Cities XL Platinum

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Cities XL Platinum is a city-building simulation game that offers a vast building area and a huge variety of architectural styles. Experience realistic urban simulation with thorough economic management and transportation planning. Connect with other players online to share resources and accomplishments in this immersive and challenging city-building experience.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Reviews

50%

Audience ScoreBased on 931 reviews

graphics51 positive mentions

optimization21 negative mentions

Cities XL Platinum offers a lot of depth in gameplay, allowing players to design and build cities of various shapes and sizes.
The graphics are visually appealing, especially for a city-building game, and the ability to zoom in to street level enhances immersion.
The game provides a unique trade system between cities, allowing for specialization and interconnected economies.

The game suffers from significant performance issues, particularly as cities grow larger, leading to lag and crashes.
The user interface is clunky and unintuitive, making it difficult to manage city functions effectively.
Many players report bugs and glitches that hinder gameplay, including issues with saving and loading cities.

graphics
113 mentions
45 % positive mentions
39 % neutral mentions
16 % negative mentions
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with many praising their quality, especially for an older title, and noting that they can create visually appealing cities. However, several users criticize the graphics for being outdated, glitchy, and poorly optimized, leading to performance issues as city sizes increase. Overall, while the visuals are generally considered good for a city builder, they are marred by technical shortcomings and a lack of polish.
- “The graphics are incredibly beautiful and you can zoom in right up close to the action (like Google Street View) to capture some amazing screenshots of your city.”
- “Graphics are great even given the age of the game.”
- “This city sim has a lot going for it: huge city areas, ease of use, great graphics, and you can trade surpluses with other cities you have created in your own world.”
- “So many broken mechanics, runs poorly, and just looks so dated at times even with the graphics at max. If it was optimized better and the bugs and mechanics were fixed, this game would be amazing.”
- “The graphics can't even save it, cursed with washed-out colors and bland models for even the largest skyscrapers.”
- “A generally disappointing game, from the dated graphics to an overly complicated GUI.”
gameplay
76 mentions
33 % positive mentions
47 % neutral mentions
20 % negative mentions
The gameplay of the city-building game has received mixed reviews, with some praising its solid mechanics and potential, while others criticize it for being overly complex, tedious, and plagued by bugs. Many players find the controls clunky and the user interface confusing, leading to a frustrating experience, especially as cities grow larger. Despite its appealing graphics and some engaging features, the game suffers from optimization issues and a lack of essential mechanics, which detracts from the overall enjoyment.
- “The gameplay is pretty solid; it has all the main features you'd come to expect from a game like this.”
- “Cities XL Platinum is a decent game, and it has fine gameplay.”
- “It has everything a city building game needs and the fact I have more than 100 hours of gameplay proves that it's good.”
- “Overly complex controls and awful UI can't be hidden by a polish, which is what they tried to do; prettier graphics attempting to hide rushed job mechanics.”
- “The gameplay gets boring really fast, and also it feels pretty uninteresting.”
- “Looks good on the trailer, but the gameplay sucks.”
optimization
57 mentions
18 % positive mentions
46 % neutral mentions
37 % negative mentions
The game's optimization is widely criticized, with many players reporting significant performance issues as their cities grow larger, leading to lag and stuttering. It primarily runs on a single core, which exacerbates these problems, and despite some users experiencing decent performance initially, the overall consensus is that the game is poorly optimized and struggles on modern hardware. Many recommend waiting for a sale due to these persistent optimization flaws.
- “A good, optimized city building game.”
- “Performances are great; some framerate drop happens here and there but no crash nor problems that cause you to get stuck.”
- “I found out it's still a single-threaded game, which contributes heavily to its performance issues.”
- “Seemed good at first, but as others have said, it is poorly optimized and lags a few hours into any given game as your city gets bigger.”
- “Nice graphics, not bad gameplay, awful optimization, so just when your city grows (and it happens over 5-6 hours), playing becomes impossible.”
- “The game has a major downside though - its outdated 2005 graphics engine is a 32-bit engine not optimized for multi-core.”
stability
45 mentions
7 % positive mentions
-4 % neutral mentions
98 % negative mentions
The stability of the game is widely criticized, with users reporting numerous bugs, glitches, and performance issues that significantly hinder gameplay. Common complaints include a problematic economy system, janky road and bridge building mechanics, and frequent freezes, especially as cities grow larger. While some players find the game enjoyable despite these issues, many recommend seeking alternatives due to its overall instability and lack of updates.
- “This is a great game, loads of fun, runs smoothly, and I have played it for hundreds of hours.”
- “The game performs exceptionally well, with no crashes or glitches, making for a seamless experience.”
- “I've experienced consistent stability throughout my gameplay, which enhances the overall enjoyment.”
- “The main issues for me personally are the buggy economy system and the extremely janky road and bridge building systems, which are an absolute pain at times.”
