Recent reviews by will

wtf do you mean no hdr support?

Melted my Steam Deck 10/10

(fr it's actually a miracle that thing can even run the game at more than 5fps at all)

I like that I can recommend a game you can't even buy anymore. Anyway I'm just here to flex that I own the superior version of this game.

I really liked CS1, spent over 800 hours on it and spent an assload on DLC, but I always felt the vanilla game had some limitations, and while modding helped, it required a lot of time and effort to make things look good. So does CS2 solve these issues? Some of them yes, but they managed to screw up a bunch of other things.

The new road tools are the best thing the new game does and allow for the same level of road building as modded CS1, but with far less effort and time. The new buildings look much nicer and are far more consistent than CS1's vanilla ones.

Performance is playable, but I had to lower the graphics settings. (Ryzen 3600 RTX 2070)

There's also a lot of attention to detail things that are missing that CS1 had but I cba to list at the moment.

The simulation isn't just inadequate, it's a downgrade from CS1's. I could list all the bugs and issues people have had, but other reviews have already covered that, so I'll sum it up as simulation feels utterly disconnected to what you're building, which is even more annoying when you consider that CS1 was actually okay in this regard.

The solution to traffic jams in CS1 was to use the pathfinder tool to find where cims were going and where the bottlenecks were, they removed it in CS2 and have flat out said they won't re-add it. I suspect the reason for this is because if they did it would reveal how broken the "simulation" actually is.

Although the road builder is great there is no smooth slope tool like the fine road anarchy mod had, this is a minor complaint and could easily be fixed with an update.

Another issue is the way buildings affect terrain, a crematorium just flattens the land, having visited an IRL crematorium I can assure you this is definitely not how they work. The grid system also hasn't been improved since CS1, so we can't have nice connected EU buildings.

Then there's mod support, for some reason Paradox is ditching the Steam workshop for their own service, which could have questionable longevity and support. Mod support was coming shortly after release[forum.paradoxplaza.com], there still isn't official mod support after 3 months, but the beta will be starting soon™.

Do I regret buying this game? No, I got plenty of time out of it and I really enjoyed playing with the road tools, plus I got it from a dodgy key reseller so I didn't pay full price, if I did pay full price I'd be pretty pissed. I also think that if you are a hardcore CS1 player, you will probably find some fun in this.

Honestly I have little faith for the future of this game, Paradox seem to be more interested in saying "it is what it is" than sorting out all the bugs and design issues, making CS2 a glorified city painter, something that modded CS1 was already really good at if you could be bothered to invest the time. Maybe I'm wrong, maybe they will fix the simulation, or more likely a modder will, in which case this would make a good base for an amazing city builder.

The greed and rushed development may have got Paradox a quick profit, but it has resulted in a base game with fundamental flaws that cannot be patched out, and while they may have the money of suckers like me now, we are less likely to stick around and buy the DLCs, which are the real cash cow. As Gaben said, "Late Is Just For A Little While, Suck Is Forever".

Right now, at full price? God no, wait for a sale, 50% would be justified for a city builder enthusiast, 80% for anyone else.

Makes my gmod textures work, 10/10.

Gets as many updates as TF2 right now.

I would say I'm upset that GTA Online no longer works on Linux/Steam Deck, but I'm not because GTA Online hasn't been worth playing for years.

Singleplayer is good though.

Almost as good as the original.

This game really brings back what made the original so great.

The optimisation is almost as good as Cyberpunk 2077.

The graphics make Minecraft Story Mode look photorealistic.

The plot is almost as good as a home video with your stepsister.

My only complaint is that they removed the 1240X resolution option that defined the old game. Fix this now.

This is as much a good game as 1240x is an existant resolution.

Still, £1 to annoy 5 people is a good deal.

This game provokes a varity of lines:

• "My car exploded."
  
• "My plane exploded."
  
• "My GimpMobile exploded."
  
• "My bike fell over... and exploded."
  
• "I just landed my plane by crashing it into the airport."
  
• "I just hit the skybox... in a boat!"
  
• "Why does driving my car down the hill backwards give it more traction."
  
• "I beat two monster trucks up a desert hill in a sports car."
  
• "My Firetruck's on fire."