Recent reviews by Dog

Great game in every aspect. The amount of content added in the past year is staggering.
Valheim devs wish they had this kind of work ethic and passion for their game.

Fun gameplay and mechanics when you have the right settings. Totally worth the money if you've got friends to play with. But random queues with morons that don't know how to play, running their troops into you because *they're* done playing is absolutely infuriating. Getting targeted by someone who has already lost because they clearly don't know what they're doing/are mad at you is not a fun gaming experience. No different than the youngest child flipping the Monopoly board and ruining it for everyone because THEY aren't happy. It's an annoying issue and isn't taken seriously enough. Everyone acts like a child and they're just waiting for their turn to flip the board.

If that doesn't happen, RNG can decide your entire fate. Going last in a 6 man game? You lose. Opponent gets card bonus before you? You lose. You got a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ card bonus twice in a row? You lose. Someone is attacking you and they somehow win a 15v22? You lose. Someone leaves and gets replaced with a bot that chooses to run troops into you? You lose. Game after game, it gets pretty ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ boring. It's crazy that a game that advertises itself as "Strategy" even needs to rely so heavily on RNG.

I don't know who it's fun for when 4 people leave instantly because of terrible troop placement, and one of the last 2 guys gets to fight against every bot running troops into him every turn, while the last guy sits AFK and wins the game.

The main story is a slog and majority of dialogue is people giving exposition AT you. 90% of the "conversations" are railroaded to the point that no matter what you choose, the outcome will remain the same. There are still numerous quest breaking bugs that occur during regular gameplay. They even added a few new ones with the update, like Oda's pistol bug. NPC's aren't as bad as they were at launch, but they're still hollow husks of real humans or even other game's NPC's. They have very basic scripted reactions to whatever the player is doing at that moment. Their only purpose is to make the city not feel empty and run you over. Otherwise they can be completely ignored, except when they can't be. There were several actual engaging moments I had near the end of the game, where my immersion was completely ruined by a random NPC shouting at me to wait. Or just walking through the person I was talking to and then phasing through the wall behind them. ♥♥♥♥ that should've been fixed before release, let alone 3 years later and after a DLC.

The combat is this game's biggest upside. It's very fluid, enemies are (mostly) reactive and fun to fight. The diversity of enemies leaves something to be desired, but they're challenging enough to make me not care that much. Trying out new builds and playstyles is an absolute blast. No matter how you want to fight, there will be a perk style to fit it. The BIG issue is that you won't be doing a lot of fighting unless you go out of your way to do side missions.

The main story suffers from severe pacing issues and the action grinds to a dead stop for 30-45 minutes at a time, forcing you into boring expository missions where you go here, talk, leave, repeat 3 or 4 times over. It should be a sin for a game to have so much forced dialogue but also have most of it be so meaningless and unimportant. There are so many missions and conversations where it feels as though the game is just *begging* you to care about people you JUST met, and then expecting you to feel something when they die 2 minutes later. Why put effort into making a character fun or engaging when you can just slap on a one dimensional personality and give them a sad backstory? It's cheap and lazy writing meant to get you engaged with absolutely no effort. It's straight up insulting at some points.

Side missions are where you'll have most of your fun playing this game. While about half of them are simple "Go here, kill stuff." kinds of missions, the main story is so slow that you'll be dying for "Go here, kill stuff." The other half of the missions are fantastic. Being mostly story or exploration driven, where the majority of your choices ACTUALLY MATTER. They are a breath of fresh air compared to the meaningless scripted convos you have every 2 minutes with Takemura. The fact that SO MANY of the side missions have such great story telling and pacing makes the main story look even worse. Gigs and NCPD reports are fun to begin with and are good time-killers, but they're very repetitive and completing all of them becomes another chore with minimal rewards and no effect on the overall story. Not even V as an individual in Night City gets any credit outside of "Street Cred," a worthless stat to keep you from buying a fast car early on. But that just makes them feel like a waste of time outside of achievement hunting after the first few. Cyberpycho's are the flip side of that coin. Each individual has their own setup, fighting style, abilities, and backstory. And while some are similar, no two are the same. It shows clear effort in not backtracking or repeating stories, which is nice to see and I thoroughly enjoyed almost every one of them.

I came back for the big 2.0 update because word of mouth and internet traction convinced me the game was "good now." While I still haven't tried the DLC, after 80 hours I can confidently say the base game is not worth a $60 price tag. It is still missing countless features promised even before launch and there's still tons of bugs (some of which have been documented since the FIRST WEEK of release), even after 3 years of updates and patches. There were countless times I wanted to quit because the slog to the end of Act 2 is just so boring, while also locking some of the best side missions behind it. And if this was the $60 experience, I won't be paying another $30 for more of it, no matter how good the reviews are.

