CityDriver Review

The city of Munich is a beautiful place to be. Its history is rich, boasting the largest beer festival in the world, as well as being the home of BMW. 

But don’t worry if you haven’t got the means to visit this wonderful city, because you’re going to get the chance to see it all in CityDriver. You see, this is a driving sim game that sets this city as its sandbox. But is it gut?

The publisher of CityDriver, Aerosoft, has been behind various other sim games, covering trucking and coach driving, so they are no amateurs to this genre.

Here in CityDriver you get to drive around Munich city centre. You have the choice of doing this through free play or missions, but the very first thing to do is take in the tutorials that give you the basics of car driving, all through a test centre. It’s here where you can get behind the wheel of various different types of cars including a compact, SUV, coupe, or sedan with multiple choices in these groups. You then choose whether you wish to go petrol or electric, and automatic transmission, semi or manual. Then off you go. 

When you start making your way across the city, in the car of your choice, CityDriver wants you to abide by traffic rules; working with traffic, obeying traffic lights, and of course not speeding. The missions of the game then focus mostly on ‘go here and then go there’, giving some purpose to driving around the city. There is a story or main narrative to enjoy, with an interesting character arc in place. And there are also various mini setups with a narrative for the missions, as you get requested to pick up parcels and the like.  

The driving itself and the mechanics involved are strange. CityDriver feels very light and floaty, with little weight to what you are doing, and this makes it hard to find the right balance of acceleration and braking for each car. And if you get hit – or hit something – your car will spin, the camera rotating like it’s a blooper from a Burnout game. It doesn’t make any sense, unless it’s to encourage you to drive safely so as not to experience this weird section. Also, the constant speed fines and illegal driving rarely matter – there is no real consequence in CityDriver.  

CityDriver does look good though, with clean menus and an easy-to-operate UI. The cars are visually decent, and driving around a simulation of Munich itself is great, especially as you can take in some great historical buildings along the way. 

I did have a problem with the sat nav though – I just couldn’t seem to get on with it and it never felt like it was up-to-date with where I was going. And soundwise, things are just about fine, particularly in terms of the effects and car noises you would expect. It’ll probably be best for you to supply your own soundtrack or podcast to keep you going as you pop around the city. 

I wanted to love CityDriver as much as I love Munich itself. And whilst I admire the way the city is able to come alive with some nice attractions in view, and the various car types are okay, it just hasn’t got a progressive feel to it. CityDriver is not helped by the fact that the driving mechanics are off, running a bit rough, whilst a strange sat nav and some crash mechanics are just weird. You could say the asking price is way too high too. 

However, if you love your sim games, there are far worse ones than CityDriver, and so fans of Munich might just find themselves strapping in for the journey.