Recent reviews by Spacedad

For an asset flip 'simulator' game, it plays surprisingly well.

I hope the creators use the money they've gotten to hire artists so they can get rid of the godawful gen ai store header image that advertises this game. Seeing that almost made me not buy it until I found out from internet pals that the game is good in spite of that.

I would like to see a game that uses some of the ideas from this as a foundation to do something more creative though - but for now this is quite a fun co-op restaurant 'sim' game. (Also to be clear, this is not really a realistic 'simulator' so much as an arcade-y first person Overcooked-like.) Maybe the creators will be able to invest in more creativity and originality in the game since it has started to become successful? We will see.

Also, a gripe I do have about the game is the progression doesn't make much sense in my opinion. How come it takes so long for you to get mustard or fries unlocked, for example? Progression needs to make more sense, or at least let the players choose what parts to unlock for themselves. It's also very silly that early on you're running a fast food joint that just serves plain hamburgers without condiments of any kind and nothing else.

In any case, I do hope the creators put some more 'soul' into their game and improve it (and its marketing on its store page - hire real artists! Don't use gen AI, please!) over time - it is early access, after all. For the time being it's a fun little co-op game with some good potential if it can do more beyond being a simple Overcooked-like asset flip game.

Today WAS special...

Like lethal company, but you come in armed with guns, and yet somehow die even more.

9/10

Review update:
The Gamedevs actually listen to the players - for a few months, they frustrated people with poor design decisions (nerfs mainly) but then revised and re-balanced their game to emphasize fun and giving more options for more playstyles. The game is a blast, and I'm looking forward to the future!

I bought this on recommendation from "Bellular News" youtube channel talking about how this game does so much better than most triple-A games in terms of being a fun flow-state gameplay loop.

Very addictive, very well-done, has a good amount of depth to it that unveils the further you get into it. Excellent work for a $3 solo dev indie title, and I look forward to the dev adding more content in future updates.

This game is pretty neat for being so early access. There's a lot more content that it needs, but the basic structure of this game is pretty darn good. If you want to have some fun making castles and defending against hordes for a few days, get this now - or wait till further updates give it the longevity and depth it deserves.

It's a cute game with potential but it doesn't have too much depth to it just yet. (I'd say 'going medieval' has more development in it right now than this does, for comparison.) I see the building blocks of what will be a great game over time though - from the water mechanics to the way you can creatively stack buildings and wire up machinery. It could be something really cool once it gets more updates to give it the depth and longevity it needs.

Also it's a bit too easy early on to get into a death spiral before you know what you're supposed to do. Basically a large portion of the game revolves around river-damming mechanics and managing the water supply where you live to survive droughts.

I'd say get it if you really are curious but just know you'll see all there is in about a single day of play for right now. Otherwise wait on this to get further along in development.

FYI I am demanding a refund from Steam after I finish this review. We’ll see how that goes.

This game is NOT what was promised in the trailers - which by the way, are full of as many lies as Todd Howard speeches.

-Narrative choices don’t matter.
-Combat is broken, poorly balanced, and unfun.
-Can just melee stunlock and headshot everything even on the very hard difficulty.
-Looting is like ‘♥♥♥♥♥♥ borderlands diablo-guns’ meets ‘Fallout 76 weight management.’
-The feeling of constantly looking like a clownsuit because of the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ armor system.
-Terrible enemy and NPC AI. (‘Teleporting cops’ are a big offender here.)
-Lots of lazy Ubisoft-like copy-paste ‘go to quest marker’ filler ‘gameplay.’
-And bugs.
-So many bugs.
-Did I mention bugs?
-Tons of other small and large issues that would take me way too long to get into.

The only features that remotely resemble what was promised are the parts that were featured in E3 gameplay demos. Your narrative choices matter ~for those missions and only those missions~ though. They DO NOT IMPACT THE STORY OR WORLD, in spite of the E3 narrator’s claims.

This game is a pack of lies and you can both sense and physically ~see~ where the devs were forced to cut content of what the intended vision of the game was, in order to rush this broken unfocused mess out the door for 2020.

There’s so many loose ends to the game that make it feel like it’s going one way - but nope, it turns into just another go-to-quest-marker game except with gameplay that is markedly worse than the most recent offerings of those kind of games. (i.e. At least it’s fun to swing around NYC as Miles Morales when he goes to his generic quest markers, and his combat loop is actually fun.)

