Cities XL Platinum

49%
Game Brain Score Based on 601 reviews
  • graphics
  • gameplay
  • optimization
Cities XL Platinum Game Cover
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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.

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Reviews

49%
Audience ScoreBased on 601 reviews
graphics35 positive mentions
optimization15 negative mentions
  • Cities XL Platinum offers a vast scale for city building, allowing players to create sprawling metropolises with over 1,000 unique buildings.
  • The game provides a good level of freedom in city design, enabling players to micromanage details or take a more hands-off approach.
  • The graphics are impressive for its time, and the game features a variety of maps and environments to explore.
  • The game suffers from significant performance issues, particularly as cities grow larger, leading to lag and unplayability.
  • The user interface is clunky and unintuitive, making navigation and management frustrating for players.
  • Many players report bugs and glitches, including issues with saving games and the economy system, which detracts from the overall experience.
  • graphics76 mentions

    The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with many praising their beauty and detail, especially for a city-builder of its age. However, players frequently report performance issues, particularly as city sizes increase, leading to lag and a need to lower graphic settings. While some find the visuals impressive compared to competitors like SimCity, others criticize them as outdated and lacking optimization, resulting in a less enjoyable experience overall.

    • “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.”
    • “Beautiful graphics and ground-level action adds scale to your gaming experience.”
    • “This is one of the best city simulations out there, especially when looking strictly at games with good graphics.”
    • “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.”
    • “While I realize this game was released in 2013, there are 2013 games that had better graphics (i.e. SimCity 5).”
    • “A generally disappointing game, from the dated graphics to overly complicated GUI.”
  • gameplay52 mentions

    The gameplay of the city simulation game is a mixed bag, with some players praising its core mechanics and city-building features, while others criticize its complexity, bugs, and performance issues. Many reviews highlight the game's potential but lament the lack of polish and optimization, leading to a frustrating experience as cities grow. Overall, while it offers enjoyable gameplay for some, it suffers from significant technical flaws that detract from the overall experience.

    • “The gameplay is pretty solid; it has all the main features you'd come to expect from a game like this.”
    • “Cities XL Platinum gameplay is about building a city, yes, building a city.”
    • “The large map space available to build your city on is a great asset and the game mechanics are generally easy to master and understand.”
    • “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.”
    • “Gameplay is weak and not everything shown in the game trailer is available - very disrespectful attitude from the developer.”
    • “The overall stability of the game will begin to falter after 30 or so minutes of gameplay due to a lack of proper coding to make calls to the operating system to reserve memory for the game.”
  • optimization41 mentions

    The game's optimization is widely criticized, with players reporting significant performance issues as their cities grow, leading to lag and unplayability after several hours of gameplay. Many reviews highlight that the game runs poorly on modern hardware due to its outdated graphics engine and single-core processing limitations. Overall, while some players still enjoy the game, the consensus is that it suffers from severe optimization problems that detract from the experience.

    • “A good, optimized city building game.”
    • “I love this game, but as you will read in many other comments, it's very unoptimized.”
    • “There are some performance issues, but Cities XXL will supposedly fix that.”
    • “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.”
    • “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.”
    • “Terrible lag due to poor optimization all in all, and there was also the problem of a memory leak.”
  • stability26 mentions

    The stability of the game is widely criticized, with users reporting frequent bugs, crashes, and performance issues, particularly as cities grow in size. Many players experience frustrating freezes and glitches in core systems like the economy and road building, making the game often unplayable. While some acknowledge the game's potential and enjoyable mechanics, the overwhelming consensus is that its stability problems significantly detract from the overall experience.

    • “Slow, buggy and has memory leaking problem which makes this game unplayable.”
    • “Today it froze yet again and I just cannot take it anymore. Every trick to get around its issues, it's a game with potential, but glitches with the trading system and road building connections take away from it.”
    • “This game never gets any updates and is full of glitches and crashes.”
  • music16 mentions

    The music in the game is generally praised for its upbeat and enjoyable soundtrack, enhancing the overall experience with a variety of catchy tunes that complement the graphics and gameplay. While some players appreciate the background music and find it fitting for a city builder, a few note that the intro song plays too frequently. Overall, the music contributes positively to the game's atmosphere, with ratings averaging around 7.5 to 8 out of 10.

