LGR - Cities Skylines 2 Review

Reviewing the long-awaited sequel! Is Cities Skylines II worth the upgrade? Lots of fresh features, quality of life improvements, and logical additions make CS2 feel like a proper evolution. But there's a weird amount of stuff currently worse than before, or missing outright. So let's dive into my first impressions and all the details!
● LGR links:
/ lazygamereviews
/ lazygamereviews
/ lazygamereviews
● PC specs:
AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3970X 32-core CPU
128GB (4 x 32GB) DDR4-3600 RAM
16GB Nvidia GeForce RTX 4080 OC GPU @ 2520MHz
2TB Samsung 970 EVO Plus NVMe M.2 SSD
Windows 11 Pro
● Music licensed from Epidemic Sound:
www.epidemicsound.com
#LGR #CitiesSkylines #Review

[@Replicant2600]

I love when LGR does a LGR.

[@ComputerBoyTheEntertainer]

😆

[@roguebanshee]

Which means we shouldn't expect another one until late 2024.

[@pedrovictor4256]

The best part of this video is when he looked away and whispered "it's LGRing time" and started to LGR everywhere, truly a cinema masterpiece

[@cebedecebede]

Exactly

[@holisticreviews]

Hold fast, Christmas comes soon

[@maurice5402]

This is why I like LGR. 1.68 million subscribers but buys the game with his own money and tells it how it is. All with that calming voice and silky smooth jazz music 😂

[@Tarryk]

You know I never really noticed the jazz music before, has he always used that? Now that it's been brought to my attention it has become my favorite part of LGR reviews. 🤣

[@m_rocka]

Consistency is key, that's why he's loved by so many.

[@user-sm5cf8vz8w]

for sure, super glad even when EA was gifting him early Sims DLC for a while he was still completely honest with his criticism and praise

[@_Uh_Oh_]

I pretty much agree with all his pros and cons of the game but despite that I am utterly addicted to it at the moment - chuck on the alternate radio and I can just sit here for hours.

[@camotech1314]

​@@Tarrykyup he loves jazz

[@Pc118Gamer]

>calls himself Lazy game reviews >creates some of the best, most well thought out game reviews

[@JonatasAdoM]

He truly adds details not seen in other reviews. To the point it feels like mini documentaries, rather than a review.

[@KandyMan971]

To be honest, the Lazy Game Reviews moniker has been dropped for a while now, so it's just LGR now

[@jackman5840]

@@KandyMan971 That is what LGR stands for and he mentions it all the time.

[@KandyMan971]

@@jackman5840 He's mentioned that it no longer stands for Lazy Game Reviews. Check out the "About" tab on his channel, too.

[@tomek10m]

11:56 that motorcycle just casually turn left in the middle of the stroad, AI traffic is immensely accurate

[@meanmole3212]

Don't overestimate the mental well-being of today's people.

[@danoqamyasharahla6544]

I'm afraid that he didn't make it.

[@misdelivereddishwasher1011]

ah yes, the infamous stroad, combining features of small american neighborhood streets and long connecting roads designed for travel. all while managing the benefits of neither. god bless america

[@JC_Cali]

Not shown: the major accident that just occurred with the motorcycle getting decked by that vehicle.

[@manboy4720]

@@misdelivereddishwasher1011 put a nice big 4 lane urban highway right on top of that stroad, and you've mastered civil engineering.

[@ricky_pigeon]

I appreciate everyone who pre-ordered this game for beta testing it for us. I'll pick it up in a few years when it's on sale, fixed and the dlc is bundled into one.

[@Chrnan6710]

Biffa has an affiliate link that lets you buy it for 33% off

[@ManforSomeMarkets]

You’re welcome for my service

[@ricky_pigeon]

@@ManforSomeMarkets thankyou, i hope the devs listen to players feedback. LGR touches on some good points.

[@robertschnobert9090]

​@@ManforSomeMarkets you're a God among men 🌈

[@kalesims6540]

A win win. Cheaper and better product.

[@TKFTGuillotine]

The review all of us were waiting on, let's be honest.

[@petrusjnaude7279]

Part of me was surprised to see it, and yet I shouldn't have been.

[@co2metal]

People wait on LGR making game reviews??

[@Zach_D]

I wasn't

[@petrusjnaude7279]

@@co2metal It's what he started with many years ago, but I actually meant the fact that he did a review of this shouldn't have been surprising, since he had made quite a few reviews for the original game and a few of the DLC.

[@nn6404]

Yeah basically. I hated all the noise surrounding this game up to launch. What a bizarre community. I knew that lgr would be honest and have a good perspective.

[@sappho114]

I think a part of things that is often overlooked is that Cities: Skylines came out after the last SimCity debacle. It got a lot of goodwill simply by not being as bad as that shallow and always-online snorefest. C:S2 has nothing like that to elevate it - or challenge it during it's development - so we end up getting this underbaked game. Nevermind that Paradox is definitely turning into something of a monster, regarding how it treats teams that work under their umbrella.

