While CitiesXL makes a bunch of glorified promises, much of it remains an unrealized possibility. In fact, it looks more like a standard city builder this side of SimCity with a lot of potential for revolutionizing the genre – in the future, that is.
Like other city building simulations, you take the role of a near-omnipotent city mayor, fashioning infrastructure and other city elements. Construction efforts on the game centers around zoning, so a well-planned layout should prove best.
Gameplay, for the most part, is geared towards those inexperienced in city building games. Single player mode centers around 25 sandbox cities in five different regions, scattered all over the globe. Rather than having specific goals (like achieving certain levels of prosperity, etc.), the focus is all about laying out your cities and making them as successful as you can. Everything is unlocked from the onset, too.
The cities themselves look quite realistic, but the overall effect is rather bland, largely because there’s absolutely no life to be seen – no traffic, no pedestrians and absolutely nothing going on. Game UI is well-laid out and quite intuitive, but the lack of any real challenges (it takes time to prosper, but you’ll eventually get there) kind of makes it all feel pointless.
CitiesXL’s biggest innovation is the online component, which lets you situate your city in a huge online world. At the moment, though, it’s just like solo play – there’s nothing to do beyond build cities and explore them. There is no relationship between mayors, for instance, beyond swapping the occasional token. Developer Monte Cristo promises a lot of added components for the future, though – but it simply isn’t that enticing at its current state.
Overall, it’s a decent city builder if you like the actual construction aspect of the game. If you’re looking for more varied gameplay components, though, you best just move along – there’s nothing to see here.
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