Cities XL 2011 Verdict so far

[gyzzzmo 0]

Basically, Cities XL 2011 is exactly the same as CXL original, but then with the multiplayer trade system implemented in the solo play.

This means it is finally a decent game as it should have been, although it is peculiar that people have to pay 20 extra euro's/dollars for it since it cant even be called an expansion for that reason. Actually, it is even worth less than the original since there is no MMO part anymore.

Still the game can be quite enjoyable for most of us city builders because of the graphics and the absence of a buildinggrid like in SC4. Who knows it might get even close in gameplay to SC4 after alot of additional content is added?

Gyzzzmo

[jabezscratch 159]

Yeah, I feel burned by the fact that, although I bought CXL, I'm going to have to dish out more money to get a "corrected" version of CXL. But if it gives me a no-non-sense sand mox mode w/o any "Planet Offer" garbage, I suppose I'm willing to open my wallet (again).

[bluespottedhorse 49]

My verdict is it looks like CITIESXL 2009 with a little bit of icing on top and that's all. But it's still the same old cake!

[Bazkur 34]

So those that have played it... Is it worth the $20?

[DJ1 0]

I am very happy with the game. I really hated CXL 2009 but this one feels solid. I have allready had much more fun with CXL2011 than I ever had with CXL.

Yes, the game is worth the money. (if you like citybuilding games)

With some mods this game will be great I think.

80% is a fair verdict.

[urbanboarder 0]

hey guys is this game available for mac??

[DaveParker 0]

Just installed and played for 20 minutes or so. So far it looks a lot better functionality-wise. The zoning tools have improved *a lot*, trade between cities and blueprints are now available outside of planet offer. These additions make the upgrade worth it for me.

One thing that's bugging me though is it seems way way slower than the old cities XL for some reason. I don't know whether this is because I've just installed it and it's still doing some first-time stuff, or whether its suddenly got more demanding for some reason or what. But on a brand new city I start the game is extremely unresponsive, yet cities of half a million people ran fine on the old version on the same computer. I also noticed that one of my fans had spun up when I came out of the game but I'm not sure whether it was the CPU or GPU one, I hadn't notice that happen previously. I'm on a Core i7-920 and GeForce 9800GTX+ btw. I'll look into it more next time I get chance to play maybe my PC just needs a reboot or something.

It'd be nice if traffic lights worked as well, I thought that had been implemented but turns out its only car headlights which aren't as important imho.

I've a feeling the game will be a lot easier now (due to trade plus I think the costs of several things have been reduced), too easy or not I'm not sure yet.

[sauced 17]

I like it much better than 2009, apart from lacking the ability to sell retail goods, you cant satisfy elites and retail goods at the same time, its impossible in 2011 at high density.

it ruins the reputation of your city completely.

Anyone that claims otherwise post a screenshot with high density buildings and high retailers, high density elites.

[donpost 17]

Originally posted by: sauced

I like it much better than 2009, apart from lacking the ability to sell retail goods, you cant satisfy elites and retail goods at the same time, its impossible in 2011 at high density.

it ruins the reputation of your city completely.

Anyone that claims otherwise post a screenshot with high density buildings and high retailers, high density elites.quote>

This is the kind of thing that really annoyed me about 2009.

A notable example was not being able to raise the environment satisfaction of your elites, even if you literally surrounded their residences with parks/avatar parks etc. Is this still an issue?

[moaku 74]

I think that game don't worth the 20$... Bought it for curiosity, but my opinion is that it's nothing more than a patch that fixes + enables many unfinished things while leaving many other unfinished things as buggy as before and untouched...

The gameplay feels exactly the same that the old version.

I don't like Focus Interactive low communication with the community... it's even worse than with monte cristo... They "finished" a few unfinished things, unlocked a few others (zoning was already existent but just not present as were many of actual changes since 09 version (as you may already know if you use the "putting-together the other people work without even thinking about the future and/or having approbation from authors of original components of his mod" (if you don't know what mod i'm talking about, his publisher will, and that's the important)).

