Recent reviews by apljee

unbelievably good - I don't think I've ever come this close to describing a game as 'flawless' before. amazing sequel to Hades 1 and amazing job Supergiant!

gameplay loop is very stale, 88mins and i feel like i've experienced the entirety of the game: rent a business -> stock shelves -> ffwd time -> repeat

obviously there's more to it with elements like employee management and expanding into different business areas, but what's the point of expanding if it's the exact same loop? there's no distinction between selling cheap gift shop knick-knacks or fresh food - it's just a box and maybe a different display model. the life sim mechanics are interesting but feel like they were tacked on to give the game the illusion of depth. what's the point in me creating a character if there's no social aspect to the game? so i could watch my character sleep?

ultimately the game just lacks any sort of depth. once you've played for an hour you've pretty much done everything - all that's left is to do it over and over and over again.

its pretty gas

this will probably change in the future, since civ titles have historically always suffered from bad launches, but dear god this is the first one that's glaringly bad enough for me to write a negative review about it. the best way to describe civ 7 is "underbaked" - the UI is unfinished, the mechanics feel poorly thought out (why do diplomatic relations reset between ages?!), the world generation is completely lacking on every front.

i'm willing to concede that the game looks amazing, but that said the only reason to play civ 7 over civ 6 or 5 at this point in time is if you like pretty graphics.

give it another year and maybe an expansion or two and i'm sure that the game will be in a better spot. however, it's completely unjustifiable for Firaxis/2K to be charging ~$100-160 for what is essentially a complete and total downgrade from a gameplay perspective. it's unfortunate that this appears to be the worst-launched civ product to date, since it also appears to be their biggest launch yet.

interesting for sure, but it feels too hollow especially for a CDN$32.99 price tag. the gameplay loop just seems too repetitive to actually be enjoyable - jump from building to building, rng and collect different resources, then go back home and make new stuff. maybe the late game is better but with how tedious the start was (i found myself just sitting on max speed waiting for my workers to gather resources for constructions) i really didnt have any interest in grinding it out.

generally i find these types of games to be fun but in this case there was nothing that really felt unique about different locations. buildings look super janky - especially rooftops, and it's very jarring for a top-down game. my local mall, for example, had approximately 50 water towers on top of it. why? i understand its just visual but the point is there's a lack of attention to detail and polish that detracts from the experience.

tl;dr the concept is solid but the execution is pretty poor. repetitive and boring gameplay loop + strange procedural generation has killed my interest in playing this game any further

fascinating city-builder with promising potential. at its current point, the game does feel hollow in some areas - factions dont entirely seem to matter all that much, and there are little to no consequences for doing badly in the game. this is an early access title however and the devs are steadily working on the game so i have faith they'll address these concerns in time. otherwise, it's a very enjoyable experience and there aren't many titles that play similarly. i'd definitely recommend to anyone interested.

neat game, although devs tout the number of weapon combinations imo the variation is lacking since a number of those modules are just upgraded versions of previous modules. the ~800,000+ weapon combinations number, although technically true, doesn't really feel so when you're picking one of ~5 different base upgrades over and over again. i'd like to see the visuals more refined (although this is situational, i've been overwhelmed by the amount of explosions on screen with the RPG during lategame, for example.) and certain visuals look rather shoddy (flamethrower fx in particular.)

despite these minor qualms the game presents a solid foundation which i have no doubt it will grow on. the game is early access after all, and i have good faith the devs will address these concerns in time. beyond upgrades, the game has excellent weapon variety and great replayability. if you're put off by the early access tag, i'd definitely recommend you keep an eye on this title in the future.

edit:
nearing on two years post-launch and still no asset editor with no ETA - one of the most defining features of cities skylines 1 and it still has yet to be properly implemented by CO. i think that says enough about the state and pace of development - there are serious issues going on behind the scenes. this game should have never shipped while still missing one of the most important features of the original game.

it's even more disheartening because a lot of the new ideas they've implemented do play and feel quite nice despite t he ongoing issues with the game - the economy (feels like it) makes sense, i really like the implementation of development points and being able to choose what areas to advance your city in, many qol and ui updates (especially in the context of roadbuilding,) but despite all that i really can't reccomend the game in it's current state for the same reasons i gave the game thumbs down two years ago:

game still crashes frequently, no workshop support (admittedly there is an in-game mod menu now, but i've experienced issues and crashes with it and generally it just feels like an unnecessary addition,) still experiencing inconsistent performance as cities scale up, still no asset editor. i wasn't sure but i am now - this game will be abandoned in the next 3 years.


===
CO has bungled this pretty hard ngl. game crashes frequently, no workshop support, multiple security breaches through paradox mods, and inconsistent performance (particularly at later stages in the game.) maybe this game will be better in 5 years but i'm not holding my breath.

just buy CS1 instead.

Performance issues look to me like they're related to Nvidia graphics cards (seeing as every single review mentioning poor performance also happens to mention their 3000-series or 2000-series card.) Performance issues aside, the game is great and you're in for a treat if you enjoyed any of the previous entries in the TW:W trilogy.

I'd say wait a week or two if you're using an Nvidia GPU, otherwise I'd definitely reccomend to anyone interested.

To anyone complaining about poor performance on their $4000 rigs, my specs are nothing crazy and I haven't dipped below 60fps on ultra-

RX580 8GB
Ryzen 7 2700x
16GB DDR4
I'm also running the game on an SSD (which brings light to the only real complaint I have regarding this launch,) despite this I've been noticing pretty high load-in times between battles & the campaign map.

Played many hours off steam. Fantastic game. I recommend it to anyone who enjoys sandbox survival games.