[@j377yb33n]

and desperate for cash flow seeing their semi flops and growing dev times.

[@Laroling]

In my honest opinion: while cities:skylines was fun, I did miss proper potential city simulator depth it could have brought with it, sadly Cs 2 doesn't seem to improve on the lack of that simulation as much.

[@worawatli8952]

I agreed, I remembered when Cities Skyline 1 was released, it wasn't good, lots of issues and things that don't work right, it was just alright, better than SimCity as that one was total disaster, back then I thought SimCity 4 was way more fun. It was until a year after that things are patched up and became Cities Skyline we know, I hope that this will patched up and be more completed than it is now.

[@Blood-PawWerewolf]

this is why going public is always a bad thing (Paradox went public in 2016, a year after CS1 launched)

[@Simon-xi7lb]

@@Blood-PawWerewolf shareholders are the root of capitalist evil, yep

[@AAAAAAnotwo]

11:56 that motorbike just went for it lol i love the traffic AI

[@MrWolfSnack]

and then there was a cop car responding right after lol

[@NotJustBikes]

I'm here for every LGR video, but I'm especially here for this one. FWIW, I've opted to avoid making a video about CS2 on my channel because of several reasons you've mentioned, but especially performance. For the most part, my audience are city enthusiasts, not gamers, and they're not going to have the latest GPUs. And no bicycle infrastructure makes it even harder to recommend at this time. I'm sure it'll get there eventually, but I don't believe this game is ready yet for city enthusiasts and casual gamers. Edit: 13:00 I take it back. LGR is dead to me.

[@sphereron]

Lol I was wondering what your thoughts were on this

[@roland.heeling]

I would like to watch a review of you, of course after they added the bicycles :-)

[@thefactspherefromportal2740]

Great to see you here! Loved watching you and your son's livestreams of CS1. Can't wait for you to play CS2 once it's fixed up

[@LGR]

@NotJustBikes Ha!😁 I’m glad that line didn’t go unappreciated, I just had to bring it up.

[@ember9361]

folga wooga imoga womp

[@JoePCool14]

"Step forwards, step backwards." This is exactly how I feel about CS2, after spending 500+ hours in CS1. The new road tools are fantastic, and the new graphic design is a welcome upgrade, mostly. I love the new zoning as well. But the way trees work, the lack of bikes and bike lanes, no mod support, lack of policies among other little issues... I'd almost rather stick to CS1 for now. I know how to deal with the shortcomings of that game, I've played it basically since launch. And we have mods to fill the gaps there. Definitely a mixed bag on CS2, however I am confident things will improve. Thanks for the great review. I was absolutely waiting for this one as I said when I said hi to you at VCF, and you didn't disappoint. Hope the devs see this video and take the feedback to heart.

[@88balloonsonthewall70]

...but?

[@ejej1187]

you can get those road tools as a mod for CS1 by the way

[@zephyr8072]

To be fair, bicycle users are vermin.

[@Stopsign002]

The removal of the agent limit is the big thing for me. Can't wait for cs2 to get more content

[@Swarm509]

So long as they can keep moving forward in a few years we CS2 could be way beyond CS1. Mods will be key, I already see so many quality of life improvements that could be made. Hell just being able to turn on/off zoning on roads would be nice to clean up the layouts.

[@Xanifur]

Clint really does his research and really thinks out these reviews. I trust him so much more than reviewers who say "this game sucks, worst game I've ever played" on every video they make.

[@baronsengir187]

But the technical state it is in does just suck. They should be sued to the moon and back

[@pilotsayshello1758]

using this as an opportunity to say i greatly dislike skill up's reviews because of this I like it when reviewers ACTUALLY put time into the game and learning their systems, rather than trying it for a couple hours and dropping reviews for a deadline

[@baronsengir187]

@@pilotsayshello1758 I think that is only true to a point. When the technical state is as horrendous as this the game and publisher really do not deserve any more time spent.

[@wta1518]

​@@baronsengir187That's probably the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

[@ShaCaro]

@@pilotsayshello1758 No need to take the opportunity to showcase your disdain for a reviewer, especially one you clearly don't watch as he does the opposite of what you claim.

[@NanukkLuik]

I've had 42 hours of playtime since this review. And 3:51 literally blew my mind. I didn't realize you could purchase tiles that aren't connected to your currently purchased ones.

[@ssj-sandhy727]

you dont watch the video from Cities Skyline post like months leading to the release?

[@mikerotch42069]

smartest furry

[@Evergleam]

How do you turn off water/garbage buying/sharing? I wouldn't want to do that automatically without any control...

[@jonleibow3604]

@@mikerotch42069 Immortal too, they survived after their mind literally blew.

[@ron3557]

​​@@mikerotch42069internet users when a person doesn't know every single bit of information in this universe:

[@Maxime_K-G]

I don't get why they won't just make the night look like twilight where the lights are already on but you can still see most things or long exposure photos which similarly translates the cozy feel of night without actually hampering visibility.