Well, this "features pollishing", "a few tweaks" (I like the new sloping limits, but it's still a tweak...) plus "a few extra content" does not worth any money. I can only congratulate the people who exploited the test glitch... those one will have a game that desserves its price... but well, I didn't noticed anyone talking about the "silently dropped" killer features that everyone was waiting @cxl09... I mean mainly GEMs... Not even a word about them, and no one asks... so it's clear for me that the idea was abandonned and that there is almost no future plans for this game.

This game is already dead once last year.

Let it rest in peace.

[tomfoolery_79 85]

I'm enjoying the game more than I thought I would. No, it's not as good as Sim City 4, but I also realize they are not trying to be. It's fun in and of itself.

On a side note, I posted a video on youtube of CitiesXL 2011 with Nvidia surround (triple monitors).

[soltangris 42]

For me the game is a lot of fun so far, and I haven't even gotten to the big guns.... (Landmarks, highways, metro, etc.).

Many issues resolved, preformance imrpoved, features added, game simulation imrpoved (I'm talking about the services - huge improvements in the sim), I don't know what else we could expect for $ 20.

Yes, it's CXL 'corrected'. But be honest - how playable was vanilla SC4? Did we had to pay for Rush Hour? I rest my case.

I guess people again expected something closer to SC4, instead of an improved CXL. Ah well....

[GlobexCo 33]

Originally posted by: moaku

I think that game don't worth the 20$... Bought it for curiosity, but my opinion is that it's nothing more than a patch that fixes + enables many unfinished things while leaving many other unfinished things as buggy as before and untouched...

The gameplay feels exactly the same that the old version.

I don't like Focus Interactive low communication with the community... it's even worse than with monte cristo... They "finished" a few unfinished things, unlocked a few others (zoning was already existent but just not present as were many of actual changes since 09 version (as you may already know if you use the "putting-together the other people work without even thinking about the future and/or having approbation from authors of original components of his mod" (if you don't know what mod i'm talking about, his publisher will, and that's the important)).

Well, this "features pollishing", "a few tweaks" (I like the new sloping limits, but it's still a tweak...) plus "a few extra content" does not worth any money. I can only congratulate the people who exploited the test glitch... those one will have a game that desserves its price... but well, I didn't noticed anyone talking about the "silently dropped" killer features that everyone was waiting @cxl09... I mean mainly GEMs... Not even a word about them, and no one asks... so it's clear for me that the idea was abandonned and that there is almost no future plans for this game.

This game is already dead once last year.

Let it rest in peace.quote>

Moaku, I know you won't read this... however I want to answer.

Last year you played a fake version of CitiesXl... as I said many times, Monte Cristo did not release full updates for the game, only few files. Last year they sold us a 2008 version of the game, and updated it.

There are many more things inside the game. For example Monte Cristo finished the gemski simulation one year ago, but never implemented it in released game with patches...

You did not notice someone talking about this, because you didn't read other topics, nor answered my messages.

I sent you a pm, here, at cxs and at citiesxl.com talking about locked features...

of course, the game isn't really worth it, compared to the last edition... but try to play gemski (you know how it can be done - since you've got 2009 edition).

Also, we sent many emails to Focus, and they always answered us... did you see the "questions to focus topic"?

Monte Cristo never did such a thing... nobody answered me in November and December when asking about mods...

MC even stopped non-packed mods. While now we have a company that asks to the community (using private mails) about custom content... that writes "mods" in the forums banners... that answered me about my mods.

Sorry for this, but I had to do it.

[danny_1990 0]

I think Focus is doing a very good job! I haven't bought the game yet, because it hasn't been released yet in my country (Belgium), but from what I saw and what I've read Cities XL 2011 made a good start and it can only get better. If Focus really encourages modding and sutom content, we can see a brilliant future for this game.

[Tobbsman 0]

In my opinion the game feels exactly the same as 2009, the menus are still broken, the performance is crap as before and it's just as useless. I feel very disappointed with this game and with Focus so far, all they did was to take a broken object and wrapped it in duct tape. Or at least that's what it feels like.

They said they optimized the game, yeah right... still 100% on one CPU thread and 0-5% GPU like before and no improvement in FPS what so ever. The memory leak is still there i think since the game gets slower the longer I'm in my city (even though I'm not building anything, just looking around and waiting).

