A pretty good city builder game if you want to try something else than Sim City.

User Rating: 7 | Cities XL 2012 PC
Cities XL 2012 is the third iteration of the series. To clarify things, I did not play the previous ones, so this review is not based or influenced by their contents.

The last time I played a city builder like this, it was in early 2000's and it was Sim City 4. However, as soon as I jumped in this game, it seemed so natural. The interface contains everything it needs and all is easily accessible. The buttons are easily recognizable, however when playing at 1920*1080, the text displayed beside them might be cut off. I did not try with lower ones, but I assume that it has not been tested with the higher ones.

Graphics look pretty nice. You can zoom in very close to objects, buildings and citizens. That is cool and that does not look as ugly as it was in the past. Expect to see textures load however when you do so. Also, I experienced some lag when my city grew up and I played a long time. However, the next time when I loaded my game, it was running correctly. I guess that there is a memory leak. So, you might have to reboot when you find it too slow.

The music fits perfectly the mood of the game. It is quiet, slow, does not take too much place and is enjoyable. When you click on the buildings, the sounds effect are also good to hear.

There are plenty of messages and warnings to alert you of anything that occurs in your city. The beginners will probably like them. The more experienced players can disable them if they find them annoying.

On the downside, it happens often that when creating large zones of buildings that some of them will not be correctly connected to a road. So, you have to delete these specific building and rebuild them. So, pay special attention to the icons over the buildings, they are very useful.

Also, the trades with other cities need to be redone. They are very complicated to understand and are almost useless when trading with the default city. It cost so much money to trade with it that it becomes almost impossible to reach a positive budget. You almost need to create few cities and create specific resources in each of them and them import them in the cities that are in need.

I think that this game can be fun for beginners who find some new city builder games too complicated to start with. The experienced players will find his cons easily, but will be able to get over them and create some cool cities. Let's build!