Cities XL 2012

 PC
User Score
5.6

Mixed or average reviews- based on 98 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 23 out of 98
  2. Mixed: 46 out of 98
  3. Negative: 29 out of 98

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  1. vomov
    Nov 6, 2011
    1
    I've played the original Cities XL, which had significant promise. So, when Cities XL 2011 came out, I bought it right away, soon realizing that there were a few minor additions, but no improvements to the game, and no bugfixes. Severely disappointed, I chucked it in the cabinet, never to play again.
    Cities XL 2012 is... exactly the same. Some minor additions, no improvements, and the    I've played the original Cities XL, which had significant promise. So, when Cities XL 2011 came out, I bought it right away, soon realizing that there were a few minor additions, but no improvements to the game, and no bugfixes. Severely disappointed, I chucked it in the cabinet, never to play again.
    Cities XL 2012 is... exactly the same. Some minor additions, no improvements, and the original bugs are still there!

    For those unfamiliar with the problems, here's a personal summary in ascending order of annoyance:
    1) the game is badly balanced in terms of trading, making it ridiculously easy to come up with a profit. I.e.; no real challenge.
    2) the public transport-system is broken, resulting in no real value of busses or metro.
    3) the game suffers from a memory leak, making you restart the game every 30-odd minutes to keep on playing.
    4) and finally, the game DOES NOT SUPPORT MULTI-CORE ARCHITECTURES! I've got a pretty decent quad-core which can run anything from Theme Hospital to Crysis, but it struggles with Cities XL because it only utilizes a single core! This results in a very slow game, with seconds of delay between clicking a button and seeing a response. I find that to be a dealbreaker for a processor-heavy game.

    While the potential is clearly there, the bugs make the game unplayable, and as such I've applied for a refund (which I seem get, surprisingly).    … Expand
  2. dprkforum
    Feb 7, 2013
    3
    CitiesXL had some promise to be a half-way decent city builder. Things like outdated graphics, wonky interface and silly intros can be overlooked with the positives such as huge maps, multiple cities, and very intense management. Once the bugs become apparent such as the HUGE lag, you just want to click "uninstall" in the Steam client, which is exactly what I did. Now CitiesXL "Platinum"CitiesXL had some promise to be a half-way decent city builder. Things like outdated graphics, wonky interface and silly intros can be overlooked with the positives such as huge maps, multiple cities, and very intense management. Once the bugs become apparent such as the HUGE lag, you just want to click "uninstall" in the Steam client, which is exactly what I did. Now CitiesXL "Platinum" has been released. Instead of repackaging a mediocre game, why not address the severe bugs? it does not matter anyway; Sim City is due next month. I cannot wait.… Expand
  3. Phillippe
    Sep 20, 2012
    3
    Game value 7$;
    Played for 50 hours and can say this game is not at the level of Simcity (which came out a while ago). Although road can have any kind of shape, the system to built them is worst than Simcity. There are many type of road (too much) you can do, but each as it's own width so when you want to replace them you have to destroy the block or end with blank spaces. Regarding the    Game value 7$;
    Played for 50 hours and can say this game is not at the level of Simcity (which came out a while ago). Although road can have any kind of shape, the system to built them is worst than Simcity. There are many type of road (too much) you can do, but each as it's own width so when you want to replace them you have to destroy the block or end with blank spaces. Regarding the highway (which you get only at 500 000 people), is useless!!! You can only make transition from Expressway to Highway and there is simply no freeway entrance (as they were in Simcity). In addition, no road can goes above or below an highway. So you'll end with a strip of highway that will divide your city, thus not helping your traffic problem. The transition support 80 car vs the highway at 320 cars, do the math.
    Something that could have been nice is that you have to specialize your cities but to achieve this, you have to create many cites (estimate to 10) and you'll have to spend little time in each since you'll share ressources. If one is growing too much, it won't be able to share. This will cause bankruptcy in the current city and the other that was using resources from the original city. They went too far in this specilization since a city cannot be self-sufficient even though it has all the ressource.

