izigame.me

Hmm this is going to be a tough review.
Much like everyone else I was very excited by the game when they announced and showed it.
When I first starting playing it I was enjoying my time with it but as the hours rolled by I think for me at least for now I can't recommend this game in its current state.
Man I wanted to truly like this game and sometimes I still do but well...
A decent amount of the core features are improved, The graphics, style, road placement and management and UI but at the same time there is also quite a lot missing, barely improved or outright worse or missing.
For starters the game is buggy, certain systems don't quite work or are planned out poorly especially the import export stuff. Then there is performance.
Some people may excuse it but I for one certainly can't. Having personally worked in the Unity ecosystem for 5+ years I can personally say they dropped the ball here. The graphics are great, Truly but the design and optimisation is going to take a LOT to fix an I feel bad for the engineers behind the scenes.
As a fan and customer I personally feel there no reason this game should barely be lucky to hit 30fps at low-medium on the best system costing thousands of dollars on the market especially when in a lot of areas the overall simulation while mostly better then CS1 its not that much better tbh.
This is made even worse when you realise most of the maps lack a LOT of details that were in the previous entry including grass of all things.
That is not okay and other details overall you will find its just missing or lacking overall,
The service vehicles don't have animations, there is less variety to all of the npcs and AI compared to the first game, Everything is sadly very static in regards to the "world". Most of the AI is just going from A to B and you can't even see the direct path they are taking unlike the first game which makes management of traffic more annoying then it needs to be especially for a sequel.
I think pets work now, Pretty sure I've seen dogs clocking in or walking home which can be more easily noticed once you hit 100k civs, which yknow honestly is just a hilarious bug.
I have three civs in my city which have been standing still since 20k and are now old people, One of them fucking died and whenever I want a laugh I just check up on them. It is another funny bug.
Pretty sure dogs at launch floated as well.
A lot of my very smooth roads have clipping issues into the void below on the sides of them an issue I don't remember being present in CS1.
I found it really tough to make my city look and feel unique outside of tree placement and road and terrain layouts because the detailing is a feature that not only hasn't improved from the first game but is seriously much worse then CS1 and overly lacking.
From a distance everyone's creations look amazing but when you zoom in aside from the awesome sense of scale which is a positive here in a massive way everything is the fucking same and it just sucks. Somehow less variety then CS1 at release side by side which makes no sense.
Like fences really? I can't even place fences? or quay walls which were in the first game, I can't modify existing details within buildings? or rocks and benches, I can follow an NPCs "life path" but god forbid I wanna actually make the houses they live in somewhat unique outside of naming with the same or similar tools the devs used to make them.
There is also very little in terms of variety for zone types which is kind of sucks considering this is suppose to be a sequel and placing specific zone types at times can be very frustrating, Like sometimes a certain house type will spawn for 99% of an area then for whatever reason wont for no real reason, Don't like it? Just remove the roads and start over and hope it works for the 2nd time or 3rd.
Also no idea why a plopable Rico isn't here in the base game. The assets are there, LET ME CHOOSE THEM PLEASE.
As time has gone on I have found myself finding more things that are were present in the first game but for whatever reason are not here or worse many things which are not improved at all.
For a sequel this really only has minimal major improvements of the first and the things which are improved they can't really make up for what is either worse or about the same as the first game..
Lane management is barely improved and its very frustrating to say the least combined with the traffic AI.
At low pop its not so bad and honestly seems alright and they even have working suspension a cool small detail however once you get high up there the simulation starts to break and brain of the civs just goes out of the window, Its like suddenly at 60k and above everyone decided booze were for everyone!
I spent more time stumped at how brain dead the AI overall can be before attempting at trying to fix it.
I had massive traffic jams stretching for miles with my interchanges barely being used. When I zoomed in they were all turning last second in multiple lanes, Some would do U-turns sometimes more then once and just cause chaos which for me at least is made even worse as IRL I'm learning to drive right now and the AI is making decisions I don't think I would ever make in a car even if I was 10 years old. Its insane!
Not to mention services, I have found the new feature of making them district restricted quite useful which is a positive but it still hasn't fixed the AI, A dead person is waiting for transport right across the road from the cemetery... WHAT? They are lucky that meteors can't be thrown willy nilly like in CS1.
I think this needed at least another year in the oven and if that wasn't an option early access at discount, Would of been better for the brand, devs and community.
That isn't the worst of it though. For me its how they have responded the community initially and how they made sure to tell the creators before release not to mention the performance and giving them weird restrictions. They knew exactly what they were doing and did it anyway. From the announcement of the hardware requirements going up hidden in a larger message to banning a long time community member for valid criticism.
I think in time they can turn it around, They did pretty good with CS1 and I think fully realised that games potential to the engine and design limits. Here I think the concept is good its just the execution. The bones are here for a great game. A lot of the core systems are in place begging to be polished or in quite a few cases outright fixed especially in regards to the overall simulation and I do love the art style more this time around although more variety is needed. What I have experienced so far overall I can see the potential down the line but for now it is just not here yet sadly.
The more I play this game the more depressed I feel about what could have been yknow?.
I love some parts of it but some other parts I just loathe and get annoyed. I'm currently trying to make a very realistic city and I'm running into so many design limitations with the current tool-set compared to the first game without mods it just kind of sucks.
I overall feel very mixed. At times it can be really great and chill, Other times it can be the opposite.
Hopefully they can improve the overall performance, Fix all the major bugs & at times broken simulation, Add in the missing features that were present at the very least from base game in CS1 at launch and MAYBE just maybe we will have a good start to the sequel for DLCS, Free patches & overhauls for many years to come.
If you want a proper sequel look elsewhere or come back in a year. Its a fine game overall even with the issues just don't go in expecting greatness, Some parts or better, Most are the same and some are worse then the first game.
It isn't worth the full price, Not even close, 40 AUD max, 60 AUD with the extra content.
5/10 (great potential) ~ SirJarko
Maybe in a year it will be worth it? Lets hope