There's a surprising amount of expectation for Colossal's attempt at fixing SimCity's mistakes. The good news first: If you play city-building games to, well, build cities, this is the best you can get. Never before have I felt like I could just walk up to an enormous tract of land, open up some tools and just... build whatever I wanted, however I wanted. Cities: Skylines is a gorgeous video game.

To many fans of the original city building simulation series, the idea of an online multiplayer game that required even solo players to be connected to the internet at all times seemed like a recipe for disaster.

Maxis' latest creation is easily the most compelling SimCity I've played since the 1989 original. It's also a disaster.