Recent reviews by ModZero

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.

Amazing gunplay. There's some reservation around the amount of grind and pointless gatekeeping, and their expansion policy is a bit eh, but honestly, I come back to this game regularly anyway (my actual playtime is around 487h across a few years), so it's not too much of a bother for what I get from it.

Incredible adventure and survival game. Brilliant aesthetic, sound design and balance, and just long enough to satisfy, while not overstaying its welcome. It will scare you, cheer you and maybe even make you cry a bit.

On the negative side, performance could be better, though it's still decent for an indie game of its kind.

Starting with the negatives: the game, unfortunately, wastes your time with repetetive animations, and is quite obtuse at times. Also, it's perhaps not the prettiest things around - the designs are fine, but it's clear production values are somewhat limited.

Now, for the positives: the combat and the strategic areas of the game are fun and solid. It's very attrition-oriented (one-shotting an enemy is quite rare), and even more, the strategic layer of the game encourages you to limit the damage done to the enemies, as you can later salvage what remains.

Soundtrack, while maybe not the most original, is really, really good. The storyline is maybe nothing special, but certainly beats X-Com. Not that it's a high bar. And, as for the complaints about pronouns - aside from the fact that I'm personally thankful, the lead developer happens to be One Of Us, so deal with it.

So, to get this out of the way: yes, this ain't "Cities: Skylines in space," and the midgame is a bit on the slow side.

Now, I happen to like the latter, and not even particularly want the former. It's a rather chill simulation, with some great music and pretty views, with the pacing more in line with Euro Truck Simulator than, say, Rimworld. That doesn't mean there's no challenge, but most problems can be avoided by making everything triple-redundant.

So, while there are things that could be improved (more variety in the midgame, the UI is a bit weird at times, there are a couple of bugs), overall it's been a great experience for me.

Lovely game, with nice aesthetics. It's pretty short (which may be good or bad for you), and it's not exactly _groundbreaking_, but world would be nicer with more Wunderdoktor.

The story isn't particularly ambitious, but it balances optimism with drama in a manner that will leave you with more satisfaction than most other games. It's a great, heartwarming yet for a bit tense, way to spend a saturday evening. It's a very rare pleasure in the age of games that often overstay their welcome.

Beatufiul, hard game with a bittersweet story. But don't let the "hard" discourage you - it's very much worth it.