from a town to a city from a city to a megapolis fairly smooth and easy, here it's much much steeper. Even though it really shouldnt be given the tools you have at your disposal, it's just puzzling.

And that is what destroyed the game for most of us.. If it is so easy and can be done so fast then there is really not much point playing it again. And that is why I only got like 10 hours of entertainment out of it versus simcity giving me 100s of hours of gameplay that made me come back to the game again and again.

The reason why SimCity mostly failed was because of the land restrictions and DRM.

Skylines doesn't help you transition from a town to a city or anything. Making you have to almost make entirely new cities then figuring out how to connect them.

[Tacticus Winter]

Escrito originalmente por Randall Flagg:

Awww, poor guy. So used to crappy worthless EA games that blind half dead monkeys can play in their sleep.

No worries mate, you can be sure EA will make a lot more for you.

I've only bought EA games that I knew were worth my money and I would like. Just a few examples: Bad Company 2, SimCity 4, Battlefield 3, Sims 3, Battlefield 4(post-release of course), Dragon Age Origins, Dragon Age Inquistion.

I havent bought any game that EA made for money grabs :)

If you say any of these games are below worth of a 5/10 or a terrible game.
You are nothing but a bandwagon EA hater.

[Tacticus Winter]

Escrito originalmente por olel:

Escrito originalmente por Tacticus:

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

Next time give the game more time before "helping" =)

I'm trying as hard as I can to give it more time :)

[olElLI]

Elaborate troll is elaborate.