UPDATE: The game added a launcher. Is it a little annoying? Eh, kinda. But holy hell, it changes literally nothing. Love how people are going to absolutely destroy a game's reputation over a launcher. Get real.



I must say, I grew up on Simcity. The first PC game I ever played was Simcity 2000. City building games are just who I am.

Ever since EA produced that horrendous excuse for a Simcity game, I resorted to this game. At first, I viewed it as a bit overwhelming. "What?! I can build highways and customize exits and train lines and road systems?!" It all seemed like it was too much.

Until I played it.

Over a thousand hours later, this game still doesn't bore me. After messing around with the vanilla game, I looked into mods, and more mods, and even more mods. I attempted to create a map. I built many a city, some of them thriving, and some of them just...well, we don't speak of them.

I won't say that this game doesn't have it's issues. The vanilla game itself is rather bland in terms of visuals, and the music is subpar at best. There are the occasional graphical bug and terrain issue that makes things look ugly, but the latter is just a cosmetic thing. Paradox also seems to want to keep pumping out DLCs, some of them a bit more expensive than what they're worth (I have bought quite a few of the DLCs, and some of them are wonderful and fully worth it, but others aren't. This is just an opinion, but I suggest looking deep into each expansion and see if you really want it.) That being said, with most DLC releases, Paradox also releases a free update for everyone, including something cool, i.e. day/night cycle for everyone when After Dark DLC was released.

Meanwhile, this game does a wonderful job simulating traffic and growth, with the bigger cities essentially needing mass transit. You have a lot of control with how you set up roads, and total control with a few simple mods. The game, although lacking a bit in visuals, is very detailed in the simulation department.

The community is also amazing. There are hundreds of thousands of mods, assest, color corrections, and bug fixes out there for one to stumble across and download via the Steam Workshop, which is fully integrated into the game. One can easily recreate their local city in the game with community made assests, and if for some reason a certain assest isn't on the workshop, one can easily make it and upload it. If that's not for you, there are tons of helpful content creators that would gladly have a go at creating assests.

To put it all in a list:

PROS:
-Gives you a lot of control
-Not to complicated
-Great simulation
-Friendly community
-Tons of mods
-Steam Workshop integration
-Quite replayable

CONS:
-Not the best graphics, but mods can improve that.
-Subpar music/audio
-Can be buggy at times, though not game-breaking
-Tons of DLC, some overpriced
-Can be VERY CPU and GPU intensive, and will take A LOT of RAM. Like, tons of it.

Overall, I think this is a wonderful game. It redefined what a city builder should be like, and will continue to be my absolute favourite city builder out there.