Recent reviews by bschneider

The only thing more ridiculous than the state of this game is the fact that I fell for it again. Next year, don't listen to the countless previews that will tell you that "issue x has been fixed" because it won't have been. A yearly licensed release like any other.

EDIT 3: Alright, looks like the game hasn't been deemed successful enough to bother supporting. Roughly two months of radio silence. Great stuff. Don't recommend this.

EDIT 2: The issue has apparently been fixed. I've started playing other games, so sadly I don't really feel like continuing Brewmaster right now. But I promised to change it back to recommend once they fix the egregious bugs that block progression and quest completion. Read below for the original review.

EDIT: I'm changing this review to Not Recommended for now. Spent 4+ hours refining a recipe to fulfill a job. Then did some testing and found out it's likely impossible in its current state. The job isn't even max difficulty. If it's fixed, I'll likely change the review back, but needless to say, this made me quite angry. The devs highlighted how important early reviews are, which swayed me to write one. But the game isn't in a good early state. So there you go.

I've played the game for a long time already. I can definitely recommend it, but that is partly due to the generous price point. There are still quite a few issues with it.

-adding the right amount of ingredient is finicky
-liquids sometimes don't move, so you'll have to re-do the tube connection and try again
-some stats aren't explained too well (gravity, clarity, body...)
-some ingredients add Flavor Notes that aren't tagged in the description
-miscellaneous bugs (only one of three cooling methods works without errors, containers close on reload but tube connections stay in there, immersion coil outtake tube bugs out on reload...)
-miscellaneous quality of life stuff (no egg-timer so you have to remember the time, no search function in your cupboards...)

However, on the plus side, this is the most detailed brewing game I've seen. I haven't counted, but there are probably around 50 different hops and grains each, plus additional spices, sugar, fruit extracts and other additives. There are plenty of recipes you can follow and a guided recipe creator to make your own beer, which works very well. On top of that, every season (seasons act as manually controlled "turns"; a season can last a day or three years if you want it to) unlocks not only new recipes and jobs, but also new articles. Articles either describe a style of beer in more detail or explain the history and craft of brewing beer. Those articles, combined with your customisable home brewery make for a very cosy atmosphere that the devs say they were going for.

Avoid if:
-you want an eco-sim; this game is about the craft, not efficiency or profitability
-you want a fully stable game right at release

So, if you're interested in experimenting with different beer recipes and can tolerate the bugs that are in the game at this moment, I'd say this is a good fit.

I'd say it's unbelievable to release something in this state, but it's about par for the course for licensed products. We'll get annual releases that carry bugs from years ago along, and I doubt this will be patched into a playable state anytime soon. Grabbing the achievements I don't have yet and then I'm done with it. This needed so much more testing. But deadlines are more important.

-DRS trains produce ludicrously good lap times on some tracks (e.g. Australia)
-On some tracks, a bunched-up field after the start or a safety car confuses the AI so much, it'll literally come to a complete stop on the track for a bit (e.g. Netherlands)
-DRS trains overtake each other back and forth instead of the stagnation you're used to seeing IRL
-AI drivers use dry tyre strategies that require them to pit 5 laps from the end
-Cars basically drive on Train Tracks®, and only overtake in Designated Overtaking Spots™, which makes lapping cars and overtaking when AI is on the wrong tyre absolute agony
-When a driver ahead closes down your chosen Train Track®, your driver may well slam the brakes and lose a second. This happens independent of skill or aggression
-Train Tracks® are most egregious on pit exits that lead to the racing line or the inside of a corner. If someone's coming out, even if you'd blast past them with an overspeed of 100kph and overtake around the outside of the next turn (if you're not ahead by then), your driver will instead slow to their speed and let them go ahead
-Many have also complained about Train Tracks® in Quali, but at least there you can avoid other drivers if you've figured out the timing
-Full Wet tyres are absolutely ridiculous, last forever and are fast even in Inter conditions
-So many incidents, Jesus Christ. 10 spins/lock-ups/crashes per race minimum. Levelled up both my drivers to have 97 Control (100 Control with practice performance bonusses) and still regularly see them spin/lock-up/crash 3+ times in a race
-Not sure if the skill Smoothness has even been implemented, I'm not seeing any difference in tyre deg
-Drivers are way too slow under Safety Car. If one comes out in the second half of a race, there's virtually no chance it'll catch the whole field. If you conserve tyres or fuel, your driver is unable to drive to the delta, apparently, so same tyre and fuel use at half speed

Not to mention the lacking features:

-Can't pick sponsors
-No choice in car development, just work on it, car gets faster
-No difficulty settings, and with all the AI issues, you can absolutely win races with Williams in the 2nd season, perhaps even the 1st
-Can't see anything but your best attempt during set-up changes, makes no sense that I can't see my previous set-up configurations
-Youth programmes (this is in Motorsport Manager Mobile 3, a PHONE game)
-Pay drivers
-No way to tell a driver to hold position unless he's behind his teammate

And all of that with a nice helping of DRM, so you better pray your internet connection is stable for this Single-Player game! What fun!

