Recent reviews by ModZero

This game is a truly wonderful mess. The translation is wonky, the UI is sometimes clunky, and it has a case of kitchen-sink game design, but I love it (and please don't remove the kitchen-sink design, I love that too).

Some negative review out there wrote that this is being developed like a hobby, not a business project. This is true, and also amazing.

A lot of things are in weird places. I'd also argue, that if I wanted to specifically simulate a soviet republic, I'd go for the structure of something like King of Dragon Pass (check it out, it's cool) rather than Sim City. That doesn't change the fact that it's a very interesting city (?) builder, going into the logistic aspects of cities that many other games gloss over.

Of course, there are _reasons_ why other games gloss over those aspects - but it's fun to care where your construction materials come from, or how they get to the construction site (you can - in fact in the beginning have to - pay for the issue to "go away", but it's inefficient), or who's going to put all of the bricks in their places.

Also, all of the old vehicles. They're cool.

1st things 1st, the pop growth change is a part of the patch, not this DLC. If it ruins your game, post a review on the game, not here, it's not helpful. Also the changes are definitely an improvement, and I'm pretty sure they're also behind the considerable performance improvements.

Now, for the changes: "become the crisis" is meh. Interesting, but it's like those story-based things in The Sims: you play it once, you'll have fun, but you probably won't come back. It's too linear. But the custodian thing is great, and not only when you do it: I absolutely _did_ get blindsided by some bunch of nobodies getting custodianship. That was fun.

A great toy, though the negative bit is, as usual, that it costs way more than that number up there: you definitely want many of the DLC. They go on sale often, so the price ain't as high as it seems by just looking at the list, but it's still pricey. Worth it if you're going to keep playing it, though.

Haha, so, old version below. The game depends on the headspace, I guess, but once it clicked, it clicked. You should try it, try it again, until it clicks. Like Das Capital *old woman shakes hand at Marx*.

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Writing in games sucks. This isn't the exception you were looking for.

This game just replaces a form of gaming faff with a different form of faff, spamming you with huge volumes of self-indulgent writing. There is an interesting hook underneath it all, but by the time you leave the first location you could have played 3 better adventure games (this is, after all, "just" an adventure game) and read 3 better books. This just feels like a high school student learned some basics about composition.

I think it was a needed game, and I see how people who's job is reviewing AAA drivel after AAA drivel, whether they want to or not, might have found it - especially its popularity - incredibly refreshing. But for someone who only plays AAA drivel occasionally when she wants to, there's actually very little new or interesting here. Just tonnes of text that desperately needs an editor.

Okay, so the below remains valid as critique, but I'll note, I've found that in the right context, this is actually the right amount of attention to pay to something - think listening to a podcast. It's a semi-idle game, and that's certainly a niche. It's flawed, but enjoyable.

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Presentation is great, and at the start it seems fun, but pacing is really bad.

Unfortunately, the main gameplay loop quickly becomes boring and repetitive. In idle games that wouldn't be too much of an issue - you leave the game in the background and do something else. This is not and idle game, though - you actually have to pay attention to your pawn moving painfully slowly (and yet, at some times, just a tad too fast to react) around the map, and make decisions that feel mechanical, but remain both necessary and urgent.

I want to like this game. The visual style, while maybe overused by now, is executed very well. Same thing with the music - it feels "at home." Unfortunately, the game is more boring than relaxing, and I don't see a way to change that without considerably rethinking the core gameplay loop. I also think it's an interesting gameplay design experiment, just not one that has worked out that great.

Game looks, feels and plays like dysthymia:
* environments look like the entire art staff had both incredible talent and dysthymia.
* you are a dry, dead husk with no fire inside, battling other dead dry husks on a quest to find that spark.
* once in a while you can pretend to be human. It doesn't last and other humans will bully you.
* most of your efforts are doomed. Sometimes you will experience a brief triumph. Then you'll realize that in the 3 hours it took you you could have actually make your flat a livable space.
* you will get addicted to said brief feeling of triumph.

That's a joke, but also not. It's well designed, with incredible art direction, doesn't hold your hand too much, and its gameplay and style does communicate something bigger, if you approach it with a bit of a critical eye. Just keep mind of your playtime, or your flat will end up looking like the firelink shrine.

It's a fun little city builder by itself, but the presentation, storyline and music make for some amazingly tense moments - the finale of the main scenario is definitely worth experiencing, even if you have to drop the difficulty to get there. And some of you might be, as I was, worried that it's just pointlessly relentless darkness and "hard choices" that ain't choices - naw, there's relief to be had and achievements for not "crossing the line," just not much of it in the very early game.

Below the cut, the original review, from a dozen hours into the game or so. But after a few more dozens, the racist overtones in the game turn out to be wayyyy more than a bit of cultural appropriation, and at some point it's just really hard to ignore, or even stomach. It's deeply hateful of tribal cultures, while portraying them based on imagination of someone who learned everything they know about tribal culture from what they read about Spartans. From a comic book. While drunk. The idea that the only the one white person around would not be freaked out by machines talking, despite having written word and using the reclaimed technology, is some 19th century explorer nonsense.

Furthermore, some later sections perform far worse than others, seemingly in random patterns, and I did have a few crashes - not too many, but more than I'd expect (I very rarely have outright crashes in games). So yeah, can't really recommend the game any longer.

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Earlier review follows:

Re the obvious stuff: on GTX970/i5-2500K/16Gb, on Original, runs fine. There's occasional stutter, but rarely enough that it doesn't really detract (like, maybe once every 5 minutes or so). Game's stable, too. Others had issues, but well, you can see those. Maybe 970 was just a really good card, because I very rarely have stability issues in games in general, it all makes me anxious about upgrading.

As for the game: it's basically an Ubi style openworlder - so feels a bit dated in structure compared to Witcher 3 and Breath of The Wild - but it pretty much peak Ubi style openworlder. The fights are fun, views are quite gorgeous, and as long as you don't think too much, the story is quite fun.

Now for the part why "thinking too much" might be bad: the story centers an example of a white savior so painfully stereotypical, it might feel like a TV Tropes article in game form. It's such an odd choice, really. Aloy isn't a bad character on her own, and much of the story is just-decent-enough if a bit rote, but that hero in this story is a really weird and off-putting choice. I don't think this is bad enough to dismiss the game - I am recommending it, after all - but sheesh, seriously, they even had more fitting concept art.

It's incredibly pretentious, full of conspiracy theories, pseudoscience and Kojima patting himself on his own back for knowing cool people and apparently not knowing what north America looks like. It's also, somehow, a spiritual sequel to MGS, Stalker and Euro Truck Simulator 2 all at once: it uses a somewhat simplified sneaking system from MGS, it has an normalized-eerie world of Stalker (oh yes, those are the hand-shaped crystals that make things float, what about it?), and the same deep immersion in the routine and tools of a trade from ETS2. It's also a very pretty rendition of what I'm pretty sure is more Iceland than the continental US.