Recent reviews by AdvancedFollower

This game was one of the biggest disappointments of 2016, because of the bare-bones, unfinished state it was released in, combined with totally unrealistic expectations and insane levels of hype (much of it created by HG themselves through deliberately vague and misleading statements) leading up to the release. But that was one year ago, so what has changed?

After a drawn out ARG that seemed to drag on forever, we finally got the third major update to the game. Since it was released a year ago, the game has gone through some significant and much needed changes. There’s simply too much to list here, but do look up the patch notes for 1.1 - 1.3 to see just how much has changed. If you hated NMS, you’ll probably still hate it. However if you liked the concept of the game and just wanted more content, more variety and more things to do, then you’ll like the updates. While you’re still essentially flying from planet to planet and mining resources like some intergalactic vacuum cleaner, there’s a greater sense of purpose now, and multiple goals you can work towards. The visuals have been overhauled, and new mechanics have been added to make the universe feel much more alive and actually worth caring about. It makes the 1.0 version look like the early tech demo it really was.

There are still a lot of problems with the game though. For me, the worst part is the sheer amount of grinding for resources. You’d think that once you've got a few upgrades, the grind would lessen - but upgrades are extremely expensive to craft, and once you have them, they too need to be recharged constantly with some arbitrary resource. There are just too many things that need to be recharged all the time, and they deplete too quickly. Instead of creating survival challenges, those systems are just tedious busywork that get in the way of enjoying the game. Creative mode isn’t the solution either, since it removes all survival aspects.
Space doesn’t really feel like space, either. Planets are bunched together in the center of the solar system, with the sun orbiting around the planets. There are no orbital mechanics and no planetary rotation. There are no truly lifeless planets, even “dead” planets always have some mushrooms or other living organisms on them. Asteroids are sprinkled evenly throughout every system, so you never risk running out of fuel.
Also, while the visuals have improved significantly, planets still lack variety. After experiencing a dozen planets or so, you begin to recognize the distinct biomes, patterns and rules that govern the generation algorithms. While the algorithms sometimes manage to surprise, the majority of planets are just slight variations of ones you’ve seen before.
Finally, the user interface and inventory management are still very clunky and frustrating, and the 1.3 update introduced numerous bugs and glitches that still haven’t been fully ironed out over a month after release.

So this still isn’t a full game, but an Early Access title sold as a full game. I’m still going to give it a thumbs up, but I’d recommend buying the game during a sale. There are still too many issues and too little actual content to justify the full €60 price tag.

The driving physics and sounds are better than I expected. Some effort clearly went into this DLC to make it worth the cost. It makes exploring the huge maps and getting from point A to B much less tedious.
It's not "pay to win". The ATV scares away animals, so it doesn't make the actual hunting any easier. It isn't possible to kill animals by running them over (I tried).

This is a beautiful and very immersive game. While the main goal is obviously hunting, there's also a big focus on exploration, and there's even a basic RPG-style character leveling system. If you enjoy games like The Long Dark or "walking simulators", you'll definitely enjoy this game.
The game doesn't strive for total realism, but makes some concessions in order to be enjoyable and playable. I think this is a good thing, as total realism would make it too frustrating for most players. It still requires quite a bit of patience and skill as it is. The AI can be exploited for easy kills, but you'd only spoil the fun for yourself. It's more of a sandbox game where you have to make up the story as you go.
My only concern would be the DLC's, and especially the first one (the tents), which was overpriced and should have been in the game from the start. If the developer wants to win over more positive reviews, they will have to release more content for free to make up the buggy state of the game at launch.

The game is frustrating, but also rewarding. One of the most rewarding moments in my gaming life was when starting the car for the first time after having built it, literally piece by piece. It ticked, squealed and backfired, and could hardly steer, but it RAN!

I'm normally not a fan of "meta-gaming", but with this game, you will need to consult guides and walkthroughs. You could guess at the number of bolts and the size of each, but it would take an incredible amount of time and patience. Even with a step-by-step guide, you will miss bolts and fail to attach components properly, only realizing it when they fall off while driving.

The game trolls you at every opportunity. It's sometimes hard to determine whether it's deliberate or just poor game design, since there are so many annoying aspects to it, from glitches and bugs to frustrating game mechanics. To prevent save scumming, you only have one save slot and can only save at certain locations. If you happen to have a real life, this could mean abandoning your progress because you can't get to a save point in time. Be sure to keep multiple copies of your save files because sometimes the game glitches out, damaging your car or killing you.

Visually, it's nothing remarkable, but having grown up in northern Sweden with similar nature and culture, I have to say it's quite accurate. Everything is exaggerated for comedic effect, but the feeling of a rural Nordic town in the mid 90's is spot on.