    Regarding the user interface, for unknown reason they limited the panel to 6 items, then you'll have to click to see the next 6 and so on. So, once most of the feature are unlock, you are expanding your menu all the time.
    A set the 7$ price because I don't see beyond 500 000 people the goal, it becomes frustrating to play. You better try to create another city from zero. Regarding bugs, they are a few and the one that is a killer (maybe just for me), if you press ESC while the autosaving is trigger, the game crash.    … Expand
  4. Viljanen
    Oct 25, 2011
    3
    Cities XL series is a really promising successor for SimCity but unfortunately it suffers from really bad memory leak problems which make the game unenjoyable for me. It is a shame as there are not many city builder game available. With the introduction of modding tools in Cities XL 2012, the game really has potential for a classic but Focus has to focus on fixing the technical problems first.
  5. horseloverfat
    Dec 31, 2011
    1
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. This is what happens when a shrinkwrap software business concept is applied to a game, except you rebuy the updates at full price, and all the bugs stay: think EA sports minus the initial golden age. It's making me rethink my life, so I give it an extra point for total of 1. Either this publisher sans developer has a monopoly on city builders or people that like city-builders are as dumb as gamers get. SPOILER ALERT! It's virtually identical to Cities XL (2010).… Expand
  6. Embolism
    Oct 22, 2011
    3
    After playing for 20 hours now it seems like the game is the same thing as 2011 with some new textures and a good helping of bugs. Some of the new buildings are even bugged. If you play for more than an hour or so the game bogs down and a restart is needed, an issue that has stayed over from 2011. If you own a Cities XL or Sim City 4 already, don't bother.
  7. ArgonsGlade
    Jun 9, 2012
    0
    It really saddens me to see releases of video games that is in a really bad state, released by publishers that don't care about anything just money, who don't care about there customers and lacks care to address problems. Focus Home Interactive is the leading example of a publisher that doesn't care about the quality of a game and fans. It baffles my mind that their is three games yetIt really saddens me to see releases of video games that is in a really bad state, released by publishers that don't care about anything just money, who don't care about there customers and lacks care to address problems. Focus Home Interactive is the leading example of a publisher that doesn't care about the quality of a game and fans. It baffles my mind that their is three games yet nothing is fixed from previous releases. So.. (poor+bias alert) general knowledge would suggest that their was ever be one player in the city-management sim genre which is obviously Simcity. Its been ages since Simcity 4 and the failure of that god-forsaken game. In that period between the glorious return of Simcity fans would really have one choice if they ever wanted teh 3D graphics and modern glamour for a City sim. Cities XL could be a nice alternative but the people behind it have borked it. As its broken in many places so yeah for the future its failure to address the issues that's been complained about many "times" should't go unpunished Simcity is 2013 apparantly how will they respond? Oh, let's release another game with minor additions! Just don't buy the game from these guys srsly until they learn the harshest of lessons...… Expand
  8. barry2680
    Jun 16, 2012
    4
    The game does not support |HDMI cables... only single core utilisation, poor economy balance, badly optimised and horribly overhyped by its trailers. Behind all this however I can see a great game trying to break through of its poor developemnt. However don't be fooled by the look it's far worse than it seems.
  9. greenpLayer
    Oct 23, 2011
    4
    As a city management system, I would expect more complex logic in the development of the city.
    As a game, there are bugs, the graphics are plain ugly. Even the caption of buttons are not propertly aligned. The text effects are horrible. I really wonder if they could not afford a descent graphic artist to make the game look like its been developed in the 2010's. Plain disapointment.
  10. Qgal5kap
    Feb 9, 2013
    1
    This game shows so much promise, but it is hardly complete. Several features are unbalanced, and buggy. Bus routes tend to break down for no reason at all.

    The game itself gets super laggy after you reach higher population numbers. I run a watercooled i7@4GHz, with 24gigs of high speed ram, and an AMD 7970 GPU.
  11. KalanYamato
    Mar 26, 2013
    2
    With a game so broken and pitifully unchallenging, I uninstalled it as fast as I installed it. By the way, this game only uses a single core (so your other one or three or nine hundred don't go to use, making the game lag severely and making alt+tabbing impossible without crashing) and has alot more technical problems than just that.
  12. PhileasFogg
    Sep 7, 2012
    4
    Suffers from enough user interface issues that it just isn't fun. selection menu in bottom left corner is too small, hard to make precise placement for diligent designers who like games like this one. I gave it a 4 because I tried hard to like this game and to overcome the many interface issues. I was not successful, I have shelved the game for now, hopeing for a major update.
  13. voiders
    Apr 26, 2013
    2
    Avoid this game, dont buy it. The entire game looks and works like that is not professional. Have a lot of bug and the producers do not give attention for you.
  14. heime2003
    Nov 16, 2014
    4
    it starts with good concept and fresh approach to city building genre but executes poorly
    firstly, i have to mention the game looks better than most of other sim games
    up close all things look very detailed and pleasant to look at but without no simulation part to it, it feels meaningless quickly. for simulation part, it has severe flaws. the most annoying thing is leisure satisfaction    it starts with good concept and fresh approach to city building genre but executes poorly
    firstly, i have to mention the game looks better than most of other sim games
    up close all things look very detailed and pleasant to look at but without no simulation part to it, it feels meaningless quickly.
    for simulation part, it has severe flaws. the most annoying thing is leisure satisfaction level is always low even though i keep building parks and leisure building all around map.
    also city doesnt feel like its living world. even with 0.2 million people, my city feels like dead
    i think its from weak simulation. framemate problem is another minus of this game
    pro:
    -graphic is one of the best in city builders
    cons:
    - lack of variety of buildings
    - weak simulation part
    - huge lag after u hit decent popualtion    … Expand

Critic Reviews

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Metascore
61

Mixed or average reviews - based on 18 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 1 out of 18
  2. Mixed: 17 out of 18
  3. Negative: 0 out of 18
  1. PC Master (Greece)
    Mar 1, 2012
    72
    If you haven't played any of the franchise games and are looking for a recent sim city game, this will keep you busy for a while. To the rest, Cities XL 2012 will probably feel more of an expansion (fully priced though), than a new, independent addition to your collection. [March 2012]
  2. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Jan 20, 2012
    50
    Maybe it is the nicest city sim but unfortunately it's only the empty shell. Too many design mistakes and an user-unfriendly interface make Cities XL 2012 wasted opportunity. [Dec 2011]
  3. Games.cz
    Dec 7, 2011
    50
    An entertaining balancing of a city budget and a flourishing metropolis resulting in a cheerful feeling is being destroyed by its need to build up several cities from the very beginning and by its not so user friendly road / whole city blocks construction.
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