[@DudokX]

They just need a switch in the ui with time of day slider, so you don't have to go to options every time.

[@Awesomes007]

Or maybe every hour the game turns to night, and for ten seconds you kick back as the camera pans around your beautifully nighttime city and you take a sip of water and stretch as the sun now rises for another day. Gives a nice break and a quick showcase of your work.

[@ChristinaKendrick]

Fixing the nighttime lighting just to make it more playable should be one of the first patches. Yes you can do all kinds of fancy things to make it look fantastic, but just upping the brightness or not turning down the daytime lighting model so much would make a huge difference.

[@Distress.]

I actually like the night to be accurately dark, maybe just make it so when you select a tool it brightens up

[@Dipsoid]

The nighttime lighting looks so bad. City streets with that many lights should not be that dark. Plus, why is every light radio-active orange? It's so ugly and looks really fake.

[@federicocatelli8785]

1 year of patches and 500 bucks (DLC)later It will be a good game

[@darthsnarf]

Yeah one does not simply play a stock paradox game

[@alumlovescake]

more like 1-3 years of patches

[@q009q009]

Cities Skylines without the DLC is bad?

[@rigell2764]

The sad reality of most games these days.

[@kvjbreaker7054]

⁠​⁠@@q009q009paradox’s business model is that of dlc…dlc…dlc. It’s not that the game is bad without dlc, it’s that the full experience is behind dlc. City Skylines 1 had something to the effect of 700 dollars worth of total dlc in that game. However, that is not just expansions, but also radio packs, content creator packs, mini dlc like “concerts”, and map packs. My opinion is that if this is what paradox does, it’s better than some other publishers. No NFTs, loot boxes, 40 dollar skins, premium currency, micro transactions, gambling mechanics. I’d frankly take that any day.

[@TheMrDrMs]

Very well put and exactly expresses my sentiment with the current state of the game. This is just _another_ example of why people should not pre-order games.

[@Shmew455r]

Pre ordering is ruining gaming

[@neonlost]

honestly, just wait for it to go on a big sale. will probably be fixed by then.

[@cococock2418]

What's the best game currently in this genre then that you would suggest to a new player interested?

[@cococock2418]

or just pirate it? this is one of those companies that doesn't deserve a dime@@neonlost

[@TheMrDrMs]

@@cococock2418 Honestly, probably Cities Skylines (1), if on PC w/ mods. Steam I think might be the best bet, but probably doesn't matter a whole lot, but the steam workshop is great with mods. Can add on DLCs as you get more into the game. And so much content for it - City Planner Plays is a great channel to start with. His Tutorial city series should help a lot too.

[@DampWetstew]

I haven't played it yet, but I'm still very happy to see this out. The limitations of CS1 was really starting to show itself. (Traffic quirks, deathwaves, snow, most of the DLC using a very similar mechanic). CS1 is still a great game and it's not going away, but it's good to see a new platform for mods and Colossal Order to build on.

[@iemand9593]

Yes, the overused district sub-mechanic really started to bug me in the end.

[@VerityFraser]

You mentioned how if this was Early Access then people would see it as a promising successor to CS1, and I think that summarizes a lot of how people feel. It's certainly how I feel. I love so many of the new systems, but odd omissions and performance that makes me swear it hates my CPU personally, are things that get ironed out in Early Access, not a full release.

[@gas-station-sushi]

barebones systems and performance issues aside, going through some of the bugs I've encountered and I've seen others see is baffling. You don't need waste management at all, it's so easy to cheese happiness and tax the hell out of cims, you can set roadside parking fees to 50c without a problem, and if your clinic/hospital runs out of supplies they won't ever work again no matter how long you wait

[@ViolentMLG]

Honestly for me, I think the entire situation is a bit overblown. The bugs, I don't know about others but for me, the game was very playable. The performance, while I do think was a bait and switch for lower-end users, and warrants hate, for mid-higher-end users, I think its fine. I average 20-30FPS on an RTX 3060 at medium 1440P. I understand there is hitching, lag, etc, but for me, its not noticeable enough to get upset about or ruin the experience for me.

[@WonderBran31]

LGR said that he feels like the game should have spent a little more time in the development oven and I'm glad he pointed that out. I know it's nothing new at this point in the industry, but there have been a number of high profile games in recent years that feel like they could've used the same. I really wish that extra polish and care was taken for these games.

[@Yaspis]

Yeah, it's a sad state of affairs that "buggy and substandard playability with limited features" is sufficient for launch now.

[@TheDawnofVanlife]

@@YaspisI think Beta games are kinda cool when they are marked as BETA and EARLY RELEASE. What better play testers then your actual audience? I don’t really blame Colossal Order, I blame Paradox for wanting this out early and then calling it a ‘release’ when it’s a Beta test still being worked on. When I buy into a Beta knowing it’s Beta that’s fine, but don’t sell me ‘the game’ then say ‘Still working on it tho’.

