Recent reviews by Vira

It was me. I pushed that mute button

I bought this after watching NorthernLion play it on a stream and thought it would just be a neat little bit of time to spend a few hours since most games I see on a stream usually are fun for a hour or two and then I move along or realize that I enjoy watching the streamer play versus myself.

This is not one of those times. This one sunk it's teeth right into me and has refused to let go and I'm having a great time.
All the comparisons to Game Dev Tycoon do not go unnoticed and it's honestly something I appreciate. I love movies, I loved the simplicity of barrier to entry with still a dash of complexity that comes from Game Dev Tycoon, and this creates a very nice blend between the two.

I've enjoyed making my movies and growing my studio and I am also thankful to see a dev team actively still working on trying to make it better by adding things such as Endless Mode and much more. There is definitely imo still some things that can and SHOULD be added, like we're seeing still inklings of a much bigger game on the horizon, but I'm already hooked in enough to see what lies ahead.

To bookend this wall of text, some things to note though that I would love to see addressed or added:
- Being able to sell your IPs you've made
- Being reached out by boutique companies to do fancy versions of your home media or someone wanting to do screenings of your older films.
- More new random events that occur more often. The movie business from what I've read is a volatile thing and I'd love to see that be more represented.
- Film festival submissions and other small things to generate buzz!
- Being able to choose between various formats of home media once it gets to a certain age.
- Optimization. This game doesn't look like it should be this demanding, but with a 4070Ti Super and a 7800x3D I found myself in the larger offices pushing 25-35 fps the entire time. Granted I'm playing at 4K, but still is a bit surprising to see given a lot of the things on screen are not that taxing on the hardware.
- Better understanding of some of the late game. It took me some time to fully realize how the distribution side of things worked as well as marketing/trend allocation. The tutorial only shows so much and if you have it off by default, you're left just kind of flopping around till you get things right.

Okay, I know for a fact that this is just a game that will reel a lot of folks in just based on pure nostalgia and yes, you could technically play this through "other means" for free and with little to no issue.

That being said, I'm still happy to support the devs and publishers for this and for bringing a piece of my childhood back from the past into the modern era and I do hope to see more of the backyard series in the future!

No doubt about it, this port is very much the original game from '97 with just some new features. The new features are nice, don't get me wrong, but it's not something that is ultimately a make or break versus the previous way to play it versus now. So, if you're playing it through say Scumm or other means and are okay with it there and don't care about any of the new features, I'd say you can stick to playing it there and you're not going to miss out on much.

It is sadly the most primitive of the backyard baseball series so if you've ever played 2001 or 2003, you'll be missing some features from those games (like stat boosts), but other than that, it's still some good ol' backyard baseball. The fields, the characters (I know Pablo is goated but ya'll sleeping on my boy Pete and the pitcher of the century Angela), the charm and the fun is still all there.

I'm happy to be supporting this crew who are bringing them into the modern era and have hopes that we can maybe see some more of the backyard games (I know some of them like 2001 and 2003 likely won't happen any time soon due to how much clearances they'll have to get for the players and teams), or maybe even a revitalization of the backyard series that is a fresh, modern, and pixelated take of the baseball series we know and love.

Definitely still a recommend for fans of the series! However, if you're new to the series, maybe give it a try through other means first before you buy this to see if you like it! :)

oh yeah I'm gnorpin'
question is why aren't you?

An insanely fun idle/incremental game worth the price of admission.

I do be fishing sometimes

Honestly, a fun game to just run in the background while I work or do other tasks. I do hope for a bit more variety and still more QoL changes in the future but even as it stands now, it's a wonderful little game to just have running and check on it every once in a while :)

I'm saddened that I have to write this negative review because I love this series and I love what they're doing for Pinball on PC. This unfortunately feels like a decent downgrade from Pinball FX3 and honestly not worth it right now until there's maybe some fixes or something that makes this just feel like a better game.

I have played many hours of Pinball FX3 on both my PC and Switch and I have enjoyed every minute of it, and I've bought all the Williams Tables twice over on there bc of how great they feel and how fun the game is.