My recommendations:
For something modern, play Motorsport Manager. It's definitely not without issues, but it has way more features and race day makes much more sense.
For something older that requires some fiddling on modern systems but is licensed, I recommend Grand Prix World. It's not great on race day, but the behind the scenes stuff is very detailed with interesting mechanics for sponsors, car development and testing. Very RNG-reliant though, so be warned.

Sweet, the game I paid for now requires a mandatory dataminer 3rd party account. This should be illegal, but what do I know, I only paid for this anal rape. Good job murdering the video game industry.

Pretty decent racing manager with not too much complexity. Impressive for a game that got started on phones. Sadly, the mobile games get new iterations and the new features for the PC version seem to have stopped, even as DLC. Compared to MM3, the most recent mobile version, I'm just really missing some features, especially the Youth Driver's Programme. The desktop version just generates some new drivers every year without any input from the player. Still, I'd recommend this, if you're into manager games. Be sure to save your setups for every track, saves you some time after a few seasons.

EDIT: It had been a while since I last played the game. Mostly played the base game. I like the DLCs, but in terms of bugs, the game has become worse than I remember. I have a driver who I can't pick for practice for some reason. Meanwhile, my first driver is complaining that her car is worse than the second driver's, despite having the vastly superior one. The workaround: Promote the Reserve Driver to 1st, then promote the new Reserve Driver (formerly 1st) to 2nd, then promote new new Reserve Driver (formerly 2nd) to 1st. You end up with the same line-up, only number 1 and 2 are switched. The real beauty: since you have to demote every driver once, you'll take a 40% morale hit. This really shouldn't be an issue for a production this big.

I know and have empathy for the fact that the devs aren't made of money (they said a while ago that MM2 isn't a thing yet because they don't have the funds for it). But at least critical bugs like this should be taken care of, but the last patch has been some time ago, so I'm pretty sure the game will stay as it is.

Completely broken. Not sure how this made it out of Early Access. After three years (plus one year since leaving Early Access) there are still critical bugs like falling through the map, your car spontaneously breaking during sleep, boxes spawning in unreachable places (reported as early as 2016 lol) and more, not least of which are actual crashes and endless loops being reported, which fortunately didn't affect me. Only paid a dollar for this Steam key, but wouldn't even recommend it for that much.

The Rockstar Social Club is down! I can't play the singleplayer! How lovely! Of course I require an internet connection (which I am currently using to write this review) to play the singleplayer mode of a game I have over 100 hours in! So reasonable! Thank you Rockstar!

Should've known better after GTA IV's fiasco with GFWL, that game is still ♥♥♥♥♥♥ to this day because savegames are tied to GFWL. Rockstar, never again. Can only play the games if you don't pay for them, ridiculous.

Doesn't mention anywhere that it has Denuvo. Beware that if your internet connection ever drops out and you want to play a quick offline race, good luck with that. The game will lock you out even if you played it hours earlier if you temporarily aren't connected to the internet. It's sad how corporate decisions like these ruin entire games.

This is the perfect game if you want a tycoon game that values depth over accessibility, and it doesn't hurt if you're into cars. The game is full of tooltips that explain how mechanics work, but how you leverage those mechanics into success is up to you for the most part. My experience was basically like this:

Five fruitless saves. One of them was successful with one car model, but I failed to expand properly so once I wanted to transition to a new generation, my business was too small to be competitive. Still, it was a motivation boost.

On my sixth save I was experimenting with some other things, made half-decent money but my first generation was not much more successful despite diversifying a bit more. I finally decided to try investing some more money into the business side of things and suddenly I found my mistake. Now I was quite profitable, and even survived World War I with this company. That's a pleasant accomplishment, but right now I'm thinking I'll start over soon because I wasn't nearly as efficient as I could've been early on in the save.

I still haven't been able to explore some of the features, not to mention the vehicle types that get unlocked at later dates. I can't wait to get a racing team going and maybe found a luxury or supercar marque under my company. I highly recommend this single-programmer passion project to anybody who likes tycoon games, but be aware that you likely have to invest a decent chunk of time to become really effective at the game. Other positive factors are that the game are DRM-free and the dev is extremely helpful and responsive in the forums, more so than I've ever seen.

My internet went down while playing an online game. I thought I'd distract myself by playing something offline - like F1 2017. Upon trying to launch it, it tells me that I need to perform a "first time" launch while online. Well... https://i.imgur.com/xOIm4HL.jpg

To keep this brief, I paid for a product, but can't use it when I want to. It's the basic DRM story. I was excited for F1 2018's release in a few days, but not if I'm being treated like a criminal. The actual criminals don't have this issue. No F1 for me anymore, no Codemasters for me anymore, unless they go on GOG.

EDIT: I actually just found out that this has Denuvo, which is indicated nowhere. The EULA doesn't even mention the name once. That's shady as hell. And since today marks the release of F1 2018, and the EULA for that looks pretty much identical, I assume that one has Denuvo and it's still not marked anywhere. Wow. Just wow.