[@jeanshortswag]

You need to understand though that they look at it from a business perspective. A lot of these people only care about making money, not delivering quality content.

[@Dawwwg]

Except BG3 and Nintendo-games I don't recall feature-complete AAA games this year at all ? RoboCop seems cool (but AA) and there are some very decent Indie games, but we really need to get rid of this "pay 70-100 dollar for buggy and light-on-content beta versions" !

[@dinoguy6177]

​@@jeanshortswagThe funny thing is delivering quality games = more money. We see that as of now with baldurs gate 3 and spiderman 2.

[@jokmenen_]

11:55 that guy on a motorcycle getting absolutely demolished just offscreen 😂

[@sethporter3145]

CS2 is one of those games I'd be willing to revisit and purchase a couple years after launch, when a few expansions have been released and the optimization is further improved. Also, I want to be able to set up post offices or parcel delivery services and routes.

[@rosskwolfe]

I don't even play city builders anymore, yet I always find LGR reviews of these games and their expansions to be relaxing.

[@jakethreesixty]

My favorite thing in CS1 was the somewhat obscure ability to drive cars around your city, for some reason the pink doughnut truck was ridiculously fast.

[@irasponsibly]

That was only in one of the console editions

[@pootispiker2866]

You had police funding too high...

[@RootedHat]

​@@irasponsiblyand on PC you have mods

[@sandeegrey5977]

@@pootispiker2866 Your beautiful joke has many layers to it. I like that

[@FutureChaosTV]

And the way it seems to be top heavy and swerves each time you go slightly around a corner/slope...

[@BluesKirby]

>threadripper with 128GB ram and a 4080 >still needs to put quality on low/medium Jaysus

[@SamVillano]

Clint, I really enjoy all of your videos. I’ve been watching for years. They never get old or stale. Just good, retro tech fun. Thank you!

[@ChrisVideosGreek]

Hearing LGR doing his casual reviews and prob one of the best feelings available on KZbin, for real...

[@rogero8443]

well said, very much agreed. It's like a comfort food or unexpected hug you didn't even know you needed.

[@daybrad]

LGR gives such authentic reviews compared to all the media outlets. He does a fantastic job of providing a thorough list of the pros and cons, giving his analysis of the balance, all the while leaving the ultimate decision up to the viewer. A true gem on KZbin

[@Dar1usz]

yeah and he played on UNLOCK ALL skipping all progression. True gem

[@LGR]

@Dar1usz Nah, progression was enabled for my main city save, the one I’ve put ~50 hours into. Only time I turned it off was to show some of the late game buildings while recording bits of b-roll.

[@grumpyoldwizard]

Your videos are still the best in the genre. I follow games that I probably won’t play, just to hear your reviews and understand the games. Thank you so much for you continued efforts!

[@Morioka72]

As soon as I saw this video pop up on my recommendations, I knew my day was going to get instantly better. Thank you for making these reviews, Clint! you always were and still are my favourite KZbinr to watch. Keep it up!

[@Smikeii]

The best thing about Cities Skylines 2 right now is that us CS1 players no longer have to deal with those annoying game updates that cause Steam Workshop Mods to break.🥳

[@YAUUN]

That's the best thing about any Paradox published game, really

[@JoshWiniberg]

Man I never thought of that. I reckon I'll grab those last DLCs missing from the collection, redo my mod installations and get back to playing that while I wait for CS2 to get finished.

[@JezielProdigalSon]

Longtime CS1 player here. Just bought CS2, three days ago. Honestly i think its a great upgrade to CS1, but only from the perspective that CS2 will get as much, if not more love than CS1. The framework is there. It fixes alot of stuff from CS1. However, there is a clear lack of content and apparently alot of the underlying systems are bugged. I have faith though.

[@uncleho1945]

good luck fixing the trooncode

[@coolguy-xd1bg]

​@@uncleho1945>trooncode wat mean?

[@keanuwick8485]

A huge lack of graphical fidelity and textures as well.

[@bustabusts]

How do you have snow but no heated streets or snow plows.

[@akyhne]

Have you guys even played the game? There are snow plows, if you have road maintenance, although the game doesn't have snow storage (to my knowledge). The graphics are on another level, compared to C:S. Just take a ride with a semi truck in the rain or snow, and you can the the environment reflected in the paint or sides of the truck. Everything is reflected, to the smallest detail.

[@ryank2434]

Haven’t watched this channel in a while but I’ve been subscribed for over a decade now. Good vid my man

[@h0xhi]

Nice video. I'd love to see you make a video on SimCity 4 since I keep returning to/think about that game whenever I see CS1/2. There's just something special about that game that noone since have quite managed to recapture.