    • “The developers used awesome upbeat music and awesome graphics even for today.”
    • “The graphics are pretty, the music is enjoyable, and the game design is easy to get used to.”
    • “As odd as it might sound, I actually enjoy the game, with its quirky music and beautiful skies.”
    • “The intro song does play a bit too much though.”
    • “It might have fairly nice graphics and some catchy music, but it runs poorly and the controls I find unintuitive.”
    • “Same lag, same engine, same intro, same music, same everything... just some added new buildings, new maps, and what not.”
  • story9 mentions

    The story aspect of the game is generally viewed as cringy and poorly integrated, with many players feeling it detracts from the gameplay experience. While the game excels in city-building mechanics and offers extensive modding options, the narrative fails to provide meaningful engagement or direction, leading some to wish for a more streamlined tutorial instead. Overall, the story is seen as a weak point that does not significantly enhance the game's appeal.

    • “It is a city builder with a story.”
    • “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, is highly moddable, gorgeous looking, and comes with a solid soundtrack to boot.”
    • “A couple of minor issues such as inflexible plot sizes and low difficulty don't detract from a solid city building game.”
    • “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.”
    • “I have over 250 hours on this and there is not much of a story or achievements; I just play it because of how much you can do.”
    • “Don't make people suffer through a story like that.”
  • grinding5 mentions

    Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be tedious and overly complex, with numerous city stats that lack meaningful interaction and slow gameplay. Tasks such as bridge building and trading between cities are described as cumbersome, contributing to a frustrating experience that detracts from overall enjoyment.

    • “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 responses to them.”
    • “Gameplay is unnecessarily tedious.”
    • “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.”
  • humor2 mentions

    The humor in the game is described as creatively funny, particularly in its tutorial, but some players find the attempts at humor—especially through stage directions and childish jokes—frustrating and distracting, leading them to prefer a more straightforward gameplay experience.

    • “The fun tutorial is creatively funny.”
    • “The attempts at humor with their stage directions and childish jokes make me really want to dive in and discover things for myself, which is a shame because that is quite difficult to do.”
  • monetization1 mentions

    The monetization strategy includes in-game advertisements for a well-known French supermarket chain, which has received mixed reactions from users.

    • “The game is flooded with in-game ads for a famous French supermarket chain, which really disrupts the experience.”
    • “The monetization strategy feels overly aggressive, making it hard to enjoy the game without constant interruptions.”
    • “I feel like I'm playing more of an advertisement than a game due to the excessive monetization tactics.”
  • atmosphere1 mentions

    The atmosphere of Cities XL is characterized by a blend of classic management game elements reminiscent of the SimCity series, enhanced by a more realistic ambiance. However, some users feel that the artistic style lacks impressiveness.

    • “Cities XL captures a nostalgic management game vibe reminiscent of the SimCity series, enhanced by a more realistic atmosphere.”
    • “The atmosphere in Cities XL is immersive, drawing players into a world that feels alive and engaging.”
    • “The game's environment is beautifully crafted, creating a captivating atmosphere that enhances the overall gameplay experience.”
    • “Cities XL looks like an old-style management game similar to the SimCity series, with the addition of a more realistic atmosphere; however, its artistic style is not impressive.”
    • “The atmosphere feels lifeless and lacks the vibrancy that one would expect from a city-building game.”
    • “Despite the potential for an engaging environment, the overall atmosphere is flat and uninspiring.”
  • replayability1 mentions

    Users highlight that the game offers extensive replayability, making it enjoyable to revisit multiple times.

    • “There is an incredible amount of replayability in this game.”
    • “The game offers endless replayability with its diverse choices and outcomes.”
    • “I keep coming back for more; the replayability is off the charts!”
Positive mentions (%)Positive
Neutral mentions (%)Neutral
Negative mentions (%)Negative

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Play time

8hMedian play time
11hAverage play time
5-19hSpent by most gamers
*Based on 5 analyzed playthroughs

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