Cities: Skylines 2 Review

What We Said About The Original Cities: Skylines

The original Cities: Skylines, released in 2015, was lauded for its impressive simulation of urban life and ease of construction. It provided an engaging experience of managing a city’s growth and development without overly complex mechanics. Players appreciated the intuitive tools and the beautiful visualization of their sprawling metropolises. While not without its quirks, the original game focused on providing a foundational experience where players could easily construct and manage populations and resources. This emphasis on a clean, straightforward design made it accessible to newcomers and enjoyable for long-term city builders.

Score: 8.5*

*iGV now scores on a 10-point scale instead of 100. To convert to the current system, ignore the second number.

The score of 8.5 for the original game reflects a generally positive reception. It highlighted the game’s engaging features and vast scope but also acknowledged some areas needing improvement. The rating suggests a satisfying experience with room for improvement in specific technical elements.

What’s the best SimCity-like city builder?

Len’s Top 10 City Builders

This list prioritizes city builders with SimCity-like mechanics, offering a diverse range of gameplay experiences from grand scale urban planning to challenging resource management. It’s worth noting that subjective opinions vary on the “best” choice, depending on individual preferences for game complexity, detail, and gameplay mechanics. The list provides a snapshot of popular and well-regarded city builders in the genre.

Cities: Skylines 2 Review: A Mixed Bag

While Cities: Skylines 2 builds upon the foundations of its predecessor, it often feels like a step backward in terms of user-friendliness. It introduces engaging new features for economic management and realistic metropolises, but it also demands extensive terraforming and attention to detail to avoid visually undesirable results. This meticulous attention required is a contrast to the initial, more forgiving nature of the original. The game’s strengths are counterbalanced by its demanding nature, potentially sacrificing intuitive enjoyment in favor of more nuanced mechanics.

The House on Ugly Street

A significant drawback of Cities: Skylines 2 is the visual inconsistency between detailed, high-rise buildings and often shoddy low-density structures. Buildings frequently clip into the terrain, and elements like parking lots and dumpsters exhibit unrealistic placements. This issue contrasts sharply with the generally high-quality visual design of larger structures. The game’s commitment to visual detail in some areas is undermined by a lack of precision in others, especially in the fundamental building blocks of the city.

Killdozer

The pre-made maps within Cities: Skylines 2 present a significant challenge for players aiming for aesthetically pleasing cities. The maps frequently feature uneven terrain, requiring extensive terraforming to accommodate modern developments. While the terraforming tools are functional, the excessive amount of initial leveling needed stands in contrast to the relatively seamless building experience in the original game. This demanding preparation often overshadows the enjoyment of urban planning, transforming the game into a more complex and less approachable land sculpting simulator.

Civic Pride

Cities: Skylines 2 successfully incorporates realistic elements, creating a more nuanced city management experience. Introducing resource processing, intricate power grids, and realistic population interactions enhances the gameplay experience. The interplay of industry, resource management, and interconnected commerce adds depth to city-building, providing a satisfying level of detail and realism in the overall management process. This thoughtful implementation of realistic elements elevates the game beyond a simple city builder and invites players to consider the practical aspects of urban planning.

Small Town Girl

The larger scale of cities in Cities: Skylines 2 presents both benefits and drawbacks. While offering more realistic population and resource models, the increased size of city components, such as train stations and schools, often clashes with the practical limitations of urban environments. This disparity between ideal design and map limitations leads to frustration as players struggle to incorporate larger structures into their cities, particularly in smaller-scale maps. This highlights a disparity in the flexibility of the game between the grand vision and the practical limitations of the environment, underscoring the need for more balanced map designs or comprehensive support from future DLC and mods.

Conclusion

Cities: Skylines 2 presents a mixed bag. While innovative in its approach to realism and economic management, the game falters in its attention to detail in lower-scale structures, making it challenging for players aiming for aesthetically appealing cities. The high-quality visual presentation of larger buildings is sometimes incongruent with the less-than-ideal designs of smaller structures, creating an uneven experience for players. Though the core city-building mechanics are functional, the emphasis on detailed terraforming and careful resource management may not appeal to all players, and the game appears to lose some of the charm that was found in the original Cities: Skylines.