[@djtoxicdhg]

Its crazy to think ive bin subed to this channel for like a decade

[@Tamaldo]

Same! I've been subscribed since his The Sims 3: Seasons review

[@djtoxicdhg]

@@Tamaldo ever sins I sow his hotweals stunt track driver game review

[@sechran]

Sounds like it has some stronger bones than the original game (which had some deep, fundamental flaws no amount of modding could ever truly fix), but a lot of growing and polishing to do. I'll hold off on it for now.

[@rijadfejzagic4704]

I haven't watched you in a long time LGR, but whenever your videos get recomended randomly to me every once in a while, i dont get dissapointed! Great video as usual!

[@charleswiltshire]

Excellent detailed technical review, thank you. As a massive fan of the first instalment (from your recommendation) I appreciate your honesty and look forward to purchasing when things improve, which I'm sure they will. FYI I watched the IGN review, yours really blows it out of the water.

[@veggiet2009]

Those more fluid road possibilities look sweet! I remember trying to reconstruct my home city, but being frustrated by not being able to make my intersections just perfect, even with the add-ons!

[@flp322]

There were mods like 'Precision Engineering' and 'Prop & Tree Anarchy' that helped with that, but it looks like those features are now built-in. In general, it seems like they've taken a lot of inspiration from the best C:S1 mods (such as the tree brush and being able to place stop signs at intersections), which is great to see.

[@BoG_City]

I totally agree. The basics is there and I can see it to grow to an amazing city builder. but it really needs another year of patches. Its like they missed a beta phase

[@ThommyofThenn]

Youre so good :) i must confess i had not realised how much I missed your game review videos, as I normally tune in for the oddware episodes. Never played this series but I like games such as SimCity 3000 so i'm familiar to be interested in the genre at least

[@brianericksen9388]

Love all of your videos and all of the old tech and Oddware and Blerbs but I also love that there are occasionally still (not so) Lazy Game Reviews 😂

[@roland.heeling]

Would love to see a re-review of you after a couple of months. I believe this will become an amazing game.

[@thingsiplay]

It will probably take longer than a few months. A 1 year anniversary review would be much cooler, when bugs are solved, the community flourished it with mods. It will take a while before it's even on par with the first game.

[@Vicvines]

I really hope because Cities 1 was my favorite game all during the pandemic. I really hope this will be somewhat fixed by Christmas.

[@Dar1usz]

CS1 after 8yrs of support still have major bugs@@thingsiplay

[@slipknottin]

There’s a really good base for the game for the most part. Though the zoning still be restricted to squares is a big limiting factor on how good the game can be. But it’s good going to take a lot of updates for this to become an amazing game.

[@dimimluiz]

when the game actually releases, yeah

[@xAciasx]

All points made here are valid and i do agree with them. I think it's definitely an upgrade over basic CS1, even with some dlc. But as the game is right now, i also wouldn't fully recommend it, and promises mean nothing until they are fulfilled. The potential is definitely there, but so many early access games also have/had massive potential.

[@foxyfoxington2651]

I would argue that the lack of mods make it a downgrade from CS1. If I have a issue with the janky simulation in CS1, there's probably a mod that fixes that. No such thing with CS2. But at least it looks pretty.

[@regolyth]

WOAH. An actual GAME review on Lazy GAME Reviews? Thank you Clint!

[@WillowLackett]

I knew it was smart to wait for your review before buying. You're great at giving an honest take and from the perspective of a general gamer (as opposed to shill reviews and reviews done by niche parties catering to the more hardcorde crowd, both of which seem to encompass most CS2 reviews). I'm glad they're improving things overall. I love the innovation seen in district planning and such. But I'm definitely gonna wait for things to be ironed out and fleshed out, as we as to see what kinda dlc approach they take this time around. I want this game to be great. I'm just... cautiously optimistic for its future.

[@DepressionOfMyCat]

I have seens like 20 different reviews already but LGR reviews are still the best for me. Always a great clear concept, entertaining and honest!❤ thank you for your work!

[@Pwn3dbyth3n00b]

God I feel old. I'm watching a Cities Skylines 2 review by you but it was like yesterday I remember watching your review on SimCity 2013 in class during highschool while everyone else was watching March Madness stuff.

[@MrPuschel]

Thanks for this constructive and comprehensive review. Some, tbh a lot, of usually honest content creators i watch were shilling the game really hard. I guess they need the money, but this implies to me that paradox knew of the shortcomings and made really tight contracts for CCs. That offends me more than the state of the game.

[@Alex_Barbosa]

I also really like fixing traffic. Getting the perfect flow with a mix of roads and different public transportation is super satisfying.

[@xGMV]

What a monstrous PC you have, Clint. I can only ever dream of owning anything half as powerful.

[@warre1]

I can't afford even dream half as powerful PC .

[@DailyCorvid]

I immediately refunded this game, having only 7FPS average at the lowest detail lol which considering I can manage Starfield at mid - seems odd!

