Cities: Skylines - First Impressions

So yesterday evening, I sat down to start what seems to latest version of video game crack: Cities: Skylines. Then, at 4am, I suddenly realised that I forgot to go to bed, and then instead of actually going to bed, I decided my new metropolis needed bus routes up the wazoo! So it's good. It's forget your dinner and neglect your children good!

Looking at some of the other Steam reviews, the comparison to both SimCity and the Cities series. Many centuries ago, I remember thoroughly enjoying SimCity, so last year I went ahead and bought the latest SimCity, which was an utter disappointment: I ended up giving up on the game after just a couple of hours. However, I'm a great fan of citybuilders (Anno 2070 taught me that much), and I did really enjoy the Cities XL series.

Cities:Skylines, plays very much like a simplified version of Cities XL 2012 (which is the last one I played), which has it's pros and it's cons. What I like is that they've simplified the city zoning structure so you don't need to micromanage between low, middle and upper class housing, instead relying on low and high density zones and a levelling, which works pretty well. One of the main things I really enjoyed about Cities XL was the ability to trade with AI towns and other towns that you have built, allowing maps to become connected, which allows you to make towns tailored to a certain need, so you can export it to other towns. Trade is present in Cities: Skylines, but it is entirely automated and you cannot trade between maps, which is a little disappointing. If you enjoy city building with a high degree of micromanagement, I'd probably recommend the Cities XL series over this, but the simplification does make Cities: Skylines easier to play. I'll cover everything when I do a full review (I am currently ill and cannot speak).

Overall, Cities: Skylines has made positive inroads with the concept, providing a great fun and easy to use piece of software. Any game that makes me forget to eat, drink and sleep is definitely a worthy investment. At almost half the price of most current titles, I can see a lot of bang for your buck! Hopefully, I'll be back next week to do a proper review!