Cities: Skylines

PC

Simulation

£24.99

BACK in the day, Sim City reigned supreme, and even to be mentioned in the same breath as the king of construction simulations acted as a monumental seal of approval. Over 25 years on, and it looks like there could be another contender for the throne, as Cities: Skylines takes the genre to another level with countless sympathetic nods to its past. You could be forgiven for feeling overwhelmed, as the game offers up sprawling landscapes and maps with endless sandbox gameplay and new ways to expand your city. But the tutorial and in-game interface is so brilliantly built that you're only ever a couple of clicks away from finding what you want. You'll start out building roads, adding homes and associated amenities, but here the key to progression is the ability to influence your city's policy by incorporating district taxation. That'll come once you've had fun designing your people-filled playground, where inhabitants will be more than happy to tell you what you're doing right - and wrong - via the in-game social media channel, Chirper! It's a glorious way to spend too many hours, and gamers of a certain age will relish the prospect of being sucked in by the street-building strategy that captivated them all those years ago. For Cities, in 2015, it seems that the Skyline's the limit.