[@Marine_Dynamite]

He just combines all of his old PCs into one super PC

[@Numero6dl]

@@Marine_Dynamite ...and woodgrain.

[@xGMV]

@@warre1 Same man, same. :(

[@Sorikho]

Loooove your reviews LGR, saw this video on my timeline and was so excited, did not disappoint! Thank you for your time!

[@Cherb123456]

Great honest review, glad I watched, thank you, enjoyed to a great extend!

[@satnav1980]

You've got the kind of voice that should do the voiceover for movie trailers. "He was a cop. She was a poodle. Together they did stuff befitting their character traits. Coming summer 1996."

[@UltimaKeyMaster]

I'm not gonna lie after "she was a poodle" my brain went "CAN I MAKE IT ANYMORE OBVIOUS~"

[@stephenriggs8177]

One thing I loved about CS1 was the whimsical, old-fashioned buildings and structures that were part of the base game. I want retro-style gas stations, rather than those boring, newfangled ones. I miss all my custom assets and cosmetic zones. Simply put, there's not much that I look forward to seeing, other that unlocking new buildings. No particular complaints about performance, but I've yet to reach 20,000 residents. One thing I think the last SimCity got right was that day/night was actually tied to the length of an in-game day and night. Every morning, commuters and school buses clogged the roads, and every night, the party people came out to play. I was hoping that, having baked them in from the start, this time, CS2 would take a more realistic approach to day/night cycles. Instead, like you, I was forced to disable nighttime, almost immediately. I do love mixed-use zones, and I look forward to what the game becomes. For now, though, I'm itching to fire up CS1.

[@Yaspis]

YES! The retroesque look was great for selling the idea of "making progress". And it was just flat out more interesting to look at.

[@tragictrain404]

I never thought I would dislike a game for looking “too real,” but the moment houses started planting in CS2, I realized I highly prefer the miniature-like look of buildings in CS1. They look like you could pick them up and hold them in your hand.

[@stephenriggs8177]

So, I actually fired up CS1 and started playing with a new town. I'm struck by how much harder it is than CS2. Money was never an issue in CS2, but man, is it tough, in the early days of a CS1 town! 😏I just lost an entire Saturday, though, so I must be enjoying it.

[@maszlagma]

Thank you for this review! Also great you pointed out the missing animations, they have been bugging me eg: emergency vehicle interaction and building animations like the scaffolding growth that we had in CS1 previously. I really hope we get those in a free update at least.

[@PhillyMotoXTS]

I almost bought it until I read the Steam reviews, and this video just shows that I was right to wait. Thanks for biting the bullet on this one for all of us Clint!

[@Godlike-87]

I can't believe you have 1.68m subscribers! When I first started watching your channel you only had around 1000. Impressive. Glad things worked out for you.

[@Rejinx]

That motorcycle crash at 11:56.

[@Mystipaoniz]

yeah that guy is dead ^^

[@maurice4348]

Since the modular buildings mechanic from Simcity 2013 was mentioned: CS2 does a worse job in that aspect, buildings that directly snap to the core can often only be placed once and in a single position (unlike simcity 2013 where two hospitals with the same amount of modules might look different) "Detached" modules have to be placed touching the core complex (unlike simcity 2013 where a fire station might be placed on one side of the road with an annex down and across the street for extra fire engines)

[@Sr.Pirulito]

Thanks that someone finnaly spoke of the nonsensical service building sizes, they gave us the ability to build mixed zoning but I still cant have a small 5 or more store school to fit around my skyscrapers? Or that gigantic cemitery that when you unlock will be bigger than your city. Other problem is how you will need dozens of elementary schools while only one high school for a 10ths of thousands pop city. I think the education based tax was made with the subsidize feature in mind so you can influence people to come, but those should be separate from taxes. Oh, and if you want to solve traffic, build tuns of public transport, and ban parking (Never build parking slots and either remove all sideways parking or tax the shit out of it) Its very realistic. I love my 0 traffic city where every medium road has a tram going in a circle and stoping in every subway/bus station.

[@Brogboolius_Maximus]

Okay that outro music had me really confused. Great review, though! I guess they weren't kidding when they said they hadn't hit their optimization targets yet, and it makes sense since the game itself isn't even close to finished yet.

[@TheBenSanders]

Saw this from Patreon so just dropping by to give it a quick like and to say. I truly do have faith that CO will fix the issues with Cities: Skylines II as there is a lot of potential and, like Clint said, you can tell where they were going. I'm sure Paradox made them speed along the release. Like with Maxis and EA.

[@EkoFranko]

And where is Maxis now?

[@fawndoe1917]

​@@EkoFrankoParadox has a long and proud tradition of releasing games in very rough and unpopular states, and then fixing them over two years. CS1 was a big moneymaker, i'm really not worried about them canning CS2 over a rushed launch.

