Format: PSVR2
Genre: Simulation
Developer: Fast Travel Games
Publisher: Fast Travel Games

The "tilt-shift" appearance of the original game has been supplanted by this full-on VR viewpoint. It's cool to zoom down to street level and see all of the buildings with full depth-perception, along with the people and cars comically moving about. The model quality for these assets is roughly PlayStation 2-era, but as representative art they get the job done. The "shadered" look of the building surfaces and house rooftops is mostly gone, and the game looks a little grainy. LODs can't seem to decide what they want to do, but at least the framerate is really stable, and the floating menu system is easy-to-read and highly functional.

The radio stations are still present, but the only one which had any personality-- the one with the 1960s-era licensed songs-- is long gone, leaving nothing else worthwhile. The best bet is to mute the music in the game's menus, then fire up one's favorite metal album via the PlayStation 5's "Apple Music" app, for play in the background. The game's sound effects are all from the original title, and they are about as minimalistic as they come.

The great gameplay from the original release is here: building roads, zoning, water plus sewage, power plants, and everything else in the original title is present. Unfortunately, any content added after that early version did not make its way into this VR rendition, nor is there mod support. "L2" opens up the management panel, which gives access to the various graphs and charts; "L1" opens the build panel. These panels "float" in the air, and can be aimed at with the right controller; "R2" is the "select" button. Both a zoomed-in view plus a bird's-eye construction perspective can be toggled with "R3". "L3" toggles pause.

Cities: VR is a meaty, deep city-building simulation game which is fun to play in VR, although a ton of graphical sacrifices from the original title were made in the process. The obnoxious "Twitter"-esque icon is gone, getting rid of the "jactivists" from the initial release-- but then so too is the licensed music. People accustomed to the years' worth of added content this title has seen added will be disappointed by its absence here. So then this game is a mixed bag; mostly positive, but could have been better.