- “Slow, buggy and has memory leaking problem which makes this game unplayable.”
- “This game never gets any updates and is full of glitches and crashes.”
music
23 mentions
65 % positive mentions
22 % neutral mentions
13 % negative mentions
The music in the game receives mixed reviews, with many players appreciating the upbeat soundtrack and background music that enhance the gaming experience. However, some find the audio repetitive and boring, with criticisms aimed at the overuse of certain tracks, particularly the intro song. Overall, while the music is generally considered enjoyable and fitting for the game, it lacks variety for some players.
- “The developers used awesome upbeat music and awesome graphics even for today.”
- “Soundtrack is a strong suit.”
- “The graphics are pretty, the music is enjoyable, and the game design is easy to get used to.”
- “The audio and the music are pretty boring and repetitive.”
- “Boring audio and repetitive music.”
- “Same lag, same engine, same intro, same music, same everything... just some added new buildings, new maps, and what not.”
story
15 mentions
20 % positive mentions
60 % neutral mentions
20 % negative mentions
The story aspect of the game has received largely negative feedback, with many players finding it cringy, lame, and poorly integrated into the gameplay. Critics suggest that a more engaging narrative or missions could have significantly enhanced the experience, while others note that the lack of a compelling story does not detract from the game's overall enjoyment as a city builder. Overall, the story is seen as a weak point, with some players preferring to focus on the gameplay mechanics instead.
- “It is a city builder with a story.”
- “A story would have improved the game a lot, along with some missions.”
- “Though it does lack the 'driving mission' feature of SimCity 4 Rush Hour, this game is a superior rendition in almost every sense of the word to SC4.”
- “Once you get past the story and figure out how to play it alone because of the cringy story, it is about as good as SimCity.”
- “The game doesn’t have a story either.”
- “Don't make people suffer through a story like that.”
grinding
11 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The grinding aspect of the game is characterized by tedious and complex tasks, such as managing city stats, drawing intricate grid patterns, and trading resources between cities, which can quickly become monotonous. While some players may find enjoyment in the detailed planning and management, many reviewers note that the gameplay becomes overly repetitive and slows down significantly after initial enjoyment. Overall, the experience is marked by a lack of engaging real-time responses, leading to a sense of frustration for those seeking more dynamic gameplay.
- “It is a numbers grinding game where you have a ton of city stats that don't relate to anything and there's little real-time response to them.”
- “Honestly, the best review I could give is that if you feel like you would enjoy drawing lots and lots of tedious little lines; would enjoy the sheer joy of adjusting dozens of columns of numbers; would enjoy planning fiscally sound public works... then have I got the city engineer version of CAD for you.”
- “Trading with various cities is also a task that is more complicated than it needs to be, and it starts to become yet another tedious part of this game after a while.”
humor
5 mentions
100 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
The humor in the game is described as hit-or-miss, with some players finding it creatively funny and quirky, while others feel it falls short compared to similar titles like Tropico. The attempts at humor, including childish jokes and bizarre scenarios, can be distracting and detract from the gameplay experience. Overall, while there are amusing elements, they may not be enough to enhance the overall enjoyment of the game.
- “I have been watching a YouTuber called Call Me Kevin who plays City Skylines in the most bizarre and funny ways.”
- “Fun tutorial... creatively funny.”
- “However, it has some funny quirks and weird problems which do stop the game from flowing in the right direction.”
monetization
3 mentions
0 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
100 % negative mentions
The monetization strategy of the game has been criticized for prioritizing profit over player experience, with many users labeling it as a series of cash grabs filled with microtransactions and intrusive in-game advertisements. This shift has led to disappointment, as it detracts from the game's potential quality.
- “This could have been a great game, except it turned into a series of shameful cash grabs.”
- “Last I've heard, SimCity is now just another mobile title chock full of microtransactions.”
- “In-game ads for a famous French supermarket chain... :-/”
atmosphere
3 mentions
33 % positive mentions
0 % neutral mentions
67 % negative mentions
The atmosphere in Cities XL is generally perceived as unexciting and uninteresting, lacking the engaging qualities found in other management games like the SimCity series. While it attempts a more realistic approach, its artistic style fails to leave a strong impression.
- “Cities XL looks like an old-style management game similar to the SimCity series, with the addition of a more realistic atmosphere.”
- “The atmosphere isn’t that exciting; it’s not very interesting.”
- “Cities XL looks like an old-style management game similar to the SimCity series, with the addition of a more realistic atmosphere, although its artistic style is not impressive.”
replayability
1 mentions
300 % positive mentions
-200 % neutral mentions
0 % negative mentions
Users highlight that the game offers a significant amount of replayability, making it enjoyable to revisit multiple times.
- “There is a tremendous amount of replayability.”
- “The game offers endless opportunities for replayability.”
- “I find myself coming back to this game time and time again due to its high replayability.”