Recent reviews by Saul

Major order completed. Sony defeated.

If the people ran out of the burning buildings, I wouldn't need so many hearses :(

Fahahaha, Vector is a psychopath and seriously needs to be investigated by the authorities.

Hopefully Ultimechs gets the love it deserves. It's a great foundation for a top game.

F1 Manager 2022 flatters to deceive with laudable aesthetics, appealing gameplay, and the glamorous F1 license, but it lacks the depth of a true management sim and necessary replayability.

Disappointingly, little of that comes as a surprise. Within the game's initial screens, navigated with the potential aid of a thin tutorial, F1 Manager shows its inspiration in Motorsport Manager. From UI design and elements to infrastructure mechanics and gameplay, they are, in essence, the same game with the new entry receiving the face lift of a valuable intellectual property.

And that's not bad—Motorsport Manager is a highly respectable title, its success likely paving the way for F1 Manager. The issue arises in the instances of F1 Manager's stagnation—a lack of iteration—or worse, regression.

Formula 1 has two set of stars: the drivers and the cars. And yet, only the latter gets anything close to the treatment it deserves. While the various car parts are subject to nuanced upgrades that affect how they perform in different circumstances, drivers are reduced to set of numbers with no personality whatsoever. There is no real barrier or challenge to developing either—only time—and assigning accumulated points to improve drivers has no place in the genre. It is characteristic of lazy driver integration that rears its head during lacklustre contract "negotiations", inadequate on-track feedback giving, and the complete lack of any trait or morale feature.

In one sense—perhaps by design—the omissions help F1 Manager set the player up to win. There are no pitfalls, aside from incompetent AI careening into the player's drivers in practice sessions and the race, and the on-track strategy is nothing to write home about. In fact, one might think there is nothing to cheer about, for the victories last only in an ignorable news item and aren't even displayed in a historic calendar. There is no buzz around the world of Formula 1, and the player's personal story doesn't have the supporting elements to develop: no 11th team and no team switching are also major negatives to this end.

What isn't a negative is the player's team's bank balance: the notion of a budget is laughable with a constant influx of money and no real need to strategise spending. The cost of part development is far from considerable, and the game supplements earnings with sponsor bonuses that are more contextual to the player's team's stature, rather than their real performances. This issue seems to extend to drivers, backroom staff, and the board, all of whom seem oblivious to positive and negative results a like in any meaningful way. These aspects of the game and so many others feign integration, coexisting to serve their own purposes.

It is these flaws that make the core racing, which is fun and deserves praise, forgettable. There is little propping up each individual race and little to do between weekends. The racing is far from perfect, but I believe it can be tuned with updates. Core features, substance, and depth, on the other hand, will probably have to wait on the wish list until F1 Manager 23.

It does what Halo did best a decade ago: provide an exciting and fun multiplayer experience.

Tales from the Borderlands has so much charm, so many unique and compelling characters, and tells its story in a really interesting fashion. Well worth playing to indulge in a badass world.

With plenty of charm and challenge, Mini Motorways is a fantastic iteration on Mini Metro. It takes takes its predecessor's successes and expands upon them in brilliant new ways. The presentation is beautiful, and the accessibility options put many other games to shame.

CDPR failed to make the game they wanted... and it's so frustrating

"We want Cyberpunk 2077 to be our crowning achievement for the generation..."
"Welcome to the next generation over open-world adventure."
"Making sure it feels alive. Not just alive as in it's populated with numbers, but it feels like stuff's actually happening around you."
"We put a lot of emphasis on having destructible environments overall in our game."
"This is a big problem in most of the games that I played that have bullet sponges – that basically you don’t see any type of reaction on the NPC as you’re hitting him."
"One of the big things is, it is a full-blown RPG..."
"But we wanted to test ourselves as a studio as well, and what better way to do it than a game which, as you've seen with the demo, it feels similar to Witcher in certain ways but different in others. The pressure we put on ourselves, we don't want to just release something—which is why we love that philosophy 'it's ready when it's ready.'"

Take your pick of the above developer quotes and compare it to the game they've sold to over 8 million people. Not one proudly stands up to the product now sitting in gamers' libraries. Cyberpunk 2077 is beautiful, enthralling, exciting, and woven together by a compelling and novel story--it's many fantastic things for which it should be applauded--but there are plenty telltale signs it isn't the game CDProjekt Red imagined and what they ultimately marketed to the world.

Therein lies the first problem--public perception. You need only look at how many people reference the original trailer to know Cyberpunk 2077 was highly anticipated from the off. It suggested--not promised--something new, which captured the imagination of those who followed the game from then until its release seven years later. With the reception Cyberpunk 2077's announcement received, how could you blame the developers for thinking they were onto a winner? The natural next step for CDPR--an ambitious bunch--was to eek every bit of potential out of their creation as possible. The issue was in making this known to the world.

"Every role-playing game we ever developed seemed impossible to achieve at the moment we set out to create it."