[@EkoFranko]

​@@fawndoe1917 Yeah, I know that meme, because I play their games since EU3 (not even divine wind). It was true some time ago, but paradox never fixed their recent releases since CK3. And also, they tend to make older games worse with recent DLCs. The quality of content produced or published by paradox degraded into utter garbage. EU4, stellaris, CK3 dlcs and even CS1 last dlcs were mediocre at its best.

[@whatjake7898]

You did not need to say “saw this from Patreon.” Useless information, literally no one cares about.

[@BurningEmerald]

⁠@@whatjake7898Just like your comment.

[@briansterling5912]

Excellent review. The state of this game caused me to get a refund and re-download CS1 with all my favorite mods/assets. Maybe I will revisit in a year when it is out of beta.

[@D0NH]

i've just played maybe half a day in total or something but my review would be EXACTLY the same. love this channel, glad i subscribed!

[@johnboydojo]

Be nice to see some classic game reviews again sometime soon! Oh and an update on your Arcade machine would also be cool to see! 🙂

[@DailyCorvid]

Genuine long time viewer and fan here! A genuine heart-felt thanks, with genuine appreciation for your genuinely brilliant reviews and other videos. Clint you are, genuinely just great :) Thanks again, and God bless you and your family!

[@crescentdarklight]

Wow, this really helped me make a decision with all the talk about the game, the good & the bad. I was heavily considering buying, but you made me decide that it's probably best to wait for when they've added improvements. Some of the features you mentioned seem incredibly important to be just missing for no real reason. Thanks for being totally honest, but also not being totally negative at the same time. What a helpful review!

[@50te.k76]

Man I’ve been waiting for this ! Keep on going

[@SanderPastoor]

You're really the only reviewer I trust on this subject

[@adj5672]

I was just thinking when this would drop! Haven’t watched the entire thing yet but I already know this is gonna be a great video by you.

[@Stewcumber]

Dangit looks like I'm going to be binging all the LGR CS1 reviews this afternoon!

[@spidersugar_fpv]

Man homie, been away for a bit and good lord you've grown! HELL YEAH! xoxo

[@terrylyn]

Thank you for an unbiased review, couldn't trust anyone else. As a curiosity, 6:29 "kapine" could be loosely translated as "funky gadget".

[@rogero8443]

Thank you Clint! For me it's the lack of communication and accessibility to import and export as you said very well in your vid. The automatic and uncontrollable import of garbage took away my feeling of "ok that's good for 10 years" and being able to calmly focus on other things. I thankfully hooked my water up well enough but think if one zone wasn't watered properly, we'd never know until we unnaturally investigate a problem we don't even know exists.

[@loficovers_]

love me a review from LGR

[@bigjimmyenglish]

An excellently structured, narrated video. Great content.

[@bandino4726]

i remember watching sims 3 expansion pack videos from you when i was in middle school, i love that your voice is the same 😂😂😂

[@Thagarr]

Excellent review Clint, thanks! I have been looking forward to this game for years, and while I have come to expect a certain level of incompetence in game development these days, I was not expecting it to be near this severe. I do agree there is a good foundation here, but it is obviously designed to maximize DLC and future monetization. In my opinion the DLC potential is why they decided to not have a Steam Workshop. It gives the developer and publisher complete control over what mods they allow, weather they choose to monetize that aspect or not. They say they are not going top do that, but corporations do corporate things, period. I have been modding games and computer hardware since I discovered it was a thing in the late 70's. I will continue to do so as long as it is a thing. The days of expecting to pay for a game only once and have it be complete and fully playable from day one are over. I am waiting for the monthly, or even weekly subscription fees to start! I am sure they are coming soon. We have to pay for their "intellectual property" after all, yet they have absolutely zero problems with stealing and selling ours and paying high priced lawyers and lobbyists to make it all legal. Corporations are people too!!

[@hsnell1222]

Lgr day comes at last... And it's a GAME REVIEW! The rarest and choicest of LGR content! I feel blessed on this momentous day.

[@fulltimemonti]

I started a comment in the middle of the video, but your summary was perfect. I think a lot of games are released in an advanced beta mode these days. In fact, I don't know that Halo Infinite ever moved beyond a beta stage. For a game like CS2, that has such an excited following, I don't really mind as I trust improvements will be coming, and I am just excited to play it.

[@nickborcic8177]

Wow, looks very nice. I will add it to my wishlist. I had a lot of fun playing Cities Skylines 1, but this one looks like it improved on many of the features. Many thanks for this review.

[@AdamSmith-gs2dv]

Wait for them to fix all the performance bugs

[@Maldunn]

The underlying simulation is 10x more important to me than visuals. Things like making money with a negative budget and RCI demands making no sense are dealbreakers for me. This is the core of the gameplay, SimCity 4 (and earlier sim cities)got this right and I still haven’t seen something better. This looks like it does some amazing things depending on what you’re looking for, but for people like me looking for rewarding service and budget management it’s another miss. Taxing by education? Really?

