Recent reviews by Mini

This is by far the most satisfying game I've ever played to date. The concept is so simple when you boil it down to the raw mechanics. Simply move a product to a machine which makes new products. But in that simplicity it opens up the freedom of exploration and creativity. You can focus on building things a million different ways. Constantly tweaking the designs to get a better more efficient system going.

This feels like an absolute joke. A slap in the face to anyone who has owned the previous Cities game. After a short time playing this, I've really not noticed much different at all. The only differences being the change of colour in the UI, and possibly more formatting options when 'zoning' for buildings.

Drawing of roads still feels the same as it was. the curves of the roads are very angular and only really feel smooth on large winding roads. Combined with the zoning of buildings, which just seem to be square ploppable things, it makes the curved roads, and lining things up on them feel awkward at best, leading to frustrating at some occasions.

As far as other mechanics go, they all seem pretty much the same as they were before. Resource mechanics boil down to rather abstract quantities which can make it a little hard to judge how much of a deficit or surplus you have in a resource. With the resource layers also appearing to be static as well. Placing a building just seems to consume a radius around it rather than extract the resources over time makes it feel that it's something you can just plop and abandon without much thought to it. If resource production/extraction was dynamic based on various factors then I feel it would have presented more of a challenge, especially for later on in the game.

Even the placing of services doesn't offer much interaction as far as I can tell. It appears to me that by placing one it just offers a set bonus over a radius, I've not really seen much that changes this. I think the density of road affects how far it projects, but beyond that, I can't really tell. There's no real information as to who is using the services, how often they use them, and how easy it is to access them etc. I can't help but hark back to SimCity4, which at least offered some information as to the quality of the service, and how many were using it.

I suppose this one is more of an optional gripe into how the game works, and always has. But the zoning for people is split through tiers. So you can place rich people where you want, and poor people elsewhere. Although this is nice if you're going for a tailor-made city. It makes the game lose quite a chunk of the organic city growth feeling. I always felt that the people that lived in an area, should reflect how that area grows and develops, and in turn it should visually change to represent that. Be it becoming some crime infested slums, or millionaire mansions and parks.

I know they've had plenty of time to implement a lot more than what they have. It does raise questions as to why it feels as though so little has changed. There's been plenty of inspiration and discussion from various communities centred around city building games. Plus quite a nice amount of previous material to draw inspiration from! I just want to know why they felt that it had to all be the same, despite it definitely having flaws from before.

I just don't feel I could ever recommend this game, even to new players if they're looking for something that is more deep and complex in managing a city.