In 2018 we got the gameplay reveal and the gaming world was besotted. We saw unique mechanics, polished graphics, and what seemed like a perfect game. Those who followed the various channels through which CDPR continued to hype and promote the game would know before release that aspects of said trailer were stripped back. Scaling walls with mantis blades and taking control of the flathead bot were both out, in both circumstances balancing issue were cited. Whilst the reasoning behind these gameplay alterations appear sound, it should indicate how the game has been scaled back from earlier conceptions.

Any creative endeavour will and should go through change, conveying that the project is alive and integrating on its earliest implementations. It feels, however, like Cyberpunk 2077 was in this fluid state of continuous development until very recently. Drawing on the game's stability across hardware, it's evident there never was a saleable product in April. I'm positive the subsequent delays were warranted and speculate they weren't wasted, but from the final product we can deduce claims of focusing on bug eliminating since that first delay were completely false. Accounting for all technical glitches players have encountered, there are few aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 which one could call perfected and polished. Be it through creative indecision or a series of development errors, everyone can see the game isn't finished, leaving players with a game which is a jack of all trades but a master of none--scale and story being the possible exceptions.

"This approach to making games is not for everyone. It often requires a conscious effort to 'reinvent the wheel' -- even if you personally think it already works like a charm."

The result should create an ironic element of empathy or at least mutual understanding from both the developers and the consumers. CDPR wanted more for the game, and the players are now left feeling the same. The ability to live out unleashed cyberpunk fantasies aside, there are so many staples of a solid game that are missing. Accessibility features, toggle ADS, and full key re-mapping are just some of the technical norms missing. Those disappointed by the lacklustre character creator--no sliders and limited options to differentiate--won't be pleased by the non-existent capacity to rework their character once into the game; not even the hair can be changed for there are no barbers. Is this an oversight by a seasoned developer? Perhaps, but more likely it was a feature they ran out of time for or it had to be pulled from the game because it wasn't complete or fully implemented. As an aside, this situation is highlighted by the lifestyle montage, where we see V get to grips with Night City; I'm sure the segments we witness were once playable missions. Without purely cosmetic clothing slots and vehicle and apartment customisation--yet more features seen in the Witcher to varying degrees--the immersion is hindered, and it's difficult to truly feel like V is our character. Police spawning behind the player in response to crimes, amateur driving AI, and limited street-side AI reactivity make the deep and commendable world feel like a facade. The cybernetic modifications pale in comparison to Deus Ex's and the driving feels clunky compared to any other non-driving specific game. There is no cover system, and interaction with the world is largely non-existent. The worst accusation in this vein is that Cyberpunk 2077 isn't an RPG, as it was marketed prior to release--now CDPR are calling it an action-adventure game.

"...most of the games that we play, or played, or tested, they are shooters with RPG elements, and we’re not aiming to do that."

And despite all that, Cyberpunk 2077 isn't a bad game--it's terrific. You could accuse it of flattering to deceive and make a good argument that it has disappointed, yet the redeeming features such as gunplay put it on par with existing titles. It isn't next generation by any means, in some instances it's lagging behind and lacks creativity, and that's a shame when the city--the Cyberpunk 2077 world--has been so carefully crafted. With the scale of Night City and all the quests in it, you could easily get lost, unless you should choose to bypass it all with the primitive quick travel system. It's almost prompted with the awful vehicle handling, but then you'd miss out on the fine compliment of music Cyberpunk 2077 has to offer, even if the radio menu slows the gameplay and is as barebones as it gets.

The biggest disappointment is that most aspects of Cyberpunk 2077 come with a caveat. There are awesome looking and function enemies, but they appear too infrequently, replaced by run-of-the-mill goons. V and the cast around him/her are well written, yet they are by and large the only NPCs you can interact with. Reams of lore exist around the cybernetics; they sit on the side lines. CDPR have learnt from their development of the Witcher series, and forgotten some basic principles along the way. The signs are there that Cyberpunk 2077 once had broader horizons, and maybe one day we'll be able to explore them. It's a pity that today, however, it only spars with its competitors when it really should have outmatched them.

A pair of engaging characters lead this bright story, focused on current themes. It has wit, direction and good pacing. The dialogue is sharp and the graphics clean.

There are, however, some caveats.

Since there's no backstory for the boy, the player has no attachment to them and thus isn't invested in their survival. He does nothing to present himself as likeable, which breaks any tension in the story. There are no stakes because we aren't given a reason to care.

This story doesn't suit the game medium in it's current format. Characters don't interact, rather there are stage directions with no corresponding on-screen actions. It works in a short story where the audience is forced to imagine, but in this case it appears disjointed and somewhat lazy. Why have characters if you aren't going to animate them?

The setting/scene also falls flat. It doesn't contribute enough to the story to make this a worthwhile VISUAL experience. The story is fine, but in this medium, it doesn't maximise its potential.


-1 for bashing Werther's Originals