The main focus is obviously building your car, and once you have the car and a few upgrades, there isn't much incentive to keep playing. There are a variety of jobs to do, but it gets grindy after a while, especially when you no longer need to finance car upgrades. The developer is adding more stuff every month though, so maybe there will be more activities before the game comes out of EA. At the current low price, it's hard to complain though.

It's fun to see what SCS were up to before the huge success of ETS and ATS. It's a much simpler game, with basically just the equivalent of "quick jobs". The locations are varied and quite interesting, with things like an ice road, Yungas Road etc. but the maps are rather small. The driving is perhaps more challenging than later games, with tighter time limits (forcing you to break traffic rules to deliver on time), but the driving and truck are highly simplified and more arcade-like.
The game tends to crash on launch on modern systems, but there's a widely available and simple fix for that. Still, they should implement that fix in a patch, considering the game is still being sold.

I played this game for hundreds of hours on GOG before getting it on Steam as well.
Still one of the best horror survival building games. Your villagers will die of smallpox, starve to death, freeze to death, get crushed by rocks and become homeless after half the village has burned down. However once you learn the basic formula of the game, it actually becomes rather easy. and you can get a bit more creative with mods and design/decoration. However you always need to pay attention since anything from a tool crisis to a baby boom can send your village into a death spiral. There are tons of mods for this game, but I'd recommend playing it through without mods at least a couple of times first.
No new features are being added to this game, so it's pretty much "done" at this point, which isn't necessarily a bad thing. What you see is what you get.

Well there are thousands of free buildings in the workshop, including futuristic ones. So you'd primarily buy this to support and appreciate the author.

My one gripe is that most buildings don't actually do anything. While the city service buildings work as described and add some variety, the vertical farm, biodome, semiconductor plant etc. do not provide any jobs and don't produce anything etc. They basically act like parks and attract tourists. Since this is a semi-official DLC, it would have been nice if Colossal Order had helped integrate them better into the actual gameplay.

That said, the buildings themselves look great and fit perfectly in any high modern city. I like to have a "high tech" cluster in my cities with the default university, science center etc. and these buildings fit in perfectly.

Other reviewers have already done an excellent job explaining why you need to own this game, so I don't have much to add. This is a very fun and addictive game. If you enjoy any kind of strategy, building, management or tower defense style game, you'll love this game.

The graphics are a bit simplistic, which put me off in the beginning. However the art style fits the game, and it actually looks better in motion, with a nice color palette, subtle lighting/shadow effects, grass that sways in the wind etc.

Also, be warned that the game can be incredibly frustrating and unfair when you're starting out. Don't get too attached to your colonists. Chances are your first 10 (or 50 or 100) colonies will die horrible, painful deaths. It's the kind of game you keep restarting over and over again, surviving a little bit longer each time.

If you're into simulators of any kind, you'll almost certainly enjoy this game. The idea of just driving a truck from A to B might seem boring, but well-designed gameplay mechanics make it more interesting than you'd think. It is however a very slow-paced, almost meditative game that requires some patience.

Early on, it can be a bit grindy as you slowly level up and earn money to buy better trucks and upgrades. However once you have leveled up a few times and have a few drivers working for you, money really starts rolling in. At this point, there isn't really a goal to the game. You can check out some mods that add scenery or new trucks, or increase the realism of the simulation, and there's even an unofficial multiplayer mod. However even that might become repetitive in the long run. Some more endgame content would make this game even better.

The game looks fine, though the graphics engine is starting to look somewhat outdated. The drivable area is huge, but the base scenery is a bit sparse, especially in areas that were done early in the game's lifespan. Free mods and paid expansions give you much more variety and detail. Another drawback is that the AI can sometimes be unpredictable and pull out in front of you, merge into your trailer etc. This keeps you on your toes, but it can also be frustrating when you incur a fine for something that wasn't your fault. You can play the game with mouse+kb, but ideally you should have at least a basic steering wheel and pedals.

It's not about the price, lack of content and depth, or the toxic cesspool that is "Open" play. It's about your time, and how this game utterly disrespects it. They have taken every chance to stretch and extend each simple, repetitive gameplay loop, forcing you to repeat the same few menial tasks over and over and over again to watch numbers slowly, slowly increase. So while there might be 10 hours of actual, enjoyable gameplay, you'd have to waste hundreds of hours to actually get to it. Even the punishment for dying in this game is more wasting of your time since it means losing some or all (if you can't pay the insurance) of the credits you've painfully earned. When the punishment for dying is being forced to play the game more, you know there's something fundamentally wrong here.

Update 2024: Well, it finally happened. The game went Pay-2-Win. Surprised it took them this long given that it has always felt like a Free-2-Play game due to all the grinding required to do anything. All it was missing were the actual microtransactions to skip the grind.