This however, just does not feel like a step in the right direction. Just within my first hour of the games I've had this happen:
- Had the FPS suddenly drop to 3 fps and crash my computer
- I started playing some tables and all of a sudden the flipper noises are just missing and all I hear is music. I mess with the settings and nothing changes.
- The UI feels clunky and I swear I spend a decent chunk of time just waiting for the table screen to load half the time versus FX3 where there were loading times sure but they were minimal compared to this.
- For some reason, if you change your controls, it DOESN'T SAVE THEM and to top it all off, every time I do change my keys (for example I like to put my flippers on the left and right arrow keys) THE KEYS JUST DON'T WORK. No response whatsoever. I usually have to pause/un-pause the game a few times and THEN does it work and register my keys. But it doesn't really matter if it just removes it when I close the game.

I played most of the "remastered" Williams tables and to me personally, I didn't feel or see much of a difference minus some visual upgrades. In fact, I would say it felt a bit worse than it's predecessors. It felt much more stilted and I didn't really seem to enjoy them at all, and the entire time I played them, all I could think of was "man I wish I was playing FX3".

I know a lot of people are angry about the pricing and to be honest I can understand why. Do I also get why they're also re-charging people for the tables? Sure. I understand it, but doesn't mean I agree with it. For all of their talk of it being a remastered table, I can at least see and feel that they did do something different, but to say its better and to then charge MORE for it, not a fan of that. Them at least offering a 50% discount isn't too bad to re-get most of the ones we lost on (they could've not done that to begin with) but its still a hard pill to swallow. If the game does get better, I'll probably just wait for sales to buy the tables anyway because I'm sorry their table pricing is ridiculous. I should not have to pay $10 - $15 to play one pinball table. I know it's likely a licensing thing, but still, hard pill.

It looks like there's microtransaction stuff too in the game? Any free game with microtransactions is a big uh oh sign to me, but I don't think you have to mess with it if you don't want to as I think its just cosmetic stuff for the room you play in or if you want to "subscribe" to play all the tables at which I would just say buy them because you'll lose more money in the long run if you go that way.

The newer Williams tables that are only on FX and not FX3 (Addams/Twilight/Bride/World of Soccer/Swords of Fury) are about as on par with the rest of the tables as you imagine. They play like all the other remastered tables do and I didn't have problems with them other than what I said earlier. I like Bride and World Soccer a lot irl so playing them digitally was a lot of fun.

One nice thing I will say though:
They give you a 24 hour "pinball pass" for completing the tutorial so you basically get to try/play all the tables in full for the first day you play, which is at least nice given that you have to basically rebuy all the tables from FX3 if you wanted to get them again. It allowed me to at least play the remastered tables and new tables that they offer to at least see if they're worth my time.

And also, the visuals do look a lot nicer than their FX3 counterpart, so at least while you're fighting the controls and playing a slightly inferior version of FX3 tables, you're definitely looking at a nicer overall layout and I can congratulate them on that. The artists who took the time to recreate these tables did a great job with it.

And, while I don't like how the game itself feels, I don't think it feels BAD either to where an average joe schmo can play it and enjoy their time. It's just definitely a step down from where we were.

All in all, I think compared to FX3 vs this one, you're not really missing out too much other than of course the new tables. If you like the Williams Tables, FX3 is just fine for now, unless you want the new tables where you'll have to shift to the new FX either way as I doubt they'll port those over.

TL;DR - This is a step down from FX3 and needs a lot more QC. Control issues, clunky and slow UI, crazy table pricing/possible subscription model & microtransactions (look to be avoidable though), you have to rebuy all of your FX3 tables, doesn't feel as smooth as FX3. If you mainly play the Williams Tables or like how FX3's physics feel and play, stick to FX3 for now and keep an eye and see if they make this one better.

This is a very soft recommend.

I'm a big fan of the first two games and this phone detective genre as a whole and I was very excited for this game when it came out, but had put it on hold for some other games I was playing and finally got through it this morning.

