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Better Late Than Never Review: Cities Skylines


Sim City is a game that needs no introduction.  The progenitor of an entire genre of games from which everything from the tycoon games, to the sims, to today's title can trace their lineage back to.  Cities skylines was free to play this last weekend on the Xbox One so I thought I’d give it a go and see if I am as bad at this one as I was at sim city back in 1997.

Now I’m going to preface this here with a bit of a disclaimer.  I’m playing the Xbox One version not the computer one.   This means that all the problems that usually happen with management titles on the console are probably going to be here and I’m going to complain about them even if they aren’t really present in all versions of the game.  Consoles have had a tenuous at best relationship with management games over the years but Halo Wars was playable and fun so they can get it right.

Right, now that that’s out of the way and I’m done with repeated words in this review we can talk about the game.  Like the game it’s a spiritual successor of you start out with a bunch of money and an open space from which to build off of.  You start off building roads which you can then zone areas off of.  There are the basic residential, commercial, and industrial options from the beginning with more as you progress in the game.  You also set up power and water for your city, keeping in mind that power lines can’t be built under and pipes can’t intersect.
 
The game is simple but has a fair bit of depth.  New buildings, features, and mechanics are unlocked as your city grows and it does so in a way that seems appropriate to the size of the city.  The concerns of a large city are different from those of a small town in the real world so reflecting that in mechanics is pretty cool.  The game also looks great.  An attention to detail is such that every building has a name and information.  The lighting of the game changes allowing you to experience your city in all parts of the day and I have to admit I caught myself simply starring at the lights the same way I sometimes admire Seattle. 

The game seems set up for the more literal rather than the figurative video game sandbox.  This is a mixed bag.  While some people will be content or excited to haphazardly built roads and zone neighborhoods at will I always find myself trying to lay down exactly straight roads and perfectly square.  Fortunately for both myself and those who are having fun this game works out well. 

There are, of course, some problems.  More often than not two perpendicular roads I would try to connect would refuse to do so or only do so after being destroyed and replaced.  Since you need roads to zone areas this is a bit of a problem. Just like in real life, poor planning can ruin a city’s future.  Putting yourself into a hole you won’t be able to claw out of.  Finally, and this might just be me, the pace of the game seemed slow.  The really fun buildings and features are only unlocked upon higher populations and whatever I tried I couldn’t really make the population increase any faster. 

The good:
-The cities you create really look and feel alive
-An impressive amount of freedom with the layout of your city

The bad:
-You can build yourself into a hole
-often two roads don’t want to connect.


All said Cities Skylines is still pretty fun and while I can’t quite recommend it, I do think I’ll check out the computer version.  While I actually didn't think the controller was that bad once I'd gotten into the right mindset for this game, I can see where a mouse would be faster in several spots.  Tighter controls as well as the expansions offered on PC might just make this the next thing I sink all my time into.  

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