Welcome to our CHEATfactor Game Review of Cities Skylines. We review the game and then factor in how the available cheats affect the overall game experience. For better or worse, our reviews will help you decide whether or not to use cheats when playing the game.

After the disastrous launch of the "new" Sim City in 2013, the promises of Cities Skylines from Paradox Interactive and Colossal Order seemed almost too good to be true. Like a politician, it promised simple and easy to use tools that still challenge, gorgeous visuals and support for the modding community, everything it's predecessor failed to deliver. Amazingly, not only does the game succeed, it does so wildly, easily becoming one of the best city builders to be released in the last decade. It's quite possible though that the game delivers almost too much, filling the game with loads of busy work rather than features that fans of the genre have loved for years, but this is undoubtedly not only a great city building game, it's a great platform that's still growing and shows no signs of slowing down.

Skylines works from an almost conventional place, and that's kind of the point. If you've ever stepped foot in any of The Sim City games of the past, you're likely to be at home here. Colossal Order has seemingly crafted their experience from the DNA of the genre standard bearer at least in look and approach, but definitely not in scope. Whereas the small maps were a major piece of contentment for a lot of players in 2013's Sim City, it definitely won't be here. You'll start out most maps with a small parcel of land and little else. There's a connection to a highway near and usually some sort of fresh water source. As your city starts to grow and you reach population milestones (your success is nearly always measured by how much your population grows here) you'll have the opportunity to purchase more land to meet the needs of your growing city, and there's plenty of land to go around. Those looking to really sink their time into a game will love the massive scale of Skyline's maps.

While you can't edit the terrain on maps while building, there's a pretty robust map editor build into Cities Skylines. It was clear, even on the day of the game's release that the community would be fully invested in the modding capabilities of the game with just how many new maps sprung so quickly. There are maps for real world cities like Helsinki and New York City and even maps for cities like Los Santos from Grand Theft Auto V. Players are even starting to create their own items and building types to throw into their city and it's fascinating to see what they come up with. There's no question that it's here that the legacy of Cities Skylines will truly be established as people get more used to the game.

In terms of building, Skylines finds a happy medium between accessibility and complexity. You can easily create and define entire sections of your city with one click. Want that corner to be residential? Just click the right tool and the entire row starts filling up with houses. There are a ton of different options to choose from right from the start too, like different road types (yes, there are curved roads here and they're glorious) and what type of sectors you want. I loved spending hours just tinkering with my city, something that I never felt like the latest Sim City let me do, just waste time in developing. You can even zoom in further to your city and see details on specific neighborhoods, buildings and even people. Your cities are truly alive, and the developers have done a great job making that all feel rewarding very early on in the game.

That's great and all, but Skylines also has the tendency to fill your time with what can really only be considered busy work. To say that the game let's you get detailed with your new cities is a major understatement. Want to regulate the smoking detector usage for the business district in your city? Well, you can...if you really want. I get that there are some series diehards who are sure to love the choice of getting this complex with the game, but as someone who plays these games to see how massive of a city I can create, being forced to plan out how my water pipes will run to certain areas was an almost painstakingly boring task. Then there's the problem of traffic, which I, and as I keep reading more about the game, a lot of people who are playing Skylines are still trying to really figure out how to fix.

The game comes with a handy fake in-game twitter that let's you see what your citizens think about how well you're doing your job as Mayor. They'll tell you what they think your city needs, and what it doesn't. That's the thing though, you almost have to actively try to lower your approval rating. Even when not really delivering on what my citizens were saying that I needed, I never saw my rating go below fair, and I never really had any major things I absolutely needed to address urgently. That's really the game's biggest problem, once you build your city the way you want, the game is kind of boring. Save for a few fires that don't spread to other houses and are easily put out, nothing really happens in your city. There are no zombie outbreaks, alien invasions or even natural disasters like tornados or earthquakes. I understand the want for this to be a city builder first but coping with disasters and rebuilding after is a huge part of the genre that I believe is missing here, and hopefully it's added in a later update.

I usually don't like to compare two games from the same genre, but it's almost unavoidable here. Cities Skylines delivers on almost all of it's promises and finally begins to wash the terrible taste of the last disastrous launch out of our mouths. It may over-deliver a bit, but what's the harm in a game giving you too many things to do really? Fans of the genre will love nearly everything that this new entry has to offer, now let's just hope that the developers keep adding to it.