Bullet points incoming:

- The game itself is just okay. The story is serviceable but isn't as compelling as 1 or 2, as none of the characters really stood out. They just mostly served as quick conversation pieces and possible plot points / beats on your journey rather than actual characters. It's nothing bad, but the severe lack of personality from most of the characters is just a bit of a letdown.

- Gameplay was good, but definitely not as great as previous iterations. I personally didn't mind the more linear aspect of it (sure more puzzles would've been a lot better), but I felt for what it was doing it hit the mark so to speak.

- I know some people missed the horror element of it, but in reality a lot of the horror elements from the first 2 were cheap jumpscares which honestly I'm glad are gone bc that's all they are. Cheap ways to scare you and make you go BOO. That being said, the lack of ambient noise / other creepy subtle things from the first 2 games are also toned way down, to where this isn't really a horror game to me, but more of a mystery / adventure game. I feel going into it in that mindset may help more.

- Also, just curious, why would you remove the fast text option from Simulacra 2 for any subsequent playthroughs? That made being able to replay the game (if you so choose to or to achievement hunt) WAY easier and tolerable since you didn't have to wait for the slow pacing of the texts to come in. Removing that seems like such a huge misstep and is likely the only reason I won't 100% this one like I did the others bc in total reality, this is the first simulacra game where I don't really feel like trying to go back and do it.

All in all, is the game bad?
No, but it's nothing amazing either.

Is it a step down from the previous 2?
Yes.

Is it a horror game?
In my opinion, no. Consider this one more of a mystery / thriller experience versus horror.

Would I recommend it?
If you liked the other 2 games, I think you'll still at least enjoy your time enough to get through it once. If you don't like the previous 2, you probably won't care for it and I'd skip it. If you're in the middle, get it on sale and give a try maybe. If you don't like it, you can always return it before the 2 hour mark.

A tour de force of a game and one of the best (if not the best) superhero video game.

This game is something truly special to me for a variety of reasons, but there's two alone I want to point out.
1. There's not many games that I've played in my life that I've gone out of my way to not only play but purchase more than once.
2. I have never gone out of my way to 100% a game ever. I usually find it tedious and boring and it's just not something I like to do.
I have 100% this game on PC (both in-game and achievements).
3, I own this game now on 3 different platforms. I played it back when it first came on PS4. I played it when it came out remastered on PS5.

Now, here we are with the Remastered version on PC, and what an absolute blast of a game it is. I have revered this game highly since I first played it back in 2018, and even after playing it then, it's almost never left my mind since. It's such a wonderful game dedicated to my favorite superhero.

The story, the acting, the gameplay, the characters, the fact that another game finally got the web-slinging correct and almost perfectly is just sheer bliss.

This is a game that once I start on it, I could not put it down. Even though, as I was playing through this game on the third different console, and I've literally played it twice to completion before this, I'm still heavily involved and I'm still in love with it.

IMO, I think everyone should at least try this game at least once and experience a true Spider-Man game that gives off a vibe and feel of every good Spider-Man film that has existed. This is also I think the first 5/5 game I've rated / played in about 4 years (not since Control), but my god its ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ deserved it.

A really fun shooter that I honestly had never heard of prior to a friend mentioning it in a discord chat that this remake was coming out.

The music is fantastic and sets the scene super well, the guns and weapons are unique and a lot of fun to use, and I can't say I really had a bad time so to speak.

However, I wasn't the biggest fan of the ammo system, as there were many times I was stuck at a point longer than needed not because of difficulty, but because I was out of ammo and had to just keep resetting the checkpoint until I got things my way to continue forward.

Also, the story was alright, but nothing really amazing (and also was really hard to hear some characters at times since the music overpowers him and there's no subtitles for his dialogue)

I think this is still at least worth a look if you think it interests you. I don't think you'll be disappointed if you try it out.

boy going sicko mode

This was my first time playing this game and it really was worth the wait and worth going in blind if you still don't know much about it.

A really fun experience and an actual good port too!! Sony please keep releasing more games on PC including the sequel please okay thank you love you bye