I cannot recommend this game. And that’s not because of the bugs. It’s because of problems that are core to the game that can’t be patched. At least not without gutting entire systems of the game and narrative arcs that are already built-in as linear experiences. Instead I will point people towards playing these games that will offer you bits and pieces of what Cyberpunk promised to be but failed to deliver on. Both gameplay and narrative wise.

-Fallout New Vegas
-Disco Elysium
-Prey: Mooncrash DLC
-Ruiner
-Observer
-VA-11 Hall-A
-Ghostrunner
-Cloudpunk

As I stated at the start of my review, I will be requesting a refund from steam. I’m not buying another CP-Red game until they earn back my trust, and given the amount of Todd Howardesque lies that were told about this game, that’s going to be an extremely uphill battle.

Also - There's a couple videos on youtube that I can recommend people check out covering many of the problems I have with the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7JGQ3sCIl0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeA-B8FEluo

It's a highly addictive game that is very worth buying and playing. The DLC adds more fun to the game, and there's also been several free updates with new gameplay tweaks and additions that have made an already-excellent-at-launch game more fleshed out since launch.

Tips for new players: Build a lot of GP offices. A lot. And train up your GPs like heck so you have a small army of maxed-out GP docs. Also, be sure to set your hospital policy to 'streamline treatment' and set treatment threshold at about 85-90%. If you have well-trained treatment staff and fully upgraded hospital equipment, you'll rarely botch treatment, and the threshold will clear people out of the queue line and send them for treatment.

Also, when you're having trouble covering expenses but have fantastic hospital reputation, it's generally best to start raising your prices hospital-wide; high-quality care means high prices, to the point that you can eventually max out your hospital's prices in the endgame when working torwards 3-stars. If I had known to do this early on it would have save me so much wasted time in death spirals trying to avoid the -300k game-over reloads, and instead making steadily profitable hospitals.

It's good but flawed. I would suggest playing this only if you can join a larger company of people working together. It's also a very deep game - the game only gets more fun the more you learn about its mechanics. Though there is quite a lot of questionable design decisions, the overall gameplay at its core is pretty great. And yes, it is an ark reskin and plays a bit like ark - but the naval warfare in this game is a whole different bag, and the core of the experience. After having played several days in and put in time on various positions as a ship crew - I have to say; the core of the game is fantastic, and huge fun.

Also be warned that the game is very badly optimized right now. On anything that isn't a high-end CPU/GPU combo, this game is playable but runs like ass. Devs have said they are working on optimizing the game though so that may be subject to change.

The game got a lot of bad press in its launch, but the devs overall are doing a good job fixing the game's problems even this early on. (Most recently they fixed server stability issues.)

Also, for any of my steam friends reading this review: Buy a copy. Send me a steam message. Come play with my company. We'll show you a good piraty time.

I'm writing this after having put in around 7+ hours into the final release of the game. (I am playing on Hard mode btw. I have had zero deaths thus far and always have have a good supply of medicals to recover.)

I've only just started to get into the Joy sections of the game - and this is after enjoying myself in the garden district watrels area, exploring and finding a lot of quest areas to do.

The combat in the game is fun. It mostly comes down to blocking and counterattacking, but it has a nice solid feel to it - and you can use all sorts of gimmicks (like caltrops, vomit bombs, etc) to 'cheat' fights in your favor. After a while of playing I found myself looking forward to fights and seeking them out.

The stealth isn't the best (due mainly to the braindead AI) but it serves its purpose for me in helping to thin the herd of enemies that I take down with brute force & explosives - which is satisfying and fun.

Big thing about this game:

Do. The Sidequests.

They're often very creative and have in-world storytelling behind them with the game's twisted sense of humor.

Does this game reinvent stealth mechanics or first person combat?

My impression so far: No. It's pretty crude and simplistic compared to other more focused titles out there.

Does this game manage to be a great sum-of-its-parts by marrying the setting, sidequests, & main campaign story to its gameplay in a way that elevates it beyond its shortcomings?

My impression so far: Definitely.

Sadly the game is currently suffering from quite a few bugs and optimization issues. Including some game-ending crash bugs (I experienced this twice - save often!) and glitches that can make you get 'stuck' in geometry. (If this happens to you, save your game and then reload from menu - you'll teleport to a shelter with all your items.) I would suggest running the game on fairly low settings until they optimize it better post-launch as well.

Anyway, I'll update my review as I work my way through the game, but I'm not even finished with Arthur's arc yet. I'll post a complete review when I finish it.

For now though based on my early impressions, the game is good. In my view it's somewhere close to a solid 8/10 experience. The game delivers so far on its setting and story, and the deeper I get into it the more interesting it gets.