I first played Cities Skylines way back in 2015, when it was first released on PC. That was seven years ago. It was back when I had a whole game room big enough to house a giant desk for a giant gaming PC. I also had way more free time to tinker with PC gaming. As you may have guessed, this was a time before we had a child.
These days are very different. I'm a console gamer again. And my setup lately is kind of unique. Lately, I actually have my PS5 set up on a shelf in an end table next to the couch. It's run through an external capture card, and I do my gaming on a 15.6" chromebook. It might sound weird, but it's just what works for our life. This way, I'm able to play on a decently large and nice looking 1080p monitor, without hogging the TV every night. It's basically the allure of Switch or Steamdeck, but feels more like a console experience than a handheld. But I digress. Back in 2015, Cities Skylines was easily one of my favorite games. I truly played the hell out of it. I guess I found myself feeling nostalgia, because I downloaded it on PS5 and figured I'd see how the game handled on a console. To my pleasant surprise, it turns out it plays exceptionally well. Of course a really deep city builder like Cities Skylines is nothing like riding a bike. There's a lot of things to keep track of and you really need to pace yourself, lest you watch your city burn to the ground in no time flat. Take for example my first town, Rennmont. Basically, I immediately blew through my budget constructing as much as I could way too quickly. I carved out whole neighborhoods and business areas. I also forgot that laying pipes for plumbing also costs money. And before I knew it, the entirety of Rennmont was drowning in their own poop. I wanted to fix it, but I was going further and further into the red. It takes money to make money, and Rennmont was on the verge of bankruptcy. I was too proud to take a bailout, so I instead I just watched as the poop-covered residents of Rennmont made a mass exodus, leaving me with a horrible smelling ghost town. My second city, Rockfield fared much better. I took things way slower, and that pays off big time. I took my time, starting with a small neighborhood, then an expansion to downtown stores, then a more removed section of industrialization. I paced myself, making small improvements not unlike making wider and wider circles in a zen garden. I looked up at the clock and three hours had passed, and I was now going to be running on a sleep deficit the next morning. And every night this week, things went just about the same way. Each side of the city got their own elementary school, and a high school was situated more centrally. Rockfield got a fire department, police station, and a taxi service. Then I started zoning. I worked to keep any pollution away from housing by placing a swath of parking lots around the industrial buildings. I built some parks. The high school neighborhood was endowed a lovely library, and some basketball and tennis courts. I've spent a lot of time in menus. And I love it. The tiniest tweaks to the budget require a great deal of thought from me. I'd love to have a city occupied with intelligent, educated, well-read individuals. Of course, keeping the citizens happy is a bigger priority. If everyone leaves, then I have no city to care for. And no income. Towards the water, there's a section of town that appears to be, well snobby. I gave them a dog park and a Japanese garden. I gave them a secluded area by the water, but surrounded by trees to drown out noise and light pollution. And yet they got mad when I put in a wind turbine. This is the tug of war with citizens' happiness level. Everyone wants nice things, but nobody wants their taxes to increase. You can argue that city builders are microcosms of economics and by extension, politics. But I don't exactly play it that way. Actually, it's quite the contrary. A game like Cities Skylines is an easy escape from the real world around us. It is all about little tiny changes to constantly try to improve the world. It's about creating order out of chaos. It is the ultimate relaxation game for me. Perhaps the most soothing thing about Cities Skylines is its audio design. I mean, my god. I can't think of anything in a video game that lulls me so hardcore as when I zoom in on some little patch of the city and just listen to the ambient chatter of the citizens mixed with the sounds of passing cars and stray birds chirping. It's the kind of noise I could fall asleep to. Once you hit your stride, a lot of the challenge drops off. You just intuit how to deal with a given situation. People getting sick? Too many houses burning down? Water pollution? You've got this. There's always a solution, and as long as you've got the income rolling in to deal with it promptly, any setback should be minor. But that's the zen garden I was talking about. In short, I love Cities Skylines. I love it a lot. I should probably check out the sequel soon. I can't imagine how they could improve on this formula, but I'm keen to find out.
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