Cities: Skylines from Paradox Interactive and Tantalus is a great city-building sim that is a blast to play on PS4. Learn more in our Cities: Skylines review!
The first thing to do before you get to building stuff will be to select the map you’ll be playing in, the name of your city, and if there is regular traffic or left-hand – you know, for that extra bit of realism. Each of the available maps will have some valuable information for you to check on the right-hand side of the screen, which you need to consider so that you can plan accordingly. Not doing so will make you feel frustrated – for your own mistakes – since some areas are more suitable for particular build styles and themes.
There are four main natural resources you need to take into consideration before you decide which map you’re going to select to start building your city: oil, ore, fertile land, and forests. On top of this, you should also consider how much water you have available for your city. All of this will be represented by a set of bars that will be filled up at different ranges in a bright sky blue. There is also some extra information at the bottom, detailing what outside connections a city can have, the overall base theme, and the percentage for the suitable area on which you can actually build your city.
Step one in your plans will be to build some roads since you won’t be able to set up any buildings until they are connected to roads. Since you’ll also have to deal with potential residents, buildings will also need to be properly supplied with water and electricity, unless you like to have unhappy people or buildings that don’t perform their usual services activities on schedule. Having an inefficient city or one where its population is not the happiest bunch in the area will only slow down your progress, or straight-up prevent you from making any progress at all!
The city you are going to build will require many services that all need to function properly for your location to grow and grow – not to mention to have a peaceful city! Because of this you will need to consider building things such as a fire department, a police department, hospitals to provide healthcare, public transportation routes, leisure areas where the population can unwind and relax, business districts, garbage collection routes, balance the tax you’ll impose on businesses and on residential properties, and more.
You’ll need to establish different zones for the areas on which new buildings are to spawn. Residential zones, as expected, will provide housing for your citizens. Commercial zones will be great for businesses to flourish, offering shopping and areas of leisure for your population, as well as for those that might come and visit your city. Industrial and office areas will provide jobs for your citizens while producing goods that can then be sold by businesses in commercial areas. Along with zoning, you can also set up districts to provide a specialization for that particular area.
As you can see, there’s a ton of things for you to do for even the most basic of cities, and even if you start out slow, the amount of stuff you have to take care of to have a happy population is considerable. The fact that such a complex game – that very much benefits from a mouse and keyboard control setup on PC – was ported to the PlayStation 4 while keeping all functionality and the same fun factor is something that should be applauded, since for many generations plenty of sim-style games have failed at getting the balance just right. Other than some framerate hiccups when things get rather hectic after your city has grown to a considerable size, there is not much to complain about Cities: Skylines.
There are different DLC packs available for the game, and if all goes according to plan, I’ll be reviewing them at a slow but steady pace to let you know what they offer on top of the base content that Cities: Skylines has to offer, how said DLC impacts the main game experience, if it includes any additional trophies for trophy hunters to add to their count. First up will probably be the Campus Expansion DLC, available on PlayStation 4 for $12.99, which adds the option for adding different universities and other school-related content into the mix.
A short Platinum run this won’t be, due to the game’s nature. While there is the option of activating unlimited money, unlocking all milestones, and having unlimited soil, oil, and ore for your builds, doing so will void any trophies, so trophy hunters won’t be making any progress towards the many trophies you can unlock. As for the trophies, they’re split into 22 Bronze, 9 Silver, and 5 Gold trophies. The objectives you’ll have to complete are varied, with things such as increasing your cities population, purchasing an additional map tile to expand your city, reviewing all the info panels, building different monuments, establishing different transport lines, earning a ton of money each week, and more.
Cities: Skylines is a very addictive city-building sim on PlayStation 4. The first time I started to play the game for this review, I didn’t realize three hours had passed as I took notes on what was going on. The second time I took the game for a spin, another four hours went by in a blink. And once I increased the game’s speed in full, I was busy for a while solving all the issues that come along with a city that continues to grow and grow in population, with an increasing list of needs I had to fulfill.
Disclaimer
This Cities: Skylines review is based on a PlayStation 4 copy provided by Paradox Interactive.
