2019-06-01_PC_Gamer

Let’s remain positive. Starting again is
a great opportunity – it feels fresh
and clean, like a Christmas deodorant
set. I’m excited because so much has
been added in my absence: toll roads,
tourists, historical buildings;
invigorating prospects
for a town that won’t
be worth visiting and
that has no buildings to
preserve. Bolstered by
this fresh promise, I
embark on a new
adventure. Welcome to
Fiasco Parks!
My vision is
‘Hobbiton meets Shoreditch’ – an
environmentally-friendly leafy utopia
crammed with artisan coffee shops. I
commit to green energy, which
makes me feel fantastic – my subjects
love it, if only because they can watch
reality TV again. But the subtleties of
plumbing elude me. And by
‘subtleties’ I mean that I forget that
the sewage and fresh water pipes

I

’ve played Cities: Skylines before, but it’s been years. The town I
created, named Disappointment, was the classic hamfisted first
attempt: miserable, tangled roads, inefficient waterworks, and a
populace on the brink of civil unrest. I’m excited to go back. But we
have to start with good and bad news. The good news is nobody in
my town is unhappy anymore. The bad is it’s because I lost the save and
Disappointment no longer exists.

can’t bisect each other. I bulldoze

everything so I can start again –

although I’m not sure how you

bulldoze a pipe – before I run out of

money. The problem is clearly that

I’ve dreamed too big, which is

shorthand for ‘I’ve built

everything too far

apart’. Only one option

remains – I abandon

Fiasco Parks and

embark on a new

adventure. Misery Glen

is born from the

sewage-soaked ashes of

my first city.

Using everything I’ve learned

from my previous attempt I build a

tidy little town by the river, compact

and dense like canned tuna. There’s a

wind farm on the hill, so everyone

can look up and feel smug about

themselves. And it’s around now that

I also discover that yes, pipes can

bisect, and sewage and freshwater

can run in the same special tubes

without the residents bathing in crap.

Fiasco Parks died for no reason, then,

but we shall not mourn her. The

wheelofprogressdemandssacrifice.

MiserylovescoMpany

Misery Glen is more of a hamlet than

a city, but I love it – more so when I

realise that I can zoom in and rename

individual streets, giving my residents

a whole new reason to hate me. This

level of micromanagement is ideal for

glib jokes, which makes me feel

better about my rotten little borough

when I compare it to the glittering

metropoles people have built online.

In fact, Cities: Skylines is so crisp and

enjoyable that there’s a danger of me

not playing the other games for this

feature. (If I make a joke about waste

disposal in The Lion’s Song, you’ll

know why.) It’s the sort of game that

makes me wonder why I ever

stopped playing, before I realise it’s

3am and all I can think about is

whether an efficient grid structure

makesacitylesscharacterful.

NeedtoKNow

What is it?

The most

comprehensive city

buildingsimavailable

EXPECttOPaY

£23

DEvElOPEr

ColossalOrderLtd

PublishEr

ParadoxInteractive

rEviEWEDOn

Intel Core i7-7700 CUP

@ 3.60GHz, 16 GB RAM,

NVIDIA GeForce GTX

1070,Windows 10

MultiPlaYEr

No

link

https://store.

steampowered.com/

app/255710/

Cities_Skylines/

90

My early attempts

might have failed,

but these days

Cities: Skylines

is better than ever.

vErDiCt

Urban OUtfitter

Learning why Rome wasn’t built in a day in Cities:sKyliNes

MiseryGlen is

born from the

sewage-soaked

ashes of my

first city

oldgameSreviSitedbymatthewelliott

thEY’rE baCk

Yeah well maybe you suck,

Stephanie Brown #burn