I'm really hoping for future support though.

Sorry for this negative post, but that is my verdict

//Tobbsman

[limerickguy 0]

i bought this last night for 14 euro on that site, some good things and some bad things that maybe someone can explain to me.

Good points.

Graphics are better, especially for water!

Maps look slightly bigger, of corse not the ones that are in 2009 but some do look bigger!

Bad Points.

Night time lights dont seem as real for some reason as they did in the last game.

If i go unlock all buildings in the cheat menu nothing happens, so i only have a limited amount of buildings!

In fact, none of the cheat menu buttons work!

Basically i feel like i had more things in 2009!

[Geodesic7 0]

 It's early days yet so there is still plenty of scope for improvement and I see a lot of potential in the game.  I wish they had spent a bit more time getting some of the minor problems fixed before release.

Here's a few examples:

Roundabouts and roads don't align properly

Alignment issues with intersections and so-called fast lanes

I think these next two speak for themselves

On the "English roads" these yellow boxes and look right appear everywhere there is a junction

The yellow boxes even show up on the corners and bends

This street light just looks terrible

And these street lights are just wrong

Street furniture - I'd like to get rid of all this - if you know how please share

[soltangris 42]

Yeah, there are quite some graphic glitches.... I won't post examples, but you all noticed probably the ground 'entering' roads built on slopes. Let's see how Focus will maintain the game from now on. I really hope sale figures encourage them to continue developing, not only release a couple of patches.

[DCMetro34 577]

Originally posted by: soltangris

For me the game is a lot of fun so far, and I haven't even gotten to the big guns.... (Landmarks, highways, metro, etc.).

Many issues resolved, preformance imrpoved, features added, game simulation imrpoved (I'm talking about the services - huge improvements in the sim), I don't know what else we could expect for $ 20.

Yes, it's CXL 'corrected'. But be honest - how playable was vanilla SC4? Did we had to pay for Rush Hour? I rest my case.

I guess people again expected something closer to SC4, instead of an improved CXL. Ah well....quote>

Very true, that point needs to be understood. When CXL gets as many "modds" and "addons" as SC4, it will become a wonderful game, maybe as popular as SC4 one day.

DC

[bowserchomp 1]

My verdict that Cities XL 2011 has been considerably improved from its predecessor. Even though the positive changes tend to be small, they are rather numerous and really add up. The performance is slightly improved. Sure, the game barely uses anything other than one core of your processor, but it lags a bit less and it runs smoother. The trading in-between your cities was a much needed feature that has been done properly here. The cities themselves look a bit better, the gameplay has been made a bit more challenging now that most of the "area effect" buildings have been toned down significantly. And there's a new subway system to wrap your head around in. There's more small improvements than I can think of right now, but those are the biggest ones.

I am so glad Focus decided to revive the Cities XL series, even if just for one last game. Cities XL had so much potential that Monte Cristo failed to deliver upon, and while Cities XL 2011 isn't exactly stellar, it has taken more steps forwards than backwards and has effectively become a solid city builder/simulator, a genre of gaming that has been virtually left for dead ever since the Simcity series ended.

I hope that the Cities XL series continues, but if it doesn't, then that would be a tragedy to gaming, because we need a game like this today, amidst all of the pointless shooters and RPG's that I am just sick of. The Cities XL series has what it takes to become not only the best city builder/sim ever made, but maybe even the greatest game of all time. Building your own world should be what gaming is all about. And Cities XL 2011, despite its annoyances, delivers, every time.

I suppose the whiners on here can keep on whining, because they can never be satisfied. I am definitely satisfied with my purchase.

[marakh 4]

well said bowserchomp

[soltangris 42]

I suppose the whiners on here can keep on whining, because they can never be satisfied. I am definitely satisfied with my purchase.

?

We've had whining before, we have it now and we'll have it in the future. Indeed, some people are never satisfied....

And indeed well said, bowserchomp - if CXL stopps here it will be a big loss for gaming. Now more than ever we need a game like this that doesn't follow in the wake of big-selling genres and is not just a recicled and polished copycat.

If CXL continues to evolve, we'll get a really great game!

[gyzzzmo 0]

The 20 bucks is definitely worth it, because else the 40 bucks of the original would be complete waste since the solo version is quite unplayable.

And if you didnt buy the original 2009 version, Cities XL 2011 is a decent game. So if you like citybuilders, the 40$ is worth it.

@Soltangris.

The comparison with SC4 and Rush Hour is not really valid. Because SC4 vanilla was a good and playable on its own and Rush Hour was truelly an expansion.

CXL 2009 wasnt properly playable on solo, the intercity-trading should have been a free upgrade when they closed the planet offer. That way people do have a proper reason for complaining since the 40 or 50 bucks for CXL2009 was a complete waste.

Nevertheless i'm happy another company took over. This game has alot of potential and hopefully it will get the content of SC4 in the future.

[gspang4207 0]

you know, not a big fan of cities xl or cities 2011 or whatever it is called now...I think the implementation of the first round with MC was not done correctly, lots of bugs and graphical, mutli-core issues, etc...so basically you have a new company come in and re-ice the cake with different frosting.

My guess there was not a lot of work done to the game...Focus would have to start showing some positive margins before a lot of work will be put into the next version. My guess is this is a take over-see if we can make some money (and if not, oh well) kind of project.

I don't think it is fair to call others whiners on here about this game tho. They spent money on it and played it, so there are some concerns and that is fair. Just because you LIKE or DISLIKE the game, doesn't mean everyone agrees, and does not make people whiners. I think, for the most part, the complaints are valid ones...

You can re-ice the cake as many times as you want, but the cake (the foundation) stays the same...you get what you get...welcome to business 101, slap a new name on it and get people to RE-BUY it...No thanks!

[gyzzzmo 0]

@gspang

That does not mean this foundation is a bad one. It needs alot of finetuning yes, like more public transport, more and better terraforming, multicore support etcetera.

We are all comparing with simcity 4 rush hour plus mods, so we should give this game the same time as we gave simcity to get that final product we like so much.

[limerickguy 0]

i cant see any metro trains or busses and they are busy lines too, really annoying, still havent a clue why the unlock all buildings cheat doesnt work

[jazyje 1]

I love city planning but to me CXL 2011 feels like a more polished version of CXL 2009, nothing else. IT IS WHAT CXL 2009 SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN THE FIRST PLACE. This said, I don't mind paying $20 in order to support Focus in hopes they will continue supporting this game. Obviously I like all the working packs (although virtually all of them were unlocked already), I love airplanes in the sky, subway, and smoke coming out of factory chimneys. I could live with or without ambient noises such as cars passing by and honking. I don't like achievements --- they make me feel like I'm 8 years old... Is there a way to turn those off? Lastly, the game feels snappier; however, I noticed a definite DROP in the quality of building textures and I run everything on high -- has anyone experienced that as well?

[Legionhelll 15]

The game was well worth 20$. I don't see why you should care too much about graphic glitches and disgusting models.

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: soltangrisWe've had whining before, we have it now and we'll have it in the future. Indeed, some people are never satisfied.... quote>

Don't worry, I'm sure anyone who is dissatisfied will be quickly moderated into oblivion.

Thanks everyone for sharing your opinions of 2011.  It sounds like it corrects many of the issues in CXL.  However, I'm not about to cough out $20 for what should be included in what I already purchased.

Even EA provided patches for free for SimCity.  Rush Hour added a lot of transportation functionality that should have been in SC4 and I was able to get it for $10 USD after rebate.

I wish Focus the best of luck.  Hopefully they will continue to make improvements and eventually release something bigger and better.  The creators of SimCity 4 ought to feel gosh darn good that the game they made in 2003 is STILL competing with games made in 2011 (with the help of Simtropolis modders and content creators).

[USA_Pride 49]

Originally posted by: LegionhelllThe game was well worth 20$. I don't see why you should care too much about graphic glitches and disgusting models.quote>

I wouldn't call some of the pictures above glitches.  In order to accommodate elevation changes and non-grid roads you have to have a certain level of forgiveness with the game.  Plus, the view was zoomed in much further than one would normally be.