While there certainly is fun to be had playing this game, it just takes too much effort to get to, imo. The game works against you for the entire first half, and it's clearly intended the way devs will patch and nerf exploits and bugs that most of the community enjoys. For being an "Action-RPG" the pacing of the action is abysmal, and the only "role" you get to play is "V, grizzled merc." If you're the type of person that enjoys sitting through literal 15 minute expository conversations, or movies disguised as games, maybe this one is for you. But otherwise:

5.5/10 - Pick it up on sale.

This game really does make you FEEL like you're finding cats in Paris.

You get to role play as a woman in the 1800's. Which means doing chores and worthless activities that other people tell you to. Not such a great "gameplay" experience in the year 2019. Cheap DLC with no effort made to entice players to spend money. Garbage waste of time. Don't waste your money, too.

It's a lot of fun to swing around the city collecting things and doing the side missions. But the main story is extremely lack luster. You spend most of your time being a cop, which just feels weird since you're spiderman after all. I could not stand the stealth missions as MJ. They completely destroy the pace of the game, and the cardboard cutout guards that you can just walk right past are totally meaningless and completely mindless. Only in very specific circumstances can you not just sprint through the entire level. Total waste of time. The dialogue and writing falls pretty flat, and the missions are so basic and have so much hand-holding that it just gets annoying. But the side content is really where this game shines. Collecting all the backpacks, doing side missions and research stations, The Taskmaster boxes, all homeruns. My favorite side mission has gotta be the one where you're given nothing but a picture and have to actually find the spot in the city on your own. It was a lot of fun being expected to just know the city, because after all, you live there. The game certainly has it's drawbacks but it is a lot of fun. I can't recommend it at $60 as there's just too many things that let me down. But it's absolutely worth picking up on sale.

I wish there was a 50/50 button for reviewing games. This game is very lengthy and in-depth. It's a lot of fun to explore and learn new things and evolve your clan as you progress. There's dozens of landmark locations for you to discover and all sorts of new animals and resources to find along the way. It will take you time to learn the game, but there is a strong sense progression once you do. However, that's where my enjoyment with the game ends. While I had a lot of fun with it, I was disappointed with how early the game ends. I understand this game was supposed to be part of a trilogy, but that doesn't help the fact that there's just not much to do. Sure it's fun exploring and discovering new animals and food. But once you've discovered everything, there's not a whole lot to do besides hitting the same timing skill checks that you've had to since the beginning to kill or dodge or whatever else you need to do to clean up the last few milestones. You don't get to evolve or do enough to make all the time and effort worth it. You learn how to "build" but nothing past a pile of leaves. You never even learn to build a fire or cook your food, which is something I kept expecting to be able to do. It's really unfortunate that you can spend hours and hours growing neurons and rolling specific traits for evolution, but you never really evolve past a *kinda* smart monkey. You'll get smart enough to run on two legs with your entire clan, running with spears and hunting elephants, but not smart enough to build a fire to cook it? Just feels like there's so much potential wasted. And with such a lack luster and dismal ending, I can't recommend it for the average buyer. You gotta be really into slow, grindy progression. Slow movement and exploration speeds. Lots of doing the exact same task over and over and over. And an ending that is nothing more than farming the same things you have been for hours and hours already to complete arbitrary milestones. Really fun to begin with and explore, but the game ends too early, and it takes too long to get to the end.

In terms of Sim games, this one feels kinda bare bones. I really don't understand all of the outstanding recommendations for this game. It's about on par with most others. Just as buggy. Just as linear. Same simple gameplay loop as every other sim. Sell. Restock. Pay employees. Loop. It's high res and high quality. Obviously the devs put a lot of time into the looks. But it's just not enough to carry the game past 10-20 hours, which is a lot less than other sims in my opinion. It feels a little scammy considering the first 8 hours of gameplay are USUALLY the 1st-2nd stage of sims, which is the case with this one as well. However, the depth of upgrades basically ENDS after just the first 2 upgrades. After which the game devolves into a grind simulator. Sure, you get more room and extra shelves. But after you get the car wash, the gameplay loop is repeated endlessly. Nothing new is really added, which really sucks. There's not enough customization. enough depth, enough individuality to make it worth it's $20 price tag, when sims like Weed Shop 3 are far better and cost less.

Have a lot of fun on the game and it gets more support than I ever expected, but please for the love of God fix the inventory and it's bugs. The UI is archaic and obsolete and using it on KB/M is so awful. There's no easy functions for splitting loot or quick grabbing without having completely separate binds. Just make it shift and mouse functions like every other game.

fun and very in-depth but very grindy