[@user-wq9mw2xz3j]

but the underlying simulation does not work correctly. and starts to lag for various reasons on higher populations. slowing down a lot. Who has the patience to play at 1x speed nevermind 0.3x simulation speed, when at 200k population, or 500k for that matter? Will take ages to expand and get anywhere, so huge cities are out of the question On the other hand, it doesnt offer enough for detailing and micromanaging (no props, not enough road tools etc), so it fails to both be a big city simulator as well as a small city builder/painter.

[@neonlost]

i agree i play any of these new city simulator made since 2013 and they all look great but the underlying games are borked for CS or Sim City

[@chadaycock6437]

I appreciate this review, it's spot on. I wish I would've waited for a KZbinr I trust, like LGR, to review this game before I bought it.

[@Blue_Wizarded]

Hey man I just wanted to say that your original video on cities skylines was my inspiration to build my first PC!

[@dkaloger5720]

This review was great , it covered some very specific issues and didn’t just complain about performance like everyone else . It really shows you did your research

[@joshharrison7863]

One note, you mentioned that you can't see the path cars/pedestrians are taking, I believe it's because of the new travel AI. in CS1 Cims decided the entire route when they left their location and wouldn't deviate unless forced to (deleted road or something). With the CS2 AI Cims will decide a basic route but will alter depending on different factors, so the game can't tell you the route because it hasn't been fully decided yet.

[@WillowLackett]

Even so, one can still visually map what immediate path a Cim is taking, as well as a planned route mapped further along that can change, as you said, depending on many varying factors, like traffic, or road deletion. I think the lack of such a feature at present is because it's just not ready yet for general use and play. They'll likely add it in retroactively in a coming update.

[@TheBillerator]

@@WillowLackett Yeah this just needs a solid line for the path already traveled and a dashed line for the current planned route. That should get the message across.

[@-morrow]

so just display the path with the highest probability? dont think this is a convincing reason to not show a path at all.

[@user-lt3nh9qi8l]

The path view is there in the developer mode, but the developers somehow didn't or didn't want to make it ready for players.

[@franomano7543]

Was waiting for thissss

[@iheartavocado1158]

Love the informative review (as always), and I will be waiting to purchase this game once (as you mentioned) they release some more patches. I think they should have never mentioned CS2, and spent more time developing before making the announcement as I do believe a lot of the players were wanting to play ASAP - and the original announcement seemed so far away. But look at where we are now, mixed reviews on all the review sites… whereas if they had spent more time on working out the bugs, we may have a solid groundbreaking new city game. As for me, I’ll stick to CS1 for now. 😉

[@britneyfierce]

Haven't seen a LGR video in 5 years. 5 seconds later and I feel im home again 😂 Good work Clint.

[@LGR]

Well dang, welcome back!

[@RIP_Greedo]

The core mechanics of the game are excellent - improved road tools, more zoning options, more realistic population model - and the rest of it is pretty thin at the moment.

[@LOLZpersonok]

I like a lot of the improved gameplay elements of CS2 better than the first game, but there’s so much that seems missing as you covered. Performance is also weird too. Sometimes, I can get a solid 60FPS with all the details maxed out, but other times it’s barely 30 with the same settings. There’s no rhyme or reason to it. At least it ran with Proton on Linux day one, so that’s a plus. I’m looking forward to see what future patches bring.

[@sanguineel]

Awesome video. Can you please do a follow-up if/when the issues in 2 are fixed/major improvements are made? Myself and others hold off on purchases until I hear that issues are done away with, but it's not always easy to keep track.

[@drummerbob10]

Thanks for the review. I always enjoy your Cities Skylines reviews and this one was no exception. I bought the game at launch and I haven't had many of the performance issues but with other aspects, there are lots of room for improvement. The road tool is much better now. I haven't gotten very far along yet so some issues you have, I haven't gotten to yet. I am still enjoying it and I think it will be a good game once some more updates/patches hit.

[@TeaAddict]

Thank you for this review LGR!! I had pretty much already decided to pass for now until things were better - now 100% decided. I too have faith in the team and that this game will improve but I will certainly wait until it does 👌

[@ChimpManZ1264]

This is the reality of so many games these days. A pile of shirts with creases to iron out.

[@urbannerd6658]

This is by far the most engaging, detailed, and fair review. :) Thank you!!!!

[@tadeoz1980]

Love this reviews!!! ❤❤ keep up

[@celestewilliams5681]

I'm 13 hours in and I am enjoying it, but also somewhat frustrated with lack of modding support, but I am also very hopeful for the future of this game, its got good bones :3

[@GoondocksCastle]

A Paradox sequel missing features they can monetize? You don't say.

[@MckaiserDragon]

man, i was thinking about buying this game but now i think i'll wait. great video. love how u tell ur views.

[@MikhailKutzow]

With things like mixed use and the inclusion of transit in the base game, I'm a lot more interested in CS2 than the first game. So while its unfortunate state is disappointing, I will be looking forward to it hopefully improving.