What would you do if you were the mayor of a major city for a day? We're sure it's a question that Boris Johnson asks himself every morning, while dragging a bramble-clump through his ridiculous hair.
We bet he displays a moment of confusion, before responding: "Hang on, chaps. What's going on? I am the bally mayor. B'wof b'wof b'wof. That's... I mean, it's... that's... isn't it? Bally good luck with that, eh, Boris old chap. I'm going to dangle upside-down off a balcony with my bally trousers round my ruddy ankles while kissing a flag, what. B'wah-ha-b'wah-b'woff!"
And then... his gaze hardens - just for a moment. A microsecond nanoflicker of something behind the eyes. A cold, chilling, intellect that suggests this might all be an act, a mask, a calculated falsehood - the look of a man who might go out of his way to drown somebody for being working class. But it's gone before you can get a clear fix. And then? And then Boris mumbles something about "ruddy jolly Tory boobies", accidentally steps on a rake, and falls back onto a bulb horn. HONK!
Cities: Skylines is a game where you, and others like you, can live out your disgusting mayoral fantasies without suffering the indignity of being a wretched toff.
We bet he displays a moment of confusion, before responding: "Hang on, chaps. What's going on? I am the bally mayor. B'wof b'wof b'wof. That's... I mean, it's... that's... isn't it? Bally good luck with that, eh, Boris old chap. I'm going to dangle upside-down off a balcony with my bally trousers round my ruddy ankles while kissing a flag, what. B'wah-ha-b'wah-b'woff!"
And then... his gaze hardens - just for a moment. A microsecond nanoflicker of something behind the eyes. A cold, chilling, intellect that suggests this might all be an act, a mask, a calculated falsehood - the look of a man who might go out of his way to drown somebody for being working class. But it's gone before you can get a clear fix. And then? And then Boris mumbles something about "ruddy jolly Tory boobies", accidentally steps on a rake, and falls back onto a bulb horn. HONK!
Cities: Skylines is a game where you, and others like you, can live out your disgusting mayoral fantasies without suffering the indignity of being a wretched toff.
EA'VE YOURSELF
There's a certain irony about the timing of Cities: Skylines, given that it arrives in the wake of Electronic Arts throttling the studio behind its SimCity franchise (arguably a mercy killing, given the recent southward direction of that series).
There's nothing that radical, or even particularly original, in Cities: Skylines. Indeed, most of the features you will have seen before - and most of them in SimCity. The process of creating your heaving conurbation is, in many respects, identical to the way we did it back when Maxis first invented the genre.
In short: you already know what a city management game is about, and the genre isn't being stretched into radical new territory here; lay down roads, and infrastructure, and districts, and zones, and juggle finances. Build a city/don't let it fail. That's the game.
It's just that Cities: Skylines implements all those elements far, far better than any recent SimCity effort, and better still - for those of us still whining about EA's failed online experiment - it's a pretty pure offline experience. No bells. No whistles. Just hot, sweaty, city-raising action.
WHAT DOES CITIES: SKYLINES GET RIGHT?
What Cities: Skylines really gets right is that its scale and complexity are so damned accessible. It's incredibly easy to play, and an oddly instinctive experience for veterans of the genre. It succeeds in being deep without feeling like you're choking on a stack of spreadsheets.
There are a few wobbly moments, but we couldn't entirely work out whether they were down to us being rubbish, or quirks of the game. Basically, no matter what we did, traffic jams seemed unavoidable (often trapping essential services within them), and we'd frequently end up with derelict areas, however carefully we managed them. But, we guess, that's the challenge. Rome wasn't erected in a day. So to speak.
We suppose it still seems a shame that EA should have so ballsed up one of its key franchises, and that it's been left to a relatively small studio to show them how it should be done. Plus, there's part of us that always feels a bit baffled when a game is released and gets unanimously heralded as brilliant - as Cities: Skylines seems to be - while clearly being a fairly blatant rip-off.
But shameless "borrowing" or not, there was a painfully obvious gap in the market for a SimCity-like game that worked. Cities: Skylines is that game. Hurrah for the tiny little guys what done it.
There's a certain irony about the timing of Cities: Skylines, given that it arrives in the wake of Electronic Arts throttling the studio behind its SimCity franchise (arguably a mercy killing, given the recent southward direction of that series).
There's nothing that radical, or even particularly original, in Cities: Skylines. Indeed, most of the features you will have seen before - and most of them in SimCity. The process of creating your heaving conurbation is, in many respects, identical to the way we did it back when Maxis first invented the genre.
In short: you already know what a city management game is about, and the genre isn't being stretched into radical new territory here; lay down roads, and infrastructure, and districts, and zones, and juggle finances. Build a city/don't let it fail. That's the game.
It's just that Cities: Skylines implements all those elements far, far better than any recent SimCity effort, and better still - for those of us still whining about EA's failed online experiment - it's a pretty pure offline experience. No bells. No whistles. Just hot, sweaty, city-raising action.
WHAT DOES CITIES: SKYLINES GET RIGHT?
What Cities: Skylines really gets right is that its scale and complexity are so damned accessible. It's incredibly easy to play, and an oddly instinctive experience for veterans of the genre. It succeeds in being deep without feeling like you're choking on a stack of spreadsheets.
There are a few wobbly moments, but we couldn't entirely work out whether they were down to us being rubbish, or quirks of the game. Basically, no matter what we did, traffic jams seemed unavoidable (often trapping essential services within them), and we'd frequently end up with derelict areas, however carefully we managed them. But, we guess, that's the challenge. Rome wasn't erected in a day. So to speak.
We suppose it still seems a shame that EA should have so ballsed up one of its key franchises, and that it's been left to a relatively small studio to show them how it should be done. Plus, there's part of us that always feels a bit baffled when a game is released and gets unanimously heralded as brilliant - as Cities: Skylines seems to be - while clearly being a fairly blatant rip-off.
But shameless "borrowing" or not, there was a painfully obvious gap in the market for a SimCity-like game that worked. Cities: Skylines is that game. Hurrah for the tiny little guys what done it.
SUMMARY: Basically, it's SimCity done right.
SCORE: 88,000,001 out of 100,000,007
SCORE: 88,